in which I share thoughts and memories
Family History
Sometime over this past year / century of the pandemic, I spit into a little tube and sent my saliva…
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Sleepover Shenanigans
In elementary school, after a few debacles when girls used birthday party invitations to snub other girls, as pre-teens will do,…
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Rabbi Goldstein, DDS
If there’s one rabbi I remember with fondness, it’s Rabbi Goldstein. When he moved to California, when I was in…
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Bais Yaakov Taught Me to Do Research
Bais Yaakov provided me with a wonderful foundation for higher learning. Yes, you read that right. See, it started in…
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Periods in Bais Yaakov
I had terrible cramps one day in eighth grade, so bad I couldn’t even stand up at recess. I couldn’t tell…
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Just Write Teshuva
In twelfth grade, we had a once-a-week class on Yechezkel. The teacher was a respected woman in the community, but…
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The Singing Principal
Every year before Purim, the school hosts a Purim chagigah. It’s supposed to last the whole morning, meaning we miss…
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Super-Pious
My elementary school was so large that grades had lunch at different times, and in multiple lunchrooms which doubled as…
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Middle-School Angst
In eighth grade, Mrs. Kornbluth taught us parsha in the morning and math in the afternoon. This was not the…
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One of the Good Ones
In seminary, we learned Vayikra. Most of my high school classmates had been glad that we didn’t learn the “useless”…
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Vidui 5780
On this Day of Atonement,I ask forgivenessfor nothing. I have been deceptivesmiling when I ached insidepretending all was well and…
Keep readingThe Frum Community: An Ideology of Guidance and Dependence
In One of Us, the 2017 documentary that follows three people who broke free of their Hasidic upbringing, at least…
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“I Feel Like Esav”
On my second Purim “out,” in 2015, I taught in the morning, and then went to Brooklyn to be with my…
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Assembly in My Honor
Originally published on Tales Out Of Bais Yaakov By the time I hit eleventh grade, I had the system down…
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More Shidduchim Escapades
In an earlier post I talked about my first shidduch date. Here’s some more… 2010, age 22 After my mother…
Keep readingShidduchim Escapades
shidduch (plural shidduchim) = match / arranged dateshadchan (plural shadchanim) = matchmakershadchante (plural shadchantes) = female matchmaker (though often she’s…
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Kosher Water
As I refilled my water bottle from my school’s water fountain today, I remembered this incident: When I started college,…
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That Time I Almost Ate Non-Kosher Food But a Goy Stopped Me
For three years of my City College experience, I worked as a tutor in the college’s writing center. I was…
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Dunkin Donuts
I was still religious in college. At least, that’s what I told myself. I like to think that the first time…
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Force Fields
I grew up with the idea that some spaces are off-limits. Of course, places like government buildings and construction sites are…
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Worthy of Esav
Another heartbreaking entry from my Israel 2012 journal. The most heartbreaking part is I know that I wrote this in…
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“I Hope You Don’t Get In”
In my memory, my mother was always supportive of my plans to go to grad school, to get a PhD,…
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A Bais Yaakov Crush
In twelfth grade, I was chosen to go to Baltimore for the annual Bais Yaakov Convention. The Bais Yaakov Convention…
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When Historical Accuracy Is Apikorsus
My seventh-grade English teacher gave us a lot of creative assignments. I don’t have all the stories I wrote in…
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Knowledge in the Biblical Sense
The two seminaries I had applied to (besides Bais Yaakov in Boro Park, which I applied to only to get…
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It’s Hard to Stop Hiding
I had graduated high school, and headed off to Cleveland for seminary. I was happy to be going to Yavne,…
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An OTD Shailah for the Rabbi
I’m lucky to have friends who try to be supportive of my “new lifestyle.” But their attempts to be inclusive…
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The Journey Out
Moving out of my parents’ home was a long process. Frum people often ask OTDers what “the moment” was. There…
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Sad Challah Slices
It had been a good few weeks since I had last visited my parents. Things were strained between us, what…
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The Right Dress
My brother’s vort was a happy time. Mixed in with the happiness was a lot of tiny details that caused…
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The Psychedelic Dangerous World
Sadie (not her real name), a girl I had known in college, was coming into town, and she messaged me…
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The First (Identifiable) Break
My first semester in graduate school was almost over. I had become ever more aware of “shuttling between two worlds,”…
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A Desperate Attempt to Believe: A Story in Three Parts
Climbing or Slipping? Once I had made the decision to pursue a PhD, I attended a number of grad-school application…
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A Poor Showing of Support
I remember the first time I realized what “I totally support your life choices” might actually look like, coming from…
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Semester Abroad That Almost Was
In my senior year of college, I spoke to my advisors about doing a semester abroad. I found a program…
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Letting Them Down
In the last few months of 2013, the last few months I lived at home as a religious Orthodox Jew,…
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A Jew in a Cathedral
I was in Exeter, UK. I had jumped at the chance to join a summer program, partly because it was…
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Kosher Treif – and Beer
In the fall semester of my senior year in college, I took a French class. It was a lively class.…
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Frummed Out
In twelfth grade, I applied to the Macaulay Honors College at CUNY, through Brooklyn College. The Macaulay program includes a…
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Immodest Again
I sat in the English lounge, reading for class. I kept glancing down at my legs – in pants! It was still…
Keep readingImmodest
It was the first time I could stay for my program’s Friday afternoon events. I had moved out of my…
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Memories and Memorials
When my grandmother passed away, I wanted to be with my family. Understandably. I went to the levaya, I went to…
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Singing My Heart Out
Last year succos, I went to my parents for the first days. My brother and sister-in-law were there with their…
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Pocketed Away
The first big yom tov after I moved out of parents’ house was Pesach. Most of my family still didn’t…
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Swipe Left
At my cousin’s wedding, one year after I had left home and Judaism, my relatives noticed my dyed hair. I…
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Intrusions
It was a random day, probably a Sunday. I was sitting in the kitchen with my mother. I was about…
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Eyes Wide Shut
I may have come to Judy Blume a little late, but I think she’d be pleased to know that her…
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Chometz and Prustkeit
Bais Yaakov High School (in Boro Park) lets out on Rosh Chodesh Nissan, to give all the girls time to…
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“It Gets Besser”
People who leave have multiple and complex relationships with many aspects of Orthodox Judaism. Our relationships with our pasts are…
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Shabbos and Academia (Part 2)
In the first installment, I made arrangements for shabbos when I was scheduled to present at the National Conference for…
Keep readingShabbos and Academia (Part 1)
In my junior year of college, my professor suggested that the paper I’d written for her class was good enough…
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Pantsless
My mother and sisters often shop at Macy’s which is right near the CUNY Graduate Center, where I am quite often.…
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Nothing But the Truth…
A lot of decisions need to be made in an instant, when you’re coming home OTD, when you’re navigating relationships,…
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Klaxon Screams
My family wanted me to spend time with them, even after I moved out and completely left religion behind. And…
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Farshtelt
(Farshtelt – Yiddish for “dressed up,” “disguised.”) Purim – a time to dress up and pretend to be someone you’re…
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Bad Influence
It’s a truth universally acknowledged that someone who found liberation will try to liberate others. Or at least that’s the common…
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Dress-up and Play-acting
My uncle passed away at a fairly young age in his sixties. He was sick for a few months, went…
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Dissonance
A strange sort of dissonance happens when I listen to songs from my childhood. More often than not, I listen…
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Juggling Calendars
When you’re OTD and trying to spare your family’s feelings, you juggle two calendars in your head all the time.…
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Lesser of Two Evils
My mother may have thought I was cutting my wrists for a while. Partly as a cliched version of an…
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The Comfort of Reclusion
Flummoxed they were by this man in their midst,Who could not grasp the need to keep it in.Tried to reason…
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Out with the Old
כל התחלות קשותוהיום עוד רגע התחילהתחלות וחדשותורגע אתמול מפיל All beginnings are difficultAnd another moment begins todayBeginnings and new starts…
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עוף החול באש
אין התחלה בלי סוףתמיד מוות לפני החייםמשל למות העוףאין עוף החול מאבד חיים איזה נחמה מופלאהחיים אחרי האש בוערתאיזה פחד…
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לב סורר ומורה
התחלות הן קשותאומרים ליבוודאיאני אומרתאני יודעתבאמת אז מדועשואלים,מדוע את בוכה אין לי ברירהמשיבה כשלקחתי ברירהכשאמרתי״יש לי ברירה!״ברירה אחרתנלקחה ממני עדיין…
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Ner Neshama – Yahrzeit Licht
Candles burn.The flame entrances.She sees me there. Transfixed, she staresat the searing white corecommemoratingmemorializing. Burning bright,she sees me now. I…
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If Scars Could Talk
The knife struck deep, hard, fast,swept across my skin andthe blood spilled outleft a gaping holea grotesque smileturned sideways I…
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Rock Climbing
written in spring 2014, a few months after leaving home and religion You’ve struggled through the steep climb, forcing one…
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Bright Shadows
written in spring 2014, a few months after leaving home and religion In the shadowsare dark demonsso they said.I set…
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Blinders On
written in spring 2014, a few months after leaving home and religion It starts so simply.A bit of defense, armoragainst…
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Inside the Bubble
written in spring 2014, a few months after leaving home and religion Undulating motionof a cosmos containedof melded mattermoving as…
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Unwritten
There are two kinds of people.Those who respond toa writing assignment abouttheir own liveswith blank looksat blank pages -what can…
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Citation
on the oddness of being misrepresented to shadchanim It’s weird to hear your own words repeated.It’s even weirder to hear…
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Indiana Jones at Sinai
Written on June 5, 2014, Shavuos 5774, after watching Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark in a…
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Dainy Bernstein 