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December 26, 2009
Getting in Step with Footsteps
Over the fall I became aware of Footsteps, a low-key organization that helps people, mostly young, who leave the Hasidic world and need to develop life skills to help them survive outside the frum environment. Having wrenched myself from one faith tradition to another, I can empathize, indirectly, with the challenge of shifting your world view. www.footstepsorg.org is the website.
I read a book that gives excellent details about the difficulties of individuals who leave the from world: "Unchosen: The Hidden Lives of Hasidic Rebels," by Hella Winston, whose name may sound familiar to readers of New York's Jewish Week from her coverage of sexual abuse in Orthodox communities.
The book provides a lot to think about, in how communities control members, how people accept or bridle at these highly structured societies, and difficulty of getting beneath the surface appearance of Chasidic communities. One passage I found particularly fascinating involves sexual abuse. I've never understood how Jewish communities can deny or hush up such behavior against its most helpless members. I know it happens everywhere but the wall of silence that Winston has written about in her journalism always disturbed me greatly. The book provides an explanation:
Indeed, while it is unclear whether or not such abuse exists to a greater degree than it does in the general population, some have theorized that Jewish communities' historical antipathy toward informers has likely played some role in keeping such abuse quiet, when it occurs. The Yiddish word 'moser' is used to describe those who betray the community to outside authorities (historically, the authorities of tsarist Russia or medieval Europe). 'Messira,' or the act of informing, was once punishable by death, and remains a serious sin to this day.
When I read that passage, I thought not only of the pressures on frum young people to accept abuse (or frum approaches to "dealing" with it, as effective as the Catholic Church's past approaches to dealing with pedophile priests), but also of financial scandals. Were the crimes of Bernard Madoff aided, to any degree, by people who had suspicions but didn't want to be a moser? I don't know, but the idea of community standards backfiring in a horrible way came to mind.
Anyway, if you're looking for a worthy group for an end-of-year donation, consider Footsteps. How's this for an endorsement: I sent the group a check.
Van | 12/26/09 at 09:06 PM | Categories: Doing Jewish
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Comments
"Were the crimes of Bernard Madoff aided"
I do know something about the Palm Beach country club, where Bernie did a lot of damage. It is Jewish, but definitely not frum. They are open on Shabbat and serve shellfish at their parties. I think Bernie was a genius at social engineering. But people did try to turn him in, it was the cops fault for not investigating.
Fat Man | December 26, 2009 11:46 PM
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