Monday, October 13, 2003
I really like reading this blog - Only in Israel . Its a blog that bills itself as - "Presenting thoughts of an 18 y/o with waaaaay too much time on his hands." Here is a boy who is in the IDF discussing his thoughts about being in the army and in basic training. He says, "The last month made me feel like a real fighter, other than learning to throw granades, we practiced shooting in various forms, kneeling, lying down, standing, at night, at day."
I like reading this blog but it is also very painful. Its painful that our world needs to have this army to protect Israel and that there doesn't seem to be a way to find peace.
I remember when my cousin Miki was in the army. I found that experience very painful. but I was also very proud of him. I used to joke that Miki was in his uniform (IDF) and Jonathan was in his (Hasidic Garb).
I like reading this blog but it is also very painful. Its painful that our world needs to have this army to protect Israel and that there doesn't seem to be a way to find peace.
I remember when my cousin Miki was in the army. I found that experience very painful. but I was also very proud of him. I used to joke that Miki was in his uniform (IDF) and Jonathan was in his (Hasidic Garb).
Friday, October 10, 2003
I just saw this:
Hasidic News http://hasidicnews.com/FAQ/FAQ.htm#20
What is the Hasidic attitude towards "Baalei Teshuva" and converts?
Hasidim, like the rest of the Orthodox community strongly discourage people from converting to Judaism. This is according to the Talmudic law. They do, however, encourage Jews who have wandered astray to "return". Chabad is famous for being intimately involved in reaching out to worldwide Jewry, making them aware of their heritage and trying to bring them closer to Orthodox observance, although they will certainly feel immensely satisfied from even a single act of Tefillin. Other Hasidic communities will definitely readily accept any returnee; yet, it would be very hard if at all possible for any non-Hasid-born, let alone non-observant born person to effectively absorb in the Hasidic community.
HA! no kidding. Jonathan was just trying to change that.
Hasidic News http://hasidicnews.com/FAQ/FAQ.htm#20
What is the Hasidic attitude towards "Baalei Teshuva" and converts?
Hasidim, like the rest of the Orthodox community strongly discourage people from converting to Judaism. This is according to the Talmudic law. They do, however, encourage Jews who have wandered astray to "return". Chabad is famous for being intimately involved in reaching out to worldwide Jewry, making them aware of their heritage and trying to bring them closer to Orthodox observance, although they will certainly feel immensely satisfied from even a single act of Tefillin. Other Hasidic communities will definitely readily accept any returnee; yet, it would be very hard if at all possible for any non-Hasid-born, let alone non-observant born person to effectively absorb in the Hasidic community.
HA! no kidding. Jonathan was just trying to change that.
Thursday, October 09, 2003
Jonathan arrived in New York on July 26, 1999. He entered the USA with a French passport and visa waiver for three months. Jonathan's father is a French citizen who made aliya (moved to Israel) in the seventies. Jonathan was Israeli. He was also a French citizen. Obtaining a visa to enter the United States is difficult for an Israeli. That is why he used his French passport.
Jonathan was allowed to stay in the USA for 90 days. He had 90 days to either get married or leave. He had "Plan A" and "Plan "B. Plan A was to get married and go back to Israel with his wife. He also had a fantasy about taking his wife and going to medical school in France. That was part of Plan A. "Plan B" was his suicide.
Jonathan did not want to be in the United States illegally. He never wanted to do anything that was illegal. After three months he was still in New York and still not married. He wanted to figure out a way that he could stay here, legally. He thought that all he had to do was leave the country and then return. He developed a plan in which he would go to Canada for a day and turn around and come back. He needed help with this plan, and I was always there to help him. As crazy as any of it seemed to me.
I have a friend, a Gentile, named Mary. Mary lives in upstate New York, somewhat near the Canadian border. I met Mary in College and we were good friends for many years. I'm not really sure what happened but by 1999 we hadn't spoken for a few years.
Mary grew up in a small town near Plattsburg New York. I think I was the first Jewish person that Mary ever met. In college we became great friends. Since Mary lived near the Canadian border I enlisted her help in Jonathan's trip across the border.
I called her to explain the predicament. Mary was happy to help. She advised us that you have to leave for two weeks and then return. Jonathan thought he could cross the border and then just come right back. She advised us to call the border police to see if this was a viable plan. The border police told me that he would not be allowed back for two weeks. Jonathan had a friend who said he left and came and it was fine. Jonathan wanted to try. Mary said she would help.
There was a bus from Port Authority to Plattsburgh. Mary was going to pick Jonathan up at the bus stop and drive him across the border and back. He was going to stay one night at Mary's house - where she lives with her husband and her elderly mother.
So I told Mary about Jonathan's peculiarities. Do not touch Jonathan. Jonathan would bring his own kosher food (anyway, he never ate much). He liked to drink Coke. And I explained about the Hasidic clothes. I don't know if she ever saw a Hasid before, unless she saw the movie, "A Stranger Among Us." Mary, my dear friend, was willing to go along with it.
The bus left Port Authority early in the morning. Jonathan was going to call me from the bus station to tell me that he was on his way so that I could alert Mary. I was waiting for his call. But I didn't hear from him until late at night.
What happened to Jonathan on the night before he was supposed to go to Canada?
Jonathan was still living with the Sheingarten's. He was standing at the top of the stairs and he just collapsed. He landed at the bottom of the stairs and he was in a lot of pain. At first, the Sheingarten's were annoyed with him. What an inconvenience to have a nebuch at the bottom of the stairs! But they called Hatzalah (the Jewish ambulance) anyway. He was taken to the Hospital for Joint Diseases in New York. He broke his leg and it was put in a cast and he was given crutches. He was in that cast for six weeks.
Jonathan never made it to Canada. We also realized that he was supposed to leave the country after 90 days. We had thought it was three months. The day he was planning on going was actually one day too late anyway.
So he remained in New York illegally (as many immigrants do) until June 14, 2001 when his dead body was shipped back to Netanya.
I would like to thank Mary for her willingness to help, even though she thought he might get stuck in Canada.
And I'd like to thank Jonathan. If it weren't for him I would not have called my friend Mary again. Since that time we have been in touch again. We speak on the phone, we send email and we even spent a vacation together. That is another one of the good things Jonathan left me with -- my renewed friendship with Mary. Jonathan, if you have access to this blog, know that I am thanking you.
Jonathan was allowed to stay in the USA for 90 days. He had 90 days to either get married or leave. He had "Plan A" and "Plan "B. Plan A was to get married and go back to Israel with his wife. He also had a fantasy about taking his wife and going to medical school in France. That was part of Plan A. "Plan B" was his suicide.
Jonathan did not want to be in the United States illegally. He never wanted to do anything that was illegal. After three months he was still in New York and still not married. He wanted to figure out a way that he could stay here, legally. He thought that all he had to do was leave the country and then return. He developed a plan in which he would go to Canada for a day and turn around and come back. He needed help with this plan, and I was always there to help him. As crazy as any of it seemed to me.
I have a friend, a Gentile, named Mary. Mary lives in upstate New York, somewhat near the Canadian border. I met Mary in College and we were good friends for many years. I'm not really sure what happened but by 1999 we hadn't spoken for a few years.
Mary grew up in a small town near Plattsburg New York. I think I was the first Jewish person that Mary ever met. In college we became great friends. Since Mary lived near the Canadian border I enlisted her help in Jonathan's trip across the border.
I called her to explain the predicament. Mary was happy to help. She advised us that you have to leave for two weeks and then return. Jonathan thought he could cross the border and then just come right back. She advised us to call the border police to see if this was a viable plan. The border police told me that he would not be allowed back for two weeks. Jonathan had a friend who said he left and came and it was fine. Jonathan wanted to try. Mary said she would help.
There was a bus from Port Authority to Plattsburgh. Mary was going to pick Jonathan up at the bus stop and drive him across the border and back. He was going to stay one night at Mary's house - where she lives with her husband and her elderly mother.
So I told Mary about Jonathan's peculiarities. Do not touch Jonathan. Jonathan would bring his own kosher food (anyway, he never ate much). He liked to drink Coke. And I explained about the Hasidic clothes. I don't know if she ever saw a Hasid before, unless she saw the movie, "A Stranger Among Us." Mary, my dear friend, was willing to go along with it.
The bus left Port Authority early in the morning. Jonathan was going to call me from the bus station to tell me that he was on his way so that I could alert Mary. I was waiting for his call. But I didn't hear from him until late at night.
What happened to Jonathan on the night before he was supposed to go to Canada?
Jonathan was still living with the Sheingarten's. He was standing at the top of the stairs and he just collapsed. He landed at the bottom of the stairs and he was in a lot of pain. At first, the Sheingarten's were annoyed with him. What an inconvenience to have a nebuch at the bottom of the stairs! But they called Hatzalah (the Jewish ambulance) anyway. He was taken to the Hospital for Joint Diseases in New York. He broke his leg and it was put in a cast and he was given crutches. He was in that cast for six weeks.
Jonathan never made it to Canada. We also realized that he was supposed to leave the country after 90 days. We had thought it was three months. The day he was planning on going was actually one day too late anyway.
So he remained in New York illegally (as many immigrants do) until June 14, 2001 when his dead body was shipped back to Netanya.
I would like to thank Mary for her willingness to help, even though she thought he might get stuck in Canada.
And I'd like to thank Jonathan. If it weren't for him I would not have called my friend Mary again. Since that time we have been in touch again. We speak on the phone, we send email and we even spent a vacation together. That is another one of the good things Jonathan left me with -- my renewed friendship with Mary. Jonathan, if you have access to this blog, know that I am thanking you.
Wednesday, October 08, 2003
I just read a story on hasidic rebel about a young man (20 years old) whom he calls Yoinasen and it reminded me of a few stories about my Joni. I will relate one now.
I would corroborate with the Hasidic Rebel in saying that there are some young men in the yeshivot and kollel that are not that interested in studying torah. As I mentioned in my story, Joni said that some of the yeshiva bachurs sit and play cards for a great part of the day. As Aidel Maidel points out, some people are not that interested in educating themselves. Jonathan was very disappointed in finding that some of the young men in the yeshivot were not that interested in studying torah. They were just passing time because they had no skills to get a job.
At some point, Jonathan decided he would get a TV in his apartment. He liked to watch to TV. He didn't watch anything that was so wrong. Mostly he liked to watch documentaries about the Holocaust and about Hitler. He was interested in that period in History. At some point, some of his "friends" from the yeshiva decided they too would like to watch TV. They would gather at his apartment. What they liked to watch was not so innocent.
Now, the only reason Joni had an apartment, and was able to get the TV, was because Yussel would not give him a place at the yeshiva dormitory. When these yeshiva boys heard that Joni had a TV they would gather in his apartment to watch. These boys knew that Joni was a Baal Teshuva. And they used to ask him about being secular. They were fascinated. And, according to Joni, these boys asked the kind of questions one would ask to gather information about being able to "escape" the Hasidic lifestyle. Joni used to offer to help them "get out" if he any one of them would help him "get in" (e.g., make a shidduch with one of their sisters). But none would.
I think the Hasidim are afraid of the Baal Teshuvahs because they can help the "rebels" get out. They have contacts on the outside. And so, better to not let them in. Keep the BT at arms length, lest he create an "underground railroad" for the rebel Hasid.
I would corroborate with the Hasidic Rebel in saying that there are some young men in the yeshivot and kollel that are not that interested in studying torah. As I mentioned in my story, Joni said that some of the yeshiva bachurs sit and play cards for a great part of the day. As Aidel Maidel points out, some people are not that interested in educating themselves. Jonathan was very disappointed in finding that some of the young men in the yeshivot were not that interested in studying torah. They were just passing time because they had no skills to get a job.
At some point, Jonathan decided he would get a TV in his apartment. He liked to watch to TV. He didn't watch anything that was so wrong. Mostly he liked to watch documentaries about the Holocaust and about Hitler. He was interested in that period in History. At some point, some of his "friends" from the yeshiva decided they too would like to watch TV. They would gather at his apartment. What they liked to watch was not so innocent.
Now, the only reason Joni had an apartment, and was able to get the TV, was because Yussel would not give him a place at the yeshiva dormitory. When these yeshiva boys heard that Joni had a TV they would gather in his apartment to watch. These boys knew that Joni was a Baal Teshuva. And they used to ask him about being secular. They were fascinated. And, according to Joni, these boys asked the kind of questions one would ask to gather information about being able to "escape" the Hasidic lifestyle. Joni used to offer to help them "get out" if he any one of them would help him "get in" (e.g., make a shidduch with one of their sisters). But none would.
I think the Hasidim are afraid of the Baal Teshuvahs because they can help the "rebels" get out. They have contacts on the outside. And so, better to not let them in. Keep the BT at arms length, lest he create an "underground railroad" for the rebel Hasid.
Here's another interesting story:
While Jonathan was staying with me I encountered a problem with one of my colleagues, actually my mentor. Another of our colleagues fabricated a story that we had cheated on something in the company and my mentor decided he could no longer work with me. I was mortified. He gave in to pressure, even though he knew it wasn't true. We did not cheat. (My mentor, as well as the man that accused us, are secular or reform Jews). I was really really upset over my mentor's decision that he would no longer work with me on projects. Besides that i thought i needed his help, i really respected this man and enjoyed working with him.
At this time, Joni decided he wanted to go to the Mikveh every day. The easiest one to get to at this point, sort of on my route to work, only a slight detour, was the mikveh at the lubovitcher Rebbe's grave. So we started going there every day. He would dunk in the mikveh, I would visit the grave and drop in a note. Sometimes I would ask for the heath of my family. Sometimes I would ask that this situation at work be resolved.
Months went by.
I hadn't heard a word from my mentor.
Eventually, he called me on the telephone. He said, he was thinking very hard about the situation. He felt very bad about the decision he had made to end our association. He said (out of the blue) that he had met the Lubovitcher Rebbe when he was a child (a good 40 years earlier) - I don't remember why, something to do with the trouble he was having in Hebrew School), and that something the rebbe had said to him then stuck in his mind and caused him to change his mind now about his current decision.
Isn't that strange? I had been praying at the Rebbe's grave,dropping in notes, asking for help. I wasn't sure if i believed in any of this but i also thought it couldn't hurt. And the Rebbe gave him a message. And helped him change his mind. And the Rebbe made sure that I knew who helped me. That is, if I believe that the Rebbe can help. I wonder.
While Jonathan was staying with me I encountered a problem with one of my colleagues, actually my mentor. Another of our colleagues fabricated a story that we had cheated on something in the company and my mentor decided he could no longer work with me. I was mortified. He gave in to pressure, even though he knew it wasn't true. We did not cheat. (My mentor, as well as the man that accused us, are secular or reform Jews). I was really really upset over my mentor's decision that he would no longer work with me on projects. Besides that i thought i needed his help, i really respected this man and enjoyed working with him.
At this time, Joni decided he wanted to go to the Mikveh every day. The easiest one to get to at this point, sort of on my route to work, only a slight detour, was the mikveh at the lubovitcher Rebbe's grave. So we started going there every day. He would dunk in the mikveh, I would visit the grave and drop in a note. Sometimes I would ask for the heath of my family. Sometimes I would ask that this situation at work be resolved.
Months went by.
I hadn't heard a word from my mentor.
Eventually, he called me on the telephone. He said, he was thinking very hard about the situation. He felt very bad about the decision he had made to end our association. He said (out of the blue) that he had met the Lubovitcher Rebbe when he was a child (a good 40 years earlier) - I don't remember why, something to do with the trouble he was having in Hebrew School), and that something the rebbe had said to him then stuck in his mind and caused him to change his mind now about his current decision.
Isn't that strange? I had been praying at the Rebbe's grave,dropping in notes, asking for help. I wasn't sure if i believed in any of this but i also thought it couldn't hurt. And the Rebbe gave him a message. And helped him change his mind. And the Rebbe made sure that I knew who helped me. That is, if I believe that the Rebbe can help. I wonder.
So Yom Kippur has come and gone. I broke my fast by drinking too much coffee and I can't sleep.
It was August 2000 and Jonathan was planning on killing himself. He gave up his apartment and wrote the suicide notes. And in the last minute, he changed his mind. The whole next year, as each holiday arrived, he would say, "I can't believe its Rosh Hashana and I'm still alive." And then, "I can't believe its Yom Kippur and I'm still alive." I would love to hear those words again.
Yom Kippur 5761 (the secular year 2000) was his last. He always came to visit me on Fridays. He was the Friday before Erev Yom Kippur - which was on a Sunday night. Just like this year. I remember that he didn't have very much money and he wasn't sure if he was going to be able to visit. He used up all his money before he was going die. (When he finally killed himself, he had $5,000.00 in his coat pocket. The exact sum to ship a body to Israel).
By Yom Kippur and he had given up his job and didn't find a new one yet. And he had very little money. But then he realized he had just enough. Just enough to buy a chicken for Kaporos and take the train to visit me.
It was August 2000 and Jonathan was planning on killing himself. He gave up his apartment and wrote the suicide notes. And in the last minute, he changed his mind. The whole next year, as each holiday arrived, he would say, "I can't believe its Rosh Hashana and I'm still alive." And then, "I can't believe its Yom Kippur and I'm still alive." I would love to hear those words again.
Yom Kippur 5761 (the secular year 2000) was his last. He always came to visit me on Fridays. He was the Friday before Erev Yom Kippur - which was on a Sunday night. Just like this year. I remember that he didn't have very much money and he wasn't sure if he was going to be able to visit. He used up all his money before he was going die. (When he finally killed himself, he had $5,000.00 in his coat pocket. The exact sum to ship a body to Israel).
By Yom Kippur and he had given up his job and didn't find a new one yet. And he had very little money. But then he realized he had just enough. Just enough to buy a chicken for Kaporos and take the train to visit me.
Miki has been reading a site, in hebrew, tapuz for people who have family members who commit suicide. And they added a link from their portal to miki's site. So now i'm adding that link here. This is another one of those moments when i REALLY wish i could speak hebrew.
Sunday, July 13, 2003
This is a blog about my cousin Jonathan. I got the courage to write this blog after reading The blog by the Hasidic Rebel.
In his suicide note jonathan asked me again to make his story heard. So I'm torn between writing his story, the way he saw it, and my story. My story is different than his. My story is my relationship with jonathan. I told him to write his own story. Get his own story published. I told him that if he wanted his story to be heard he would have to stay here to make sure it would get heard. But he left this world, by his own hand. And he left me with the task of writing his story. Where I can I will tell you his point of view. But mostly I want to tell you what happened to me. Jonathan happened to me.
Two years ago there was a tragic suicide death in my family. Jonathan, age 23 took his own life. Jonathan was my fourth cousin (our grandparents were 2nd cousins). We were extremely close and his death has left a great hole in my heart.
Jonathan grew up in a secular home in Israel. His mother made aliya to Israel in 1973 and his father came around the same time from France. His mother came with her parents. They had lost 2 young boys in the war.
Jonathan grew up in with his younger brother Miki (born 1980) and his parents. I grew up in on Long Island, NY and only knew them slightly. I spent my Junior year of college at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and spent some time with my cousins in Israel. Miki was 2 and Joni was 4. My mom always kept in touch with the family. In 1992 Jonathan and his mother took a trip to the US. Joni was 13 then, and he was a strange boy. They were here on a tour and we met them for dinner one night. The next time I saw any of them was when Miki finished high school. Before entering the army he came to visit his cousins in NY. He spent 6 weeks with us - staying with my mom and dad and then with me and my husband. He also spent some time in NYC with my sister and her husband. That trip solidified a connection between our two families. Miki started to tell us about his brother.
While in High School Jonathan become orthodox and politically active. This part of the story is fuzzy for me, but he seemed to have gotten in trouble with law over some political actions he took and spent six and a half months in jail after finishing high school. I'm pretty sure his story was in the Israeli newspapers at the time. I think it was like 1996. I think it was while he was in prison that he decided to become a Hasid. (Jonathan said the idea to become a Hasid was brewing long before he was in jail, its just that while he was there he had the time to grow the payot.) Jonathan told me many funny and tragic stories about his year in prison. I will write about them in later postings.
When he got out he bought Hasidic clothes and went to the Rabbi of the Tzanz community in Netanya and obtained a place in the dormitory to study at the Tzanz yeshiva in Netanya. He saw that all yeshiva buchars were getting married and thought that he should too. He didn't have a mother who could call the matchmakers so he started to call them himself. Mostly he was told that he should marry another baal teshuva. He didn't want to. He desperately wanted to marry a "real one".
In the meantime, he was spending a lot of time at the yeshiva and on shabbat he would have meals with other Hasidic families. He started to see the way these families treat the women and each other and he was appalled. He strongly believed that he was "more Hasidic then they were". He vowed that if he was able to marry a Hasidic girl he would be kinder to her than any Hasid was capable of. He didn't want to marry a woman who would slave in the kitchen and be worn out being a "baby factory". He wanted a partner in life.
Life become more difficult for Joni. His peers were being married off and no family would consider him. It especially hurt when parents of his friends wouldn't consider him as an appropriate match for their daughters. He would question their motives for inviting him to their shabbat meals. He would say that they were trying to obtain mitzvot by having guests at their tables. But they were not treating their guests as people, just as opportunities to do mitzvot. He felt this way about the Hasidim in Netanya as well as those in Boro Park.
Then he heard of an opportunity to get married in NY. He heard of a girl from a divorced home. The Hasidic community thought this girl was "damaged goods" (due to the divorce and she had something wrong with her eye or her leg). But he didn't believe that these things make a girl "damaged". He came to NY to meet her.
His mother was frantic. She called my mother. You can only imagine how a secular/traditional Israeli mother feels when her son is dressing Hasidic and running off to NY to get married. Miki called me. "Please take care of my brother". I promised I would. Joni arrived in NY July 26, 1999.
Before Jonathan came to NY we spoke on via email and an instant message program on the computer. He asked me about the kashrut in my home and about the synagogues in Merrick. I agreed to take my dishes the mikveh with his help. We ended up with all my dishes at the beach. It was great fun. And now my home is "more kosher" which I appreciate.
He also noticed that I only had 3 mezuzzahs up (front door, my bedroom, my daughter's bedroom). He took it upon himself to obtain one for each doorway in my home and to put them up. I always really appreciated his help. (I'm more observant than my husband, and sometimes it's a struggle-but that's a different story).
The shidduch didn't materialize. I don't know the particulars. Jonathan was staying at my parents' house and he became very depressed. He was trying to get a place to study at the Tzanz yeshiva in Boro Park and Yussel, the man in charge of the boys at the Yeshiva was giving him a hard time. He went to the Rabbi of the community and he also gave him a hard time. These people were not very nice to him. Finally, Yussel said he could study at the Yeshiva but he could not live there. This happened in October. He was assigned a study partner, Chaim Elbogen. Chaim was not one of the brighter boys at the Yeshiva and spent a most of his days playing cards. Jonathan wanted to learn Torah but he didn't have a partner that was interested or a place to stay in Brooklyn.
Someone i knew had a friend who lives in Boro Park who said Jonathan could live with them and she would help him get a spot in the dormitory. (Jonathan called this woman a "nebuch lawyer" but was grateful for her help). This was right before Sukkot. Jonathan arrived at the home of Rabbi and Mrs Sheingarten and was asked to build their sukkah. He did. He lived with them for a few months. They couldn't get Yussel to change his mind about the dormitory. While he was there, a woman by the name of Esther who was married and had a few young children offered to help Jonathan. She did his laundry, she called matchmakers on his behalf. (Jonathan also felt that she behaved inappropriately - she walked barefoot in front of him, she once touched him to remove a price tag and he was furious, and she just stood to close to him). By now Jonathan had developed a long list of matchmakers that he was in touch with himself. She had more that she could call. She took on his mission and was determined to help him find a bride. After a while Jonathan felt that although she seemed to be trying to find him a match her inappropriate behavior was more than he could bare. He stopped going to see her. We found a letter in Jonathan's apartment that she wrote him after he stopped going to visit her. She seemed heartbroken. Miki has this letter.
Jonathan's pain at not being accepted by the community was growing. He went on a Taanit Dibor hoping it would help his situation. Sheingarten family kicked him out of their home. They called me to tell me that he was crazy because he wasn't talking.
He stayed in my home for a few days and then got his own apartment. He kept studying at the yeshiva, kept calling matchmakers. He would visit me every Friday and then go back to Brooklyn. We also spoke a few times a day. He was getting more and more depressed. He said that if he couldn't find a wife he was going to kill himself. It seemed that all the matchmakers wanted him to marry another baal teshuva. He didn't want to. He asked, why should I live in a "baal teshuva ghetto". Why won't they accept me? They kept pushing him away. He kept watching the community. He told me some crazy stories about the people in the community. Things that were hard to believe. (After having read Naomi Regan's books and the blog of the rebel hasid, I'm more inclined to believe that the people in the religious community do not always treat each other with kindness.)
He started having shabbat meals at the home of his study partner, Chaim Elbogen, from the Tzanz yeshiva. He "fell in love" with Chaim's sister, she smiled at him. I called Chaim's mother on his behalf. She explained to me that her daughter could not marry a baal teshuva. That's not how it works. He doesn't have the right family. Jonathan was despondent.
Jonathan decided he would kill himself since he could not find a wife. He called this his "Plan B". However, he was frugal. He didn't want to kill himself and still have money left as a security deposit on his apartment. It was July 2000. He went to his landlord and said he would be moving back to Israel when he "lived out" the security deposit on his apartment. I was frantic. I knew he wasn't going back to Israel. He gave up his apartment. This could only mean one thing. I called his parents. They didn't believe me. I called his brother, Miki, who was in the IDF at this point. Miki wanted to come to NY right away and save his brother from this terrible fate, but dealing with the army was not easy. He got permission to come but it wasn't until October. I didn't know if we had time. I called suicide hotlines and therapists. Jonathan took the telephone number from me for one of the therapists in Boro Park and the suicide hotline. He said, "I am taking this from you so that when I kill myself you don't have to think that you didn't do everything you could. But I am not going to call."
Then Jonathan met Mordechai, a Hasidic divorced man, who offered to help him. It was like a miracle. He wasn't going to kill himself after all. Mordechai had a extra apartment that he was renting to an old lady that died. This woman had no family and someone had to clean out the apartment. Jonathan could live in the apartment rent free while cleaning it out and then start to pay rent when it was cleaned. Joni moved into the apartment. I was so relieved that he wasn't dead. Miki came to NY again in October. Mordechai was helping Jonathan and everything seemed ok. As each holiday passed, Joni would say, "I can't believe its Rosh Hashana and I'm still alive." "I can't believe its Yom Kippur and I'm still alive." "I can't believe its Hanukkah and I'm still alive." I started to let my guard down. Maybe things were going to be ok. I didn't know Jonathan had already written suicide notes that we would find the following June. No wonder he was so surprised to be alive.
Mordechai and Jonathan developed a story. Jonathan needed a new pedigree and a new name. Part of the reason he couldn't marry a Hasidic girl was his name. His last name was a Sephardic name, which was no good in the Hasidic community. They chose a new name, Jonathan Alias. At some point, they figured they could just say, "oy, did you think it was Alias, no, you must have heard wrong." They also made up a new pedigree for Jonathan based on his maternal grandparents. It was only a half lie. Something about his grandmother's father being a Hasidic rabbi from Poland. Nothing was said about his secular traditional family. It was said that his parents were "Modern" and the Hasids assumed Modern orthodox or something. He figured when it came time to meet his family he could convince his father to don a hat and his mother to put on a wig. (Ironically, his mother is now wearing a wig as she recovers from chemotherapy for her struggle with ovarian cancer). Mordechai had some friends in Israel who were willing to say they knew him and his family if anyone called to check on his pedigree. As it turns out, this friend did get some calls. Everything seemed like it was going to work out.
Now Jonathan Alias had a pedigree and Mordechai called matchmakers. This went on for a few months. On June 14, 2001, Jonathan, was still not married. He was turning 23 on June 21. He didn't have faith that he could get married to a Hasidic girl like he longed to do. He hung himself from the bars on the window in his apartment in Brooklyn with his gartel. Shiva ended on his 23rd birthday.
At 6:00 am June 14, 2001 Miki called me, he was crying. Jonathan called him to say goodbye. Miki immediately called me to see if I could do something. I called Joni's apartment and he didn't answer. I called the police. By now Mordechai had found him and the Jewish ambulance was there. The police came too. It was too late. The police built a story. They found one of my sonograms in the apartment and thought something was fishy. Maybe he got a girl pregnant. This couldn't be farther from the truth. He just kept me company one day when I went for a sonogram and the technician handed him a copy of the picture. I had promised Miki that I would help his brother. And in the process, we had become great friends. Of course this baby wasn't Jonathan's. She looks just like my husband.
Jonathan told Miki to look for some money in his jacket. He had been working taking care of old and/or sick Hasidic men (and he used to tell me some really funny/tragic/horrific stories about these men). He had enough money to send his own body back to Israel. He was quickly shipped back and buried in Israel.
When Miki came to NY in July 2001 we went to the apartment in Brooklyn to clean it out. We found the suicide notes that Joni wrote the previous August when he had given up his apartment. One for his immediate family and one for me.
I've been struggling to find the meaning of his life/death ever since. Jonathan was a young man with a dark sense of humor. He was bright. He taught himself yiddish and physics and was well read. He was a great friend.
Throughout his ordeal he would find ways to laugh at the situation. However, it was also obvious that he was in a lot of pain. He came into our lives and filled us with humor and pain. And now he's gone. He wanted to tell the world about the Hasidic community. How awful they treat their women. How terrible they treat anyone who wants to enter into the community. In the suicide note he wrote me, he asked me to expose them but also remind the world that he saw something beautiful in the girls. So i'm writing this blog and will add to it as i remember different stories about joni. And I still don't think I've told the story in the way that Jonathan would have liked me to, but I did the best that I can.
// posted by deborah @ 1:04 AM
Comments (25)
[ Wed Oct 08, 09:40:21 AM]
Here are the comments from my first post.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Oh, dear . . . I'm so sorry about your cousin. Nobody deserved to be treated like he did. I'm sure he would have made a terrific husband - now we'll never know.
Lola | Email | Homepage | 07.15.03 - 6:28 pm | #
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Dear Deborah
I am really saddened by reading your story about your cousin Jonathan, and since I am part of the Chasidic Community I will try to defend "A little" our community. Don’t get me wrong, I am not legitimizing anything that was done to Jonathan, but since you are writing against Hasidim in general I feel the urge to respond and say my point of view.
I was lately involved with Baal Tshuvah who was married to a regular Hasidic girl, the guy let himself grow a beard, put on a Shtraimel, moved to Israel and did anything that would identify him with Hasidic community. Today a few months later he his is back to the US without his wife. I am not going to go into details what went wrong in their marriage and I don’t know the story exactly, but one thing I know he is now trimming his beard slowly and he his telling everyone that he went too far and I agree with him.
The point that I am trying to make is, It is a very sticky subject. since we are such a tight knot community it is very hard to accept someone form the outside. Even though he had all good intentions of becoming the right Hasid, it still does not make him a Hasid. Lets not kid ourselves, your parents would also not be so happy if you married another ethnic group that it is totally different than yours, even though he would “Try” to change the way you are.
The best evidence is, that most Baal Tshuvah themselves don’t want to marry a Baal Tshuvah. If they believe they can change enough and blend into our community why don’t they believe they can have a spouse that did the same? Again let me stress, I am not trying to mock the Baal Tshuvah community. The opposite I really have respect for them and I really like to be in their surrounding. I go quite often to Israel and I go to their communities and yeshivas, sit out with them and really enjoy myself with them.
I don’t want to get into an argument on how we treat our wives, but if he saw such bad things in the Hasidic community why did he still want to be part of it? I understand his an your pain, but mocking a whole community doesn’t help.
It’s a shame that he is not with us anymore.
Moishee | Email | 07.18.03 - 11:34 am | #
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Dear Deborah,
I too belong to the Hasidic community, and I too will attempt a say in this matter. First, from you own words it is evident that Joni was a troubled kid, and his phsychological makeup was troubled far deeper than merely a desire to fit into a community. You say he was a strange kid even before he became orthodox and then thereafter landing himself in prison. Obviously he was very intense with a propensity for extremism bordering on fanaticism. He chose to become a Hasid only because it was in his mind some sort of far off fanatical and extremist way of life.
Another example is the fact that his life sadly culminated in the death by his own hand only at the young tender age of 23, for the reason of not being able to get married.
Let me tell you, I, as a hasidic boy had my own troubles finding a prospective mate, I got married at age 24, saw all my friends and entire social circle advance before me, having 2-3 children before I got engaged. It may have been a trying situation, but not something that warranted the thought of suicide to ever enter my mind. So all I ask is for you to judge Joni's feelings and his tragic outcome, by the barometer of his own limitations of emotional stability.
Now let me address the issue of not accepting him for marriage in the community.
First, we must again revert to the suggestion that maybe the reason was his strangeness and not the fact that he was a baal teshuva. There is a prevailing belief in the community and I might admit that in my mind as well, that a large percentage of baalei teshuva are strange and eccentric. It stands to reason that a person of a healthy environment and personality would not abruptly drop his old way of life, his friends, his family etc. Of course we are full of admiration and respect for this tremendous sacrifice, but yet there still is this dynamic of the eccentric personality. In Joni's case, it probably was not just a stereotype.
In addition to that there is a concept in jewish law that deals with these issues. A person born from non religious parents, means that most probably the parents did not observe the laws of family purity. In that case there is an impurity in the offspring and people shy away from it.
About his taking issue with the way Hasidim treat their wives, I will not be the defender of all of them. Just for the record, I grew up in a fine home, my Dad treated my Mom with the utmost respect, and I do so to my wife as well. There are many people that I know that do the same, there are some that I know don't.
It is no different than the rest of the world, only that it's better. The charges of domestic violence and wife battery do not come from our community. Cheating and deviation is drastically lower in our community.
It is true though that women do have a role that is more modest and homemaker oriented. Yes, Judaism is not a feminist movement. And being that Joni was an Israeli, he probably knows that in the Arab countries
David | Email | 07.18.03 - 2:26 pm | #
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Continued....
And being that Joni was an Israeli, he probably knows that in the Arab countries and Sephardic communities this particular issue is in a torrid state with regard to the treatment of women.
All in all, the article as written reeks of religious hatred and blind rebellion. There are truths that can be respectfully discussed, but in the context of this blog most responses will be by disenchanted angry youngsters who know not what they do.
May we all merit to do what's right, and revel in the gift of Life Peace and Happiness.
David | 07.18.03 - 2:29 pm | #
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Dear Deborah,
I am truly sorry for the loss of your cousin Jonathan. You have described a human being that seemed bright, curious and full of wonder.
I am not Jewish (I was brought up Christian, but am no longer practicing), but I think that there are young people (men, in particular) who tend to be attracted to aspects of spirituality (no matter what the denomination) that require absolute obediance.
You did the best that you could do-it was his decision.
Thank you for writing his story!
Penelope
Penelope | Email | 07.18.03 - 5:09 pm | #
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I'm an Israeli young student. Personally, I feel very little affection towards the hasidic lifestyle (I was grown up in a 'misnaged' ultra orthodox house, but today I'm much less religious).
However, I cannot deny that the story you wrote described a young man of very unstable personality.
It's pity that psychologists and psychiatrists were not there to help him. However, in this case, it would be unjust to put the blame on the hassidic community.
Shay | Email | 07.20.03 - 10:14 am | #
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Y'know, the fact that he insisted on a girl from a particular background, and would under no circumstances consider someone from a different kind of family, no matter what she was like, means that he was operating under the same model as the parents of those girls. If he considered baalei teshuva to be beneath consideration, then why shouldn't they feel the same way?
What's more, it sounds to me that he was looking for a girl from a `real' chassidishe family as a sort of token of his acceptance into the community, as a prize or a trophy; what does that really say about how he would have regarded and treated her, if he had succeeded? Is that really the sort of marriage you would want for yourself or your daughter? Perhaps it was his open obsession with finding such a match that was taken by prospective in-laws as a warning sign.
And, as painful as this must be, the fact that the story turned out as it did shows that they did have a point.
Sooner or later life would have thrown another frustration at him, as it does to everyone, and if he had the sort of personality that obsessed over this to the point of taking his life, chances are that he wouldn't have handled his later frustrations any better.
It sounds cruel, but all those parents who wouldn't let him go out with their daughters must have felt a horrible relief when they heard the news - `how terrible that we drove him to this, but what a relief that our daughter was saved from getting involved with him'. I know that were I one of those parents, that's how I would feel (not that I would have turned him down just for being a baal teshuva, but if I'd met him and turned him down for some other reason, I would feel both horrified and greatly relieved when I heard what happened).
Z | 07.20.03 - 1:07 pm | #
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My girlfriend forwarded me the link, I can not help but feel the same pain that you feel.
My family is a traditional family, my mother an Israeli nation, born when it was still called Palestine, the child of two Pioneers who left Poland in the 1920's, my father a Holocaust surviver from the Warsaw Ghetto.
My brother became religious when he was 8, this lead him to go to Ner Israel Yeshiva in Baltimore and he eventually got his smicha there.
He returned home in the Pacific North West and got his law degree, then he went out in search for a bride.
He didn't want a Baal Tshuva, he wanted a blue blood pedagree girl.
He was rather dejected that all that was offered to him were divorcees and girls with "problems".
When match-makers first saw him, they wanted to give him the best that they had, his credentials of being the top of his sheer at Yeshiva, and one of the best bochers made them want to give him the best.
But then they learned how his mother and father while active in the orthodox community were not religious themselves, and what is worse, that my mother didn't go to the mikvah after she would menstrate.
This is ofcourse not even touching the fact that he is from the West Coast. Or that his brother (Me) has long hair, goes to goth clubs and has piercings through his face (though I am shomer shabbous), and that his other brother is an atheist.
He was offered girls from very poor families who were just trying to marry into a wealthy family, girls with real medical issues.
He would spend hours talking to my father about his pain.
The first shiduch that he went on, was in Seattle, the daughter of a Rabbi who is a lobbiest with the Christian Right wanted to meet him. So we drove down, I visited friends for the weekend in Seattle and he went on his first date.
The drive back home on the Sunday was three hours of him micro-analyzing every issue, why did she do this or they say that.
He spent the next year flying to New York ever few months to try to find a wife.
He agonized about it and it was dreadful.
Fortunately he found a wonderful girl whom my entire family addores. They recently had a baby girl, the first addition to my family since I was born.
But your story has touched a nerve. I would ask him time and time again, what is wrong with a Baal Tsuvah, whey must she have pedagree. I can understand about wanting a girl who hasn't "been around" find, but what is wrong with a girl who became religious when she was young?
Now at 25, as I myself am coming closer to marriage, my girlfriend, a wonderful girl whose maternal grandfather intermarried, she is begining her Orthodox conversion, she is a girl who is I would say, even more religious than me, she is good enough, it doesn't matter that she is a returny, I am more impressed with someone who "saw the world" and decided that a closeness with Hashem and being an orthodox Jew is truely seeing the world, than someone who was born religious an
Ziv | Email | 07.20.03 - 2:00 pm | #
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David,
Very Good, well put.
Jay | Email | 07.22.03 - 11:34 am | #
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I'm so sorry to hear this story about your cousin.
I belong to the Hasidic Community in Boro Park and I did research on this story and it ends up being that there is much more to this story than you wrote. "Jonathan was not one of the smart people in our society", why else would he commit suicide?!? For not getting married? I got married when I was 26, did I ever think about comitting suicide? Who in their right minds commits suicide?
I personally know of two Baalei Tshuvoth, which both became Baalei Tshuvoth when they were 19. They both married girls from the Boro Park Community. Yes, these girls family's had some issues but you know why they were able to marry to these girls? Because they are normal and stable people. From what I understood from my research is that Jonathon wasn't stable and who knows what he would end up doing or being like??
Abe | Email | 07.22.03 - 4:38 pm | #
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True, Jonathan may not have been a paradigm of stability or normality. But was he treated decently or in line with any jewish standards? No, not at all.
Humbert | Email | 07.22.03 - 6:09 pm | #
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Humbert, in what way do you think he was treated indecently, or out of line with Jewish standards? All we have to go on is his sister's account, and the *only* complaint she makes is that nobody wanted to have him introduced to their daughters. Once you admit that he `may not have been a paradigm of stability or normality', would *you* want him going out with your daughter? Do decency and Jewish standards compel a parent to endanger their daughter's happiness in order not to hurt a crazy man's feelings? Isn't the first principle of decency and Jewish standards that parents must look after their children?
Or do you subscribe to that curious secular notion that women don't count, and it's all about the feelings of men? Oh wait, that's not what secular people claim to think at all. They're usually accusing religious Jews (a category which they seem to think is synonymous with Chassidim) of having such an attitude. But when it's convenient the mask drops and the primitive sexism can be seen in the oh-so-enlightened eyes.
Z | 07.23.03 - 11:51 am | #
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I have to respond to this one. The community did not treat jonathan decently. I guess I should have included some of these stories, without just illuding to them and writing them another time. I could tell you about Reb Fish who employed jonathan to help take care of him. and how after two days work told him those two days were a "tria" and he would not get paid for them. I could tell you about how each time Jonathan asked Yussel, of the tzanz yeshiva in boro park if he could study at the yeshiva he was told, "call me next week". I think Yussel was hoping Jonathan would go away. He told him that for at least six weeks. until he finally gave him a study partner. (but not a place in the dorm, which he had in Netanya and was expecting here as well.) There was another old man who he was hired to take care of who used to hit him. (well, maybe that man was old and losing his mind, so should we excuse him?) and then there are the stories about what jonathan observed about how they treat each other. I could go on and on. but i have to stop now. I will continue to tell these stories on my blog. As time permits.
deborah | Email | Homepage | 07.23.03 - 9:26 pm | #
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when i write without editing i tend to make errors.
Those first two days with reb Fisch were a "trial" - (which he was told after, not before).
deborah | 07.23.03 - 9:28 pm | #
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I will preface my comments by saying that Jonathan's suicide is without a shadow of a doubt an unfathomable tragedy. It seems sadly ironic, however, that as "frum" and "hasidic" as he was(btw, the Talmud defines "hasid" as 'one who observes more than the law requires')Jonathan chose to opt out in a most un-jewish and un-lawful way. Indeed, suicide is justifiable by jewish law only in extremely rare circumstances- and not getting a "blue-blooded" shidduch is NOT one of the exceptions.
sollyman | 07.24.03 - 10:58 am | #
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comment to Sollyman and all of you- you see he commited this suicide since he saw and felt after all that he couldn't see any good and pure in this life everything was soo counterfeit , forged and fake and even though he was sensitive he waited too long and had all the patience to hope for good' but everyone there betrayed him betrayed the way & religion they believed in' so i'm saying it's the selfish way of thoses communities that i felt that treatment for him.
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miki joni's brother | Email | 07.26.03 - 7:38 am | #
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this is a very disturbing story on so many levels.
as much as i feel sympathy for the trials that jonathan faced, i must also agree with the many other commenters who point out that there seem to have been other psychological/emotional issues at play here. the inability to get married may have been the 'straw', but there appears to have been a predisposition to instability which made matters very much worse.
having said all that, as a person from the "outside world" involved in jewish orthodoxy, i definitely have seen some things which are extremely concerning. my religious/spiritual life is about me and hashem, so ultimately i am not moved by the opinions/behaviour of any (hu)man. it is obvious, however, that the frum community keeps those not frum from birth at arms length. i can see how this would be damaging for some.
cj | Email | 07.29.03 - 1:11 pm | #
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dear devorah:
through your tear-filled words wise ears can here that there is more between the lines then in them itself.
when any person accouters a problem big or small the first intuition that hits is throw the blame on someone else’s shoulders, and the reason for that is simple because for a person going through a crisis to bare the pain of the crisis itself and the burden of fault to is very hard, so subcontiously the person tries to shake any guilty feelings away.
in our case here, in my opinion, the same rule applies, now even though i am very sorry for your cousins death but, the finger pointing you demonstrate is completely wrong and inappropriate.
i as a friend of this "chaim elbogen" can tell you that first of all this that you wrote that he is not of the brighter students is totally off track cause as i said i know him personally and the reason Jonathan was appointed to this fellow was because chaim as known by his friends is a very nice guy, a serious learner, and is known for his psychological capabilities, by helping out anyone in need witch as it sadly turned out jonathan was badly in need of.
now this what you say that the elbogen family was wrong with the fact that they didn’t want to give Jonathan there daughter, well in my opinion its like any person like one of us and asking a million aire to give us here daughter, don’t you understand that there is a significant difference between the life style he grew up on and maintained during his stay in the usa to the one a ultra hassidic girl grows up? I mean are you so naive as to think that such a mach would even work out? you know that you wouldn’t sacrifice you flesh and blood to an "unknown source" and thats exactly the reason of the chain of events that you dramatized about, so please don’t preach that the Chasidim are cruel and unfair.
and most of all dont you think that there just gotta be something wrong with a guy that commits suicide? just think about it somebody should kill himself for these stupid reasons? aren’t there alternatives to the desires that jonathan wanted? now god be blessed that a young Jewish girl didn’t fall prey to the hand of a suicidal pity-full guy.
I hesitated to write until I contacted Mr. Elbogen himself to here the other side of the story which made much more sense then your venomous finger pointing and blame against a beautiful community that contributed absolutely nothing to the sorrowful death of you innocent cousin.
Anyway’s I’m sorry for any unreasonable loss of life but if you want to point a finger of blame then please point it to the direction of your cousin, cause after all if the reason of his killing himself would’ve been logically justified then there would’ve been thousands of suicides a day, in our communities and thank god that there aren’t.
shnitzelberg | Email | 07.30.03 - 6:52 pm | #
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It is indeed sad moreso since i kinda knew your cousin through my uncle (mothers brother)mordechai that you mentioned in your article. I remember talking to a very intelligent chassidic guy and only later would i find out more details about his story. In all fairness the hassidic community in general and in B.P in particular cannot be completely blamed for what happened, obviously he had severe emotional problems and was thinking about suicide long before he came in contact with the aforementioned. I must agree with you however, on certain aspects that you raised about this community. The attitude toward women, sex and outsiders especially. I was a part of this community and Thank G-d have long ago left it. But more about me in a different post.
doug | Email | 07.30.03 - 8:22 pm | #
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Deborah,
1. Would you want your daughter to marry someone who is capable of comitting suicide for having "trouble" in his life?
2. You were trying to say that he was a regular Hasidic boy so you don't understand why they didn't want him to marry their daughter. Now you were saying that he had a copy of yous sonogram in his apartment because he kept you company for the day and "the technician handed him a copy of the picture". This means that he was in the room with you, tell me if you know of another hasidic boy that will go with his, lets even say FIRST cousin for a sonogram?? Even if he's VERY close with her. So obviously the people in the comunity saw something more than just mental problems in him.
Duvid Y | Email | 08.01.03 - 1:51 pm | #
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Maybe Gd allowed Jonathan some peace, before he would find himself in Hasidic hell. Sometimes we don't understand that maybe Gd prevented Jonathan from a worse fate. Not that suicide is good. Far from it. We can't know all the details of what Jon was spared, but we can see that this tight community was not what he'd hoped to find in a spiritual community. If Hasids think fellow Jews are damaged, impure goods, let them intermarry and leave us in peace. We shouldn't venture over there and Jon's lesson is ours, too. No finger pointing, just a warning that this community has been closed off too long and are writing their own laws which aren't Torah laws. It's more like a cult. If we're so impure, maybe Gd has cordoned the Hassids off for our good, not theirs. This doesn't have to be a war between Jews, just a warning to preserve us from ourselves. Carol
Carol | 08.03.03 - 1:12 am | #
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Carol,
I'm a Hasidic Girl from Brooklyn. Would you want me to your daughter? Why not? Am I damaged?
Whatever you wrote about the hasidic community is true in your community.
Esty | 08.08.03 - 1:05 pm | #
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Dear Deborah,
I want to thank you for communicating your cousin's story. Your love for him and appreciation for his unique presence in the world comes through. Reading this story I feel pained too that he left you with this burden to speak for him, or of him, and in all his searching he didn't find the pathway to tell his own story. I can understand how much you must miss him.
I was raised Catholic, but don't consider myself Christian anymore. If anything I am still a searcher who has not found a place. Through studying German literature I came to learn Yiddish and also, in explorations of European Jewish history, came to be very interested in Hasidism historically, and, particularly, in the impact it made on the German Jewish community at the beginning of the twenthieth century, in an indirect way, through the stories and teachings, sometimes poetically rendered in German.
I read many of the comments to your story and I think it is important, as you said, that people have been moved and have come forth to express so many different perspectives.
Personally I did not find that the story read (to me, as an outsider) as a blanket criticism or condemnation of the Hasidic community in general, as many people personally involved with that community seem to be understanding it. It came through, on the one hand, that your cousin had some bad experiences, but these kinds of experiences are possible (as I think someone said) in any community; and the aspect of this community being very close-knit and somewhat wary of people coming from the outside seems understandable. Through the discussion you started, the complex relationship between the Hasidic community and others standing outside of it becomes just a little more illuminated, and I think that's very valuable to everyone who comes across your site.
But, in reading your cousin's story, I was not only seeing his frustrating experiences in trying to become and feel accepted by the Hasidic community but also, on the other hand, sensing the very emotional, turbulent, unclarified inner experiences which he seemed to be aswirl in; and I think if he could have found a strong connection with a psychotherapist or someone in a counseling capacity it might have saved him from going to the extreme of taking his own life.
Mainly I wanted to tell you that I found the way you told the story to be very un-polemical, honest and open to letting all the different pieces of his experience which you came to know simply emerge for themselves in your communication and stand side by side. One can sense many different realities reading the story without being compelled to judge that your cousin was right or wrong in some way or the Hasidic community was right or wrong.
all good wishes,
Violet
Violet | Email | 08.14.03 - 1:02 pm | #
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so sad...
thank you for sharing.
if i ever can do anything for you.... please let me know.
i hope Jonathan has found his place in heaven. Amen.
Guila | Email | 09.30.03 - 4:40 pm | #
This is a blog about my cousin Jonathan. I got the courage to write this blog after reading The blog by the Hasidic Rebel.
In his suicide note jonathan asked me again to make his story heard. So I'm torn between writing his story, the way he saw it, and my story. My story is different than his. My story is my relationship with jonathan. I told him to write his own story. Get his own story published. I told him that if he wanted his story to be heard he would have to stay here to make sure it would get heard. But he left this world, by his own hand. And he left me with the task of writing his story. Where I can I will tell you his point of view. But mostly I want to tell you what happened to me. Jonathan happened to me.
Two years ago there was a tragic suicide death in my family. Jonathan, age 23 took his own life. Jonathan was my fourth cousin (our grandparents were 2nd cousins). We were extremely close and his death has left a great hole in my heart.
Jonathan grew up in a secular home in Israel. His mother made aliya to Israel in 1973 and his father came around the same time from France. His mother came with her parents. They had lost 2 young boys in the war.
Jonathan grew up in with his younger brother Miki (born 1980) and his parents. I grew up in on Long Island, NY and only knew them slightly. I spent my Junior year of college at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and spent some time with my cousins in Israel. Miki was 2 and Joni was 4. My mom always kept in touch with the family. In 1992 Jonathan and his mother took a trip to the US. Joni was 13 then, and he was a strange boy. They were here on a tour and we met them for dinner one night. The next time I saw any of them was when Miki finished high school. Before entering the army he came to visit his cousins in NY. He spent 6 weeks with us - staying with my mom and dad and then with me and my husband. He also spent some time in NYC with my sister and her husband. That trip solidified a connection between our two families. Miki started to tell us about his brother.
While in High School Jonathan become orthodox and politically active. This part of the story is fuzzy for me, but he seemed to have gotten in trouble with law over some political actions he took and spent six and a half months in jail after finishing high school. I'm pretty sure his story was in the Israeli newspapers at the time. I think it was like 1996. I think it was while he was in prison that he decided to become a Hasid. (Jonathan said the idea to become a Hasid was brewing long before he was in jail, its just that while he was there he had the time to grow the payot.) Jonathan told me many funny and tragic stories about his year in prison. I will write about them in later postings.
When he got out he bought Hasidic clothes and went to the Rabbi of the Tzanz community in Netanya and obtained a place in the dormitory to study at the Tzanz yeshiva in Netanya. He saw that all yeshiva buchars were getting married and thought that he should too. He didn't have a mother who could call the matchmakers so he started to call them himself. Mostly he was told that he should marry another baal teshuva. He didn't want to. He desperately wanted to marry a "real one".
In the meantime, he was spending a lot of time at the yeshiva and on shabbat he would have meals with other Hasidic families. He started to see the way these families treat the women and each other and he was appalled. He strongly believed that he was "more Hasidic then they were". He vowed that if he was able to marry a Hasidic girl he would be kinder to her than any Hasid was capable of. He didn't want to marry a woman who would slave in the kitchen and be worn out being a "baby factory". He wanted a partner in life.
Life become more difficult for Joni. His peers were being married off and no family would consider him. It especially hurt when parents of his friends wouldn't consider him as an appropriate match for their daughters. He would question their motives for inviting him to their shabbat meals. He would say that they were trying to obtain mitzvot by having guests at their tables. But they were not treating their guests as people, just as opportunities to do mitzvot. He felt this way about the Hasidim in Netanya as well as those in Boro Park.
Then he heard of an opportunity to get married in NY. He heard of a girl from a divorced home. The Hasidic community thought this girl was "damaged goods" (due to the divorce and she had something wrong with her eye or her leg). But he didn't believe that these things make a girl "damaged". He came to NY to meet her.
His mother was frantic. She called my mother. You can only imagine how a secular/traditional Israeli mother feels when her son is dressing Hasidic and running off to NY to get married. Miki called me. "Please take care of my brother". I promised I would. Joni arrived in NY July 26, 1999.
Before Jonathan came to NY we spoke on via email and an instant message program on the computer. He asked me about the kashrut in my home and about the synagogues in Merrick. I agreed to take my dishes the mikveh with his help. We ended up with all my dishes at the beach. It was great fun. And now my home is "more kosher" which I appreciate.
He also noticed that I only had 3 mezuzzahs up (front door, my bedroom, my daughter's bedroom). He took it upon himself to obtain one for each doorway in my home and to put them up. I always really appreciated his help. (I'm more observant than my husband, and sometimes it's a struggle-but that's a different story).
The shidduch didn't materialize. I don't know the particulars. Jonathan was staying at my parents' house and he became very depressed. He was trying to get a place to study at the Tzanz yeshiva in Boro Park and Yussel, the man in charge of the boys at the Yeshiva was giving him a hard time. He went to the Rabbi of the community and he also gave him a hard time. These people were not very nice to him. Finally, Yussel said he could study at the Yeshiva but he could not live there. This happened in October. He was assigned a study partner, Chaim Elbogen. Chaim was not one of the brighter boys at the Yeshiva and spent a most of his days playing cards. Jonathan wanted to learn Torah but he didn't have a partner that was interested or a place to stay in Brooklyn.
Someone i knew had a friend who lives in Boro Park who said Jonathan could live with them and she would help him get a spot in the dormitory. (Jonathan called this woman a "nebuch lawyer" but was grateful for her help). This was right before Sukkot. Jonathan arrived at the home of Rabbi and Mrs Sheingarten and was asked to build their sukkah. He did. He lived with them for a few months. They couldn't get Yussel to change his mind about the dormitory. While he was there, a woman by the name of Esther who was married and had a few young children offered to help Jonathan. She did his laundry, she called matchmakers on his behalf. (Jonathan also felt that she behaved inappropriately - she walked barefoot in front of him, she once touched him to remove a price tag and he was furious, and she just stood to close to him). By now Jonathan had developed a long list of matchmakers that he was in touch with himself. She had more that she could call. She took on his mission and was determined to help him find a bride. After a while Jonathan felt that although she seemed to be trying to find him a match her inappropriate behavior was more than he could bare. He stopped going to see her. We found a letter in Jonathan's apartment that she wrote him after he stopped going to visit her. She seemed heartbroken. Miki has this letter.
Jonathan's pain at not being accepted by the community was growing. He went on a Taanit Dibor hoping it would help his situation. Sheingarten family kicked him out of their home. They called me to tell me that he was crazy because he wasn't talking.
He stayed in my home for a few days and then got his own apartment. He kept studying at the yeshiva, kept calling matchmakers. He would visit me every Friday and then go back to Brooklyn. We also spoke a few times a day. He was getting more and more depressed. He said that if he couldn't find a wife he was going to kill himself. It seemed that all the matchmakers wanted him to marry another baal teshuva. He didn't want to. He asked, why should I live in a "baal teshuva ghetto". Why won't they accept me? They kept pushing him away. He kept watching the community. He told me some crazy stories about the people in the community. Things that were hard to believe. (After having read Naomi Regan's books and the blog of the rebel hasid, I'm more inclined to believe that the people in the religious community do not always treat each other with kindness.)
He started having shabbat meals at the home of his study partner, Chaim Elbogen, from the Tzanz yeshiva. He "fell in love" with Chaim's sister, she smiled at him. I called Chaim's mother on his behalf. She explained to me that her daughter could not marry a baal teshuva. That's not how it works. He doesn't have the right family. Jonathan was despondent.
Jonathan decided he would kill himself since he could not find a wife. He called this his "Plan B". However, he was frugal. He didn't want to kill himself and still have money left as a security deposit on his apartment. It was July 2000. He went to his landlord and said he would be moving back to Israel when he "lived out" the security deposit on his apartment. I was frantic. I knew he wasn't going back to Israel. He gave up his apartment. This could only mean one thing. I called his parents. They didn't believe me. I called his brother, Miki, who was in the IDF at this point. Miki wanted to come to NY right away and save his brother from this terrible fate, but dealing with the army was not easy. He got permission to come but it wasn't until October. I didn't know if we had time. I called suicide hotlines and therapists. Jonathan took the telephone number from me for one of the therapists in Boro Park and the suicide hotline. He said, "I am taking this from you so that when I kill myself you don't have to think that you didn't do everything you could. But I am not going to call."
Then Jonathan met Mordechai, a Hasidic divorced man, who offered to help him. It was like a miracle. He wasn't going to kill himself after all. Mordechai had a extra apartment that he was renting to an old lady that died. This woman had no family and someone had to clean out the apartment. Jonathan could live in the apartment rent free while cleaning it out and then start to pay rent when it was cleaned. Joni moved into the apartment. I was so relieved that he wasn't dead. Miki came to NY again in October. Mordechai was helping Jonathan and everything seemed ok. As each holiday passed, Joni would say, "I can't believe its Rosh Hashana and I'm still alive." "I can't believe its Yom Kippur and I'm still alive." "I can't believe its Hanukkah and I'm still alive." I started to let my guard down. Maybe things were going to be ok. I didn't know Jonathan had already written suicide notes that we would find the following June. No wonder he was so surprised to be alive.
Mordechai and Jonathan developed a story. Jonathan needed a new pedigree and a new name. Part of the reason he couldn't marry a Hasidic girl was his name. His last name was a Sephardic name, which was no good in the Hasidic community. They chose a new name, Jonathan Alias. At some point, they figured they could just say, "oy, did you think it was Alias, no, you must have heard wrong." They also made up a new pedigree for Jonathan based on his maternal grandparents. It was only a half lie. Something about his grandmother's father being a Hasidic rabbi from Poland. Nothing was said about his secular traditional family. It was said that his parents were "Modern" and the Hasids assumed Modern orthodox or something. He figured when it came time to meet his family he could convince his father to don a hat and his mother to put on a wig. (Ironically, his mother is now wearing a wig as she recovers from chemotherapy for her struggle with ovarian cancer). Mordechai had some friends in Israel who were willing to say they knew him and his family if anyone called to check on his pedigree. As it turns out, this friend did get some calls. Everything seemed like it was going to work out.
Now Jonathan Alias had a pedigree and Mordechai called matchmakers. This went on for a few months. On June 14, 2001, Jonathan, was still not married. He was turning 23 on June 21. He didn't have faith that he could get married to a Hasidic girl like he longed to do. He hung himself from the bars on the window in his apartment in Brooklyn with his gartel. Shiva ended on his 23rd birthday.
At 6:00 am June 14, 2001 Miki called me, he was crying. Jonathan called him to say goodbye. Miki immediately called me to see if I could do something. I called Joni's apartment and he didn't answer. I called the police. By now Mordechai had found him and the Jewish ambulance was there. The police came too. It was too late. The police built a story. They found one of my sonograms in the apartment and thought something was fishy. Maybe he got a girl pregnant. This couldn't be farther from the truth. He just kept me company one day when I went for a sonogram and the technician handed him a copy of the picture. I had promised Miki that I would help his brother. And in the process, we had become great friends. Of course this baby wasn't Jonathan's. She looks just like my husband.
Jonathan told Miki to look for some money in his jacket. He had been working taking care of old and/or sick Hasidic men (and he used to tell me some really funny/tragic/horrific stories about these men). He had enough money to send his own body back to Israel. He was quickly shipped back and buried in Israel.
When Miki came to NY in July 2001 we went to the apartment in Brooklyn to clean it out. We found the suicide notes that Joni wrote the previous August when he had given up his apartment. One for his immediate family and one for me.
I've been struggling to find the meaning of his life/death ever since. Jonathan was a young man with a dark sense of humor. He was bright. He taught himself yiddish and physics and was well read. He was a great friend.
Throughout his ordeal he would find ways to laugh at the situation. However, it was also obvious that he was in a lot of pain. He came into our lives and filled us with humor and pain. And now he's gone. He wanted to tell the world about the Hasidic community. How awful they treat their women. How terrible they treat anyone who wants to enter into the community. In the suicide note he wrote me, he asked me to expose them but also remind the world that he saw something beautiful in the girls. So i'm writing this blog and will add to it as i remember different stories about joni. And I still don't think I've told the story in the way that Jonathan would have liked me to, but I did the best that I can.
// posted by deborah @ 1:04 AM
Comments (25)
[ Wed Oct 08, 09:40:21 AM]
Here are the comments from my first post.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Oh, dear . . . I'm so sorry about your cousin. Nobody deserved to be treated like he did. I'm sure he would have made a terrific husband - now we'll never know.
Lola | Email | Homepage | 07.15.03 - 6:28 pm | #
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Dear Deborah
I am really saddened by reading your story about your cousin Jonathan, and since I am part of the Chasidic Community I will try to defend "A little" our community. Don’t get me wrong, I am not legitimizing anything that was done to Jonathan, but since you are writing against Hasidim in general I feel the urge to respond and say my point of view.
I was lately involved with Baal Tshuvah who was married to a regular Hasidic girl, the guy let himself grow a beard, put on a Shtraimel, moved to Israel and did anything that would identify him with Hasidic community. Today a few months later he his is back to the US without his wife. I am not going to go into details what went wrong in their marriage and I don’t know the story exactly, but one thing I know he is now trimming his beard slowly and he his telling everyone that he went too far and I agree with him.
The point that I am trying to make is, It is a very sticky subject. since we are such a tight knot community it is very hard to accept someone form the outside. Even though he had all good intentions of becoming the right Hasid, it still does not make him a Hasid. Lets not kid ourselves, your parents would also not be so happy if you married another ethnic group that it is totally different than yours, even though he would “Try” to change the way you are.
The best evidence is, that most Baal Tshuvah themselves don’t want to marry a Baal Tshuvah. If they believe they can change enough and blend into our community why don’t they believe they can have a spouse that did the same? Again let me stress, I am not trying to mock the Baal Tshuvah community. The opposite I really have respect for them and I really like to be in their surrounding. I go quite often to Israel and I go to their communities and yeshivas, sit out with them and really enjoy myself with them.
I don’t want to get into an argument on how we treat our wives, but if he saw such bad things in the Hasidic community why did he still want to be part of it? I understand his an your pain, but mocking a whole community doesn’t help.
It’s a shame that he is not with us anymore.
Moishee | Email | 07.18.03 - 11:34 am | #
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Dear Deborah,
I too belong to the Hasidic community, and I too will attempt a say in this matter. First, from you own words it is evident that Joni was a troubled kid, and his phsychological makeup was troubled far deeper than merely a desire to fit into a community. You say he was a strange kid even before he became orthodox and then thereafter landing himself in prison. Obviously he was very intense with a propensity for extremism bordering on fanaticism. He chose to become a Hasid only because it was in his mind some sort of far off fanatical and extremist way of life.
Another example is the fact that his life sadly culminated in the death by his own hand only at the young tender age of 23, for the reason of not being able to get married.
Let me tell you, I, as a hasidic boy had my own troubles finding a prospective mate, I got married at age 24, saw all my friends and entire social circle advance before me, having 2-3 children before I got engaged. It may have been a trying situation, but not something that warranted the thought of suicide to ever enter my mind. So all I ask is for you to judge Joni's feelings and his tragic outcome, by the barometer of his own limitations of emotional stability.
Now let me address the issue of not accepting him for marriage in the community.
First, we must again revert to the suggestion that maybe the reason was his strangeness and not the fact that he was a baal teshuva. There is a prevailing belief in the community and I might admit that in my mind as well, that a large percentage of baalei teshuva are strange and eccentric. It stands to reason that a person of a healthy environment and personality would not abruptly drop his old way of life, his friends, his family etc. Of course we are full of admiration and respect for this tremendous sacrifice, but yet there still is this dynamic of the eccentric personality. In Joni's case, it probably was not just a stereotype.
In addition to that there is a concept in jewish law that deals with these issues. A person born from non religious parents, means that most probably the parents did not observe the laws of family purity. In that case there is an impurity in the offspring and people shy away from it.
About his taking issue with the way Hasidim treat their wives, I will not be the defender of all of them. Just for the record, I grew up in a fine home, my Dad treated my Mom with the utmost respect, and I do so to my wife as well. There are many people that I know that do the same, there are some that I know don't.
It is no different than the rest of the world, only that it's better. The charges of domestic violence and wife battery do not come from our community. Cheating and deviation is drastically lower in our community.
It is true though that women do have a role that is more modest and homemaker oriented. Yes, Judaism is not a feminist movement. And being that Joni was an Israeli, he probably knows that in the Arab countries
David | Email | 07.18.03 - 2:26 pm | #
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Continued....
And being that Joni was an Israeli, he probably knows that in the Arab countries and Sephardic communities this particular issue is in a torrid state with regard to the treatment of women.
All in all, the article as written reeks of religious hatred and blind rebellion. There are truths that can be respectfully discussed, but in the context of this blog most responses will be by disenchanted angry youngsters who know not what they do.
May we all merit to do what's right, and revel in the gift of Life Peace and Happiness.
David | 07.18.03 - 2:29 pm | #
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Dear Deborah,
I am truly sorry for the loss of your cousin Jonathan. You have described a human being that seemed bright, curious and full of wonder.
I am not Jewish (I was brought up Christian, but am no longer practicing), but I think that there are young people (men, in particular) who tend to be attracted to aspects of spirituality (no matter what the denomination) that require absolute obediance.
You did the best that you could do-it was his decision.
Thank you for writing his story!
Penelope
Penelope | Email | 07.18.03 - 5:09 pm | #
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I'm an Israeli young student. Personally, I feel very little affection towards the hasidic lifestyle (I was grown up in a 'misnaged' ultra orthodox house, but today I'm much less religious).
However, I cannot deny that the story you wrote described a young man of very unstable personality.
It's pity that psychologists and psychiatrists were not there to help him. However, in this case, it would be unjust to put the blame on the hassidic community.
Shay | Email | 07.20.03 - 10:14 am | #
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Y'know, the fact that he insisted on a girl from a particular background, and would under no circumstances consider someone from a different kind of family, no matter what she was like, means that he was operating under the same model as the parents of those girls. If he considered baalei teshuva to be beneath consideration, then why shouldn't they feel the same way?
What's more, it sounds to me that he was looking for a girl from a `real' chassidishe family as a sort of token of his acceptance into the community, as a prize or a trophy; what does that really say about how he would have regarded and treated her, if he had succeeded? Is that really the sort of marriage you would want for yourself or your daughter? Perhaps it was his open obsession with finding such a match that was taken by prospective in-laws as a warning sign.
And, as painful as this must be, the fact that the story turned out as it did shows that they did have a point.
Sooner or later life would have thrown another frustration at him, as it does to everyone, and if he had the sort of personality that obsessed over this to the point of taking his life, chances are that he wouldn't have handled his later frustrations any better.
It sounds cruel, but all those parents who wouldn't let him go out with their daughters must have felt a horrible relief when they heard the news - `how terrible that we drove him to this, but what a relief that our daughter was saved from getting involved with him'. I know that were I one of those parents, that's how I would feel (not that I would have turned him down just for being a baal teshuva, but if I'd met him and turned him down for some other reason, I would feel both horrified and greatly relieved when I heard what happened).
Z | 07.20.03 - 1:07 pm | #
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My girlfriend forwarded me the link, I can not help but feel the same pain that you feel.
My family is a traditional family, my mother an Israeli nation, born when it was still called Palestine, the child of two Pioneers who left Poland in the 1920's, my father a Holocaust surviver from the Warsaw Ghetto.
My brother became religious when he was 8, this lead him to go to Ner Israel Yeshiva in Baltimore and he eventually got his smicha there.
He returned home in the Pacific North West and got his law degree, then he went out in search for a bride.
He didn't want a Baal Tshuva, he wanted a blue blood pedagree girl.
He was rather dejected that all that was offered to him were divorcees and girls with "problems".
When match-makers first saw him, they wanted to give him the best that they had, his credentials of being the top of his sheer at Yeshiva, and one of the best bochers made them want to give him the best.
But then they learned how his mother and father while active in the orthodox community were not religious themselves, and what is worse, that my mother didn't go to the mikvah after she would menstrate.
This is ofcourse not even touching the fact that he is from the West Coast. Or that his brother (Me) has long hair, goes to goth clubs and has piercings through his face (though I am shomer shabbous), and that his other brother is an atheist.
He was offered girls from very poor families who were just trying to marry into a wealthy family, girls with real medical issues.
He would spend hours talking to my father about his pain.
The first shiduch that he went on, was in Seattle, the daughter of a Rabbi who is a lobbiest with the Christian Right wanted to meet him. So we drove down, I visited friends for the weekend in Seattle and he went on his first date.
The drive back home on the Sunday was three hours of him micro-analyzing every issue, why did she do this or they say that.
He spent the next year flying to New York ever few months to try to find a wife.
He agonized about it and it was dreadful.
Fortunately he found a wonderful girl whom my entire family addores. They recently had a baby girl, the first addition to my family since I was born.
But your story has touched a nerve. I would ask him time and time again, what is wrong with a Baal Tsuvah, whey must she have pedagree. I can understand about wanting a girl who hasn't "been around" find, but what is wrong with a girl who became religious when she was young?
Now at 25, as I myself am coming closer to marriage, my girlfriend, a wonderful girl whose maternal grandfather intermarried, she is begining her Orthodox conversion, she is a girl who is I would say, even more religious than me, she is good enough, it doesn't matter that she is a returny, I am more impressed with someone who "saw the world" and decided that a closeness with Hashem and being an orthodox Jew is truely seeing the world, than someone who was born religious an
Ziv | Email | 07.20.03 - 2:00 pm | #
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David,
Very Good, well put.
Jay | Email | 07.22.03 - 11:34 am | #
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I'm so sorry to hear this story about your cousin.
I belong to the Hasidic Community in Boro Park and I did research on this story and it ends up being that there is much more to this story than you wrote. "Jonathan was not one of the smart people in our society", why else would he commit suicide?!? For not getting married? I got married when I was 26, did I ever think about comitting suicide? Who in their right minds commits suicide?
I personally know of two Baalei Tshuvoth, which both became Baalei Tshuvoth when they were 19. They both married girls from the Boro Park Community. Yes, these girls family's had some issues but you know why they were able to marry to these girls? Because they are normal and stable people. From what I understood from my research is that Jonathon wasn't stable and who knows what he would end up doing or being like??
Abe | Email | 07.22.03 - 4:38 pm | #
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True, Jonathan may not have been a paradigm of stability or normality. But was he treated decently or in line with any jewish standards? No, not at all.
Humbert | Email | 07.22.03 - 6:09 pm | #
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Humbert, in what way do you think he was treated indecently, or out of line with Jewish standards? All we have to go on is his sister's account, and the *only* complaint she makes is that nobody wanted to have him introduced to their daughters. Once you admit that he `may not have been a paradigm of stability or normality', would *you* want him going out with your daughter? Do decency and Jewish standards compel a parent to endanger their daughter's happiness in order not to hurt a crazy man's feelings? Isn't the first principle of decency and Jewish standards that parents must look after their children?
Or do you subscribe to that curious secular notion that women don't count, and it's all about the feelings of men? Oh wait, that's not what secular people claim to think at all. They're usually accusing religious Jews (a category which they seem to think is synonymous with Chassidim) of having such an attitude. But when it's convenient the mask drops and the primitive sexism can be seen in the oh-so-enlightened eyes.
Z | 07.23.03 - 11:51 am | #
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I have to respond to this one. The community did not treat jonathan decently. I guess I should have included some of these stories, without just illuding to them and writing them another time. I could tell you about Reb Fish who employed jonathan to help take care of him. and how after two days work told him those two days were a "tria" and he would not get paid for them. I could tell you about how each time Jonathan asked Yussel, of the tzanz yeshiva in boro park if he could study at the yeshiva he was told, "call me next week". I think Yussel was hoping Jonathan would go away. He told him that for at least six weeks. until he finally gave him a study partner. (but not a place in the dorm, which he had in Netanya and was expecting here as well.) There was another old man who he was hired to take care of who used to hit him. (well, maybe that man was old and losing his mind, so should we excuse him?) and then there are the stories about what jonathan observed about how they treat each other. I could go on and on. but i have to stop now. I will continue to tell these stories on my blog. As time permits.
deborah | Email | Homepage | 07.23.03 - 9:26 pm | #
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when i write without editing i tend to make errors.
Those first two days with reb Fisch were a "trial" - (which he was told after, not before).
deborah | 07.23.03 - 9:28 pm | #
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I will preface my comments by saying that Jonathan's suicide is without a shadow of a doubt an unfathomable tragedy. It seems sadly ironic, however, that as "frum" and "hasidic" as he was(btw, the Talmud defines "hasid" as 'one who observes more than the law requires')Jonathan chose to opt out in a most un-jewish and un-lawful way. Indeed, suicide is justifiable by jewish law only in extremely rare circumstances- and not getting a "blue-blooded" shidduch is NOT one of the exceptions.
sollyman | 07.24.03 - 10:58 am | #
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comment to Sollyman and all of you- you see he commited this suicide since he saw and felt after all that he couldn't see any good and pure in this life everything was soo counterfeit , forged and fake and even though he was sensitive he waited too long and had all the patience to hope for good' but everyone there betrayed him betrayed the way & religion they believed in' so i'm saying it's the selfish way of thoses communities that i felt that treatment for him.
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miki joni's brother | Email | 07.26.03 - 7:38 am | #
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this is a very disturbing story on so many levels.
as much as i feel sympathy for the trials that jonathan faced, i must also agree with the many other commenters who point out that there seem to have been other psychological/emotional issues at play here. the inability to get married may have been the 'straw', but there appears to have been a predisposition to instability which made matters very much worse.
having said all that, as a person from the "outside world" involved in jewish orthodoxy, i definitely have seen some things which are extremely concerning. my religious/spiritual life is about me and hashem, so ultimately i am not moved by the opinions/behaviour of any (hu)man. it is obvious, however, that the frum community keeps those not frum from birth at arms length. i can see how this would be damaging for some.
cj | Email | 07.29.03 - 1:11 pm | #
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dear devorah:
through your tear-filled words wise ears can here that there is more between the lines then in them itself.
when any person accouters a problem big or small the first intuition that hits is throw the blame on someone else’s shoulders, and the reason for that is simple because for a person going through a crisis to bare the pain of the crisis itself and the burden of fault to is very hard, so subcontiously the person tries to shake any guilty feelings away.
in our case here, in my opinion, the same rule applies, now even though i am very sorry for your cousins death but, the finger pointing you demonstrate is completely wrong and inappropriate.
i as a friend of this "chaim elbogen" can tell you that first of all this that you wrote that he is not of the brighter students is totally off track cause as i said i know him personally and the reason Jonathan was appointed to this fellow was because chaim as known by his friends is a very nice guy, a serious learner, and is known for his psychological capabilities, by helping out anyone in need witch as it sadly turned out jonathan was badly in need of.
now this what you say that the elbogen family was wrong with the fact that they didn’t want to give Jonathan there daughter, well in my opinion its like any person like one of us and asking a million aire to give us here daughter, don’t you understand that there is a significant difference between the life style he grew up on and maintained during his stay in the usa to the one a ultra hassidic girl grows up? I mean are you so naive as to think that such a mach would even work out? you know that you wouldn’t sacrifice you flesh and blood to an "unknown source" and thats exactly the reason of the chain of events that you dramatized about, so please don’t preach that the Chasidim are cruel and unfair.
and most of all dont you think that there just gotta be something wrong with a guy that commits suicide? just think about it somebody should kill himself for these stupid reasons? aren’t there alternatives to the desires that jonathan wanted? now god be blessed that a young Jewish girl didn’t fall prey to the hand of a suicidal pity-full guy.
I hesitated to write until I contacted Mr. Elbogen himself to here the other side of the story which made much more sense then your venomous finger pointing and blame against a beautiful community that contributed absolutely nothing to the sorrowful death of you innocent cousin.
Anyway’s I’m sorry for any unreasonable loss of life but if you want to point a finger of blame then please point it to the direction of your cousin, cause after all if the reason of his killing himself would’ve been logically justified then there would’ve been thousands of suicides a day, in our communities and thank god that there aren’t.
shnitzelberg | Email | 07.30.03 - 6:52 pm | #
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It is indeed sad moreso since i kinda knew your cousin through my uncle (mothers brother)mordechai that you mentioned in your article. I remember talking to a very intelligent chassidic guy and only later would i find out more details about his story. In all fairness the hassidic community in general and in B.P in particular cannot be completely blamed for what happened, obviously he had severe emotional problems and was thinking about suicide long before he came in contact with the aforementioned. I must agree with you however, on certain aspects that you raised about this community. The attitude toward women, sex and outsiders especially. I was a part of this community and Thank G-d have long ago left it. But more about me in a different post.
doug | Email | 07.30.03 - 8:22 pm | #
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Deborah,
1. Would you want your daughter to marry someone who is capable of comitting suicide for having "trouble" in his life?
2. You were trying to say that he was a regular Hasidic boy so you don't understand why they didn't want him to marry their daughter. Now you were saying that he had a copy of yous sonogram in his apartment because he kept you company for the day and "the technician handed him a copy of the picture". This means that he was in the room with you, tell me if you know of another hasidic boy that will go with his, lets even say FIRST cousin for a sonogram?? Even if he's VERY close with her. So obviously the people in the comunity saw something more than just mental problems in him.
Duvid Y | Email | 08.01.03 - 1:51 pm | #
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Maybe Gd allowed Jonathan some peace, before he would find himself in Hasidic hell. Sometimes we don't understand that maybe Gd prevented Jonathan from a worse fate. Not that suicide is good. Far from it. We can't know all the details of what Jon was spared, but we can see that this tight community was not what he'd hoped to find in a spiritual community. If Hasids think fellow Jews are damaged, impure goods, let them intermarry and leave us in peace. We shouldn't venture over there and Jon's lesson is ours, too. No finger pointing, just a warning that this community has been closed off too long and are writing their own laws which aren't Torah laws. It's more like a cult. If we're so impure, maybe Gd has cordoned the Hassids off for our good, not theirs. This doesn't have to be a war between Jews, just a warning to preserve us from ourselves. Carol
Carol | 08.03.03 - 1:12 am | #
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Carol,
I'm a Hasidic Girl from Brooklyn. Would you want me to your daughter? Why not? Am I damaged?
Whatever you wrote about the hasidic community is true in your community.
Esty | 08.08.03 - 1:05 pm | #
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Dear Deborah,
I want to thank you for communicating your cousin's story. Your love for him and appreciation for his unique presence in the world comes through. Reading this story I feel pained too that he left you with this burden to speak for him, or of him, and in all his searching he didn't find the pathway to tell his own story. I can understand how much you must miss him.
I was raised Catholic, but don't consider myself Christian anymore. If anything I am still a searcher who has not found a place. Through studying German literature I came to learn Yiddish and also, in explorations of European Jewish history, came to be very interested in Hasidism historically, and, particularly, in the impact it made on the German Jewish community at the beginning of the twenthieth century, in an indirect way, through the stories and teachings, sometimes poetically rendered in German.
I read many of the comments to your story and I think it is important, as you said, that people have been moved and have come forth to express so many different perspectives.
Personally I did not find that the story read (to me, as an outsider) as a blanket criticism or condemnation of the Hasidic community in general, as many people personally involved with that community seem to be understanding it. It came through, on the one hand, that your cousin had some bad experiences, but these kinds of experiences are possible (as I think someone said) in any community; and the aspect of this community being very close-knit and somewhat wary of people coming from the outside seems understandable. Through the discussion you started, the complex relationship between the Hasidic community and others standing outside of it becomes just a little more illuminated, and I think that's very valuable to everyone who comes across your site.
But, in reading your cousin's story, I was not only seeing his frustrating experiences in trying to become and feel accepted by the Hasidic community but also, on the other hand, sensing the very emotional, turbulent, unclarified inner experiences which he seemed to be aswirl in; and I think if he could have found a strong connection with a psychotherapist or someone in a counseling capacity it might have saved him from going to the extreme of taking his own life.
Mainly I wanted to tell you that I found the way you told the story to be very un-polemical, honest and open to letting all the different pieces of his experience which you came to know simply emerge for themselves in your communication and stand side by side. One can sense many different realities reading the story without being compelled to judge that your cousin was right or wrong in some way or the Hasidic community was right or wrong.
all good wishes,
Violet
Violet | Email | 08.14.03 - 1:02 pm | #
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so sad...
thank you for sharing.
if i ever can do anything for you.... please let me know.
i hope Jonathan has found his place in heaven. Amen.
Guila | Email | 09.30.03 - 4:40 pm | #
