The Pain of Being Attacked

It seems there’s a bigger cultural war going on between Torah Observant Americans and the Israeli Long Term Learning community, than there is between Non-Observant Israelis and the Israeli Long Term Learners. On the blogs and the comments we’ve been reading, the attacks both ways have been relentless and often vicious.

As BTs we’re often subject to a more subtle type of attack, it’s often not in your face, but it’s there and painful nonetheless.

In a question of the week from 2008 we asked “Are BTs Treated as Second Class Citizens?“. Many of us from BT friendly neighborhoods like Kew Garden Hills, Passaic and out of town communities did not feel particularly mistreated.

But some of the comments revealed a different story. A story of how painful and dehumanizing attacks of any sort can be. Here’s 2 comments combined from that thread, which hopefully will cause us to pause a bit before entering full attack mode, and possibly prevent us from blogging or commenting with vile and contempt against those with whom we disagree.

Here’s the comment from the Second Class Citizen thread:

There are deep-seated attitudes that run against BT’s. First of all, you can never ever breathe a word that the FFB world isn’t perfect – that could be lashon hara – but they write articles about BT’s in Mishpacha all the time that run with the assumption that you can say *anything* you want about BT’s.

Once they ran an article about how BT’s struggle as mothers because they weren’t raised in large families themselves. They interviewed a few (3 or 4) BT’s who spoke about their struggles as mothers. I wrote a letter about how unfair this was – that they should have balanced the letter with storied from BT’s who are great mothers, and FFB’s who struggle. They never printed that letter.

About a year later, they printed an article about divorce. In the article, they mentioned that in Israel 15% of divorces involve at least one partner who is a BT. Then they went on to say, “You would think that divorce is a problem confined to the BT community, but…”

I wrote back a letter – which they did print this time. In my letter I mentioned both articles above. I mentioned how if 15% involve at least one BT, then some of those divorces also involved an FFB – and 85% involved no BT’s at all, so why would we think divorce is confined to the BT world?

Also, if at most 15% of divorces are BT – that doesn’t mean 15% of BT’s get divorced – just as it doesn’t mean 85% of FFB’s get divorced. It means among people who get divorced, these are the proportions. So since some BT’s are married to FFB’s, we could say it’s really 10-15%. Well, if 10-15% of the chareidi world in Israel is BT, then you would *expect* 10-15% of divorces to involve a BT. The statistic is meanless unless we know the proportions of BT’s in the population. So, for example, if 20% of chareidi Israelis are BT’s – then a BT is LESS likely to get divorced than an FFB.

Anyway, I went on to say how the two articles I described are pure lashon hara (if true) or motzaei shem ra (if not). I said that tens of thousands of readers now have the impression that if you marry a BT, you are more likely to end up divorced with poorly raised children. The magazine is ruining shidduchim for countless BT’s, and causing undue prejudice.

I also addressed their article about BT’s struggling as mothers. I mentioned that I am praised by Bais Yaakov principals, teachers, and fellow mothers alike that I’m an excellent mother. A chassidishe mother of seven in Williamsburg, is also a Rebbishe einikel – hosted my family for Yom Tov once, and towards the end of Yom Tov she told me, “You know, you’re a much better mother than me.” I really pour myself into my children, they are my whole life, and I am truly happy as an aim b’yisroel. Do you know that Mishpacha printed my letter, but deleted all references to FFB’s struggling, and deleted how the Williamsburg mother praised me?

Why is it okay for them to portray BT’s in any bad light they want, but if I mention that FFB’s aren’t perfect – without disparaging them as a community – they delete it. What does that tell you?

Okay, ya think I have a lot to say on this subject??? To understand better why it hurts me so deeply, it might help to know a bit about my background. I come from a warm, loving, supportive family. We were all high achievers. I myself was premed, one brother is a doctor, and the other has a master’s in his field. In my former life, I attended elite private schools my whole life, to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars a year. In the world I left behind, I was at the top. I left school to go to Neve to become a BT. My parents supported me and paid my way.

Fast forward 10 years. I’m happily married with a growing family, KA”H, and chatting on the phone with an FFB friend, who had just made a shidduch for her oldest son. She was happily telling all the details, and here’s what she tells me.

Well, she was looking and looking for a shidduch for him for quite a while, and finally she started to get worried, what’s going to be?? So she spoke to someone who advised her that she’s going to have to accept that she can’t have everything on her “list” and that everyone has to look away on some issues with the other side of the shidduch.

So finally someone suggested the kallah, and it seemed a good shidduch, but there was a problem. Here’s how she said it, “Well everything looked perfect, except the kallah’s grandfather was a baal teshuva – or was it her grandmother? – anyway, it doesn’t matter which, the point is it wasn’t what I was looking for. But then I had to remind myself, you can’t have everything on your list, you’re going to have to look away from something – just look away from this and move forward,”

So in other words, after a long and worrisome search for a kallah, they finally forced themselves to “settle” for the *grandchild* of a BT. Yes, when it comes to shidduchim, that’s when you find out the real score!

Now imagine this. The sister of the woman in the above story was talking to me. I myself married a BT, and this sister’s father told me with great excitement when I got engaged to my husband that “had my husband been born to a frum family, he would have been snatched up right away!” Yes, he truly was special, my husband. Well, I am grateful to be the one to have snatched him, even after all these years I can still say that he’s a gem.
But anyway, that’s not the point. you get the idea of how hard it is for a BT to get married in that community. Here comes the kicker. I mentioned something about my brother being a doctor, and all of a sudden this woman gets all excited and tells me she has a cousin who needs a shidduch. I tell her my brother isn’t frum, and she says, don’t worry, I’ll have my father talk to him, we’ll work something out.

Do you see what’s so hurtful here? I gave up everything – I gave up med school! – to become frum, and the Torah is my life – but these people would never marry their family to me. But to a rich doctor – well, who cares if he isn’t frum, let’s snatch him up!

Like I said, I’m deeply happy in my marriage, and I wouldn’t *want* to marry someone from that community if that’s the way he was raised – but it DOES hurt to be so clearly second class in their eyes. To witness their hypocritical behavior and know – they look down on *me*?