Rossi Rant: rebel with a cause

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Sunday, May 25

rebel with a cause

some of you who read my essay in Jewsweek.com
may know that I’ve had a past that includes being dropped off at the age of 16 to live amongst the Chasidics of crown heights Brooklyn
my parents found a young rabbi and his family who specialized in taking in
what they called

"wayward Jewish girls"
10 years later after escaping crown heights
i returned to try to figure out who i was then
and who it had made me become

i felt that i wrote my "Return to Kingston Avenue" memoir with a lot of love in my heart..but with also a lot of honesty.

I first read this piece on WNYE on a show called "Anything Goes" sponsored by the New York Board of Education. It's a great show and I've read on it about 5 times but never got calls afterward.

When I read this piece women called the station and asked if they could speak with me.

I called them. One of them was a young Chasidic woman who was living a double life. By day she wore long skirts and obeyed the strict rules of chasidus, by night she escaped to manhattan where she would pull on Levi’s and hang out with her christian and non religious jewish friends.

She told me that she had never read anyone's story who had been part of the inside of chasidus and then walked out of it and wrote the tale. My story gave her courage.

She explained to me that if she found the courage to tell her family and community her decision to no longer be "FRUM" religious, she would be ostracized and kicked out of her family and circle of friends. This was something she could not bear.

So she kept up the secret.

I worried for her. She sounded desperate and frightened and tried to find words of encouragement for her.

This is something i never had to go through as i was not born into chasidus and the bulk of my friends and family were not part of this.

I only pretended to go along with the ultra religiousness as a way to survive.

but i did feel the sharp painful sting of being branded in a "scarlet letter" sorta way and watching all the smiling faces of people who had shown affection for me
turn to stone.

When my story ran on jewsweek It was on the cover for about 6 weeks and then shown in the archives for about 6 months or so. My editor there forwarded me the mail I received.

A few letters from men and women who had left ultra orthodox and or chasidus
and were writing to thank me for telling my story.

But what mostly what came were letters from people amongst the ultra orthodox and chasidic world who denounced me as a nut, a druggy, a traitor.

One rabbi wrote,"You must have been on drugs at the time, how else could you think these things."

Many directed me to immediately submerge myself in religiousness to purify my
evil soul.

The odd thing was that this story i wrote was sugar coated. I had taken out the most graphic and horrible things I saw in my days in crown heights. I tried to write them, but then I heard my mother's voice in my head,

"Don't air the dirty laundry in public."
"It's bad for the jews."

and i remembered that the words of jews like some other minorities
are often used by anti-Semites as fuel..

so i admit i went back
and softened the blow
sugar coated my story just a little
tried to find the love in my heart that i feel for Israel
and for my mother
and used that force to write my story

and still the hate mail came
i felt grateful that these people did not know where i lived
or my real email

and i felt sad
that the Chasidic world
is so closed
and so unforgiving

to those who might simply speak the truth about their experiences
amongst them

that is why
i am presently feeling blown away
by something i have just found

a chasidic
or hasidic however you prefer to spell it
man who is still a practicing chasid
who is so deeply submerged in his community that were they to find out he
rents videos from blockbuster
who would be denounced
in every way

this man has a personal web site
and speaks very simply the truth about his life

its called Hasidic rebel aptly named..

hasidicrebel
you must check it out

when i begin my memoir of the week series
thanks to lots of enthusiasm
on your part

thankeeeee

i will run
return to kingston avenue

actually i think this will the first piece i run
ill let you judge for yourself whether
i should have been denounced or not

a world without honesty is no good to any of us

i met with lots of loving wonderful deeply spiritual and uplifting people amongst the chasids

and i met with some frightening hypocrites
i think its just as important to speak the truth about the bad apples
as it is to herald the good ones

living behind a black curtain
is not good for any of us

thanks hasidic rebel
for inspiring me with your courage

11:41 AM Speak (5)