There are problems in the Orthodox Jewish community and there are challenging Jewish laws and sections of the Torah. Episode 1 of Netflix’s My Unorthodox Life basically lays out all of the major issues in Orthodoxy in the first 5 minutes of the show, just to make sure no one misses them!
In a second article, we will address these topics one by one, as systemic issues need to be faced and fixed (which is what we do in our Tikun branch) and challenging laws need to be understood with the complexity they deserve. But extremist communities and challenging Orthodox texts do not seem to be the impetus for Julia Haart’s unorthodox life.
Haart does not come from an ultra-religious family or community. Numerous people who know her personally have written in to make sure we understand this. If you look closely at her past pictures in the show, she is dressed in modern clothing, makeup, and heels in every one. She taught at a modern Orthodox school in Atlanta. Her husband is an Ivy League grad who is the CEO of a tech company, despite Haart telling the New York Times that she had no radio or magazines in her house (do journalists fact check any more??). Yet something pushed Haart out of her community, and many people are wondering what that is.
While I do not know this woman or her family personally, for the last six years through Jew in the City’s Makom branch, we have worked with hundreds of former and questioning haredi (ultra-Orthodox Jews), and their stories have given me tremendous insight into the phenomenon. When I launched Makom in 2015, I assumed it was the strictness of the community that was pushing people out, but that alone does not seem to be the case. There are plenty of happy people living strict lives who have no desire to leave or change, and others who want something a bit less strict and find a more moderate, but still Orthodox, communities.
So what is most common cause for leaving (at least according to the people we’ve dealt with)? What we have discovered is that nearly every person who comes to Makom has experienced trauma coupled with lack of Secure Attachment. Trauma we hear about all the time – emotional abuse, physical abuse, sex abuse, neglect.
But lack of Secure attachment is talked about less and occurs due to childhood emotional neglect. Not enough is known about this topic, but I encourage everyone to learn more. At Makom, we are reading an incredible book on this subject called “The Emotionally Absent Mother,” and numerous members have told us this book is so on point that they had to stop reading it or throw it against the wall because seeing their story in the book was too painful and overwhelming.
People who were emotionally neglected were missing crucial foundational pieces of their development which stay with them the rest of their lives, even if they have loving parents. Parents who try to do right and good by their children can fail in serious ways without realizing it. Emotionally neglected children may not have had: a safe space to voice their true opinions and feelings, a sounding board to help them process their emotions, the sense that they are unconditionally loved, the knowledge that someone in the home will always be there for them, enough physical and emotional affection, the sense that they are cherished and delighted in. Children who experiences trauma but have no secure attachment will likely not have a parent available to help them process the pain they went through, likely compounding the trauma.
Lack of secure attachment leaves a person feeling adrift his whole life, feeling as if he doesn’t belong where he is from. How fitting is it that we named our branch “Makom,” which means “place” for these drifting souls who come to us? Jasmin Lee Cori, author of “The Emotionally Absent Mother” writes that according to one study, 38% of people in the U.S. lack secure attachment. In secular families, this might manifest in carrying around lifelong sadness, acts of self-harm, eating-disorders, suicidal thoughts, all sorts of identity changes, and a host of other mental health issues. In religious ones, it would be all of those things, plus leaving the religious identity.
Before I watched My Unorthodox Life, my guess was that Haart was missing secure attachment and had experienced trauma somewhere along the way, and in one interview, she explains that before she left she was suicidal and was starving herself. Interestingly, when Haart got divorced, she chose not to go back to her maiden name Leibov, but rather came up with an entirely new name – Haart. These details seemingly point to lack of secure attachment, but I was wondering if we’d see signs of trauma too. Haart’s inappropriate sexual conversations with her children could certainly be one sign, but at the end of the first episode, her oldest daughter Batsheva spells it out to her younger sister when she says, “We did not grow up in a house where we saw a loving relationship.”
I re-watched that section a few times, because it’s what I had been waiting for. I don’t know the details of the marriage or who did what, but anyone in a loveless marriage would feel trapped, despondent, and eager to escape. Stories of lack of secure attachment and trauma are deeply painful. This is not about assigning blame. Dysfunctional patterns in families are hard to break out of. But it is a shame that rather than acknowledge that Haart suffered from difficult experiences, and perhaps harmful relationships at the hands of unhealthy people, that are found in every community, the Orthodox Jewish community is being dragged through the mud in this ordeal. I wish these hurting people healing. And I hope that enough viewers will take to Google after they watch the episodes and have the savviness to unpack what they are watching.
The post “My Unorthodox Life” Is Actually A Story About An Unhappy Marriage appeared first on Jew in the City.
