JERUSALEM – When the coronavirus pandemic swept Israel, it changed Racheli Ohayon’s life in unexpected ways.
The 21-year-old call center employee had questioned her ultra-orthodox Jewish education before, but she always suppressed such thoughts by drowning them in even more strict religious observance.
Suddenly, she was out of work and under lockdown, her routine interrupted, holed up at home with seven younger siblings and plenty of time.
“When I had a lot of time to think, the questions came up again,” she said. “Suddenly, the rabbis didn’t know what to do. They are not doctors. “
She made a decision that is among the most blatant offenses in the ultra-Orthodox world: she left the community and adopted a secular lifestyle.
As the virus has spread to Israel in recent months, it has shaken the assumptions of some in the ultra-Orthodox island world, increasing the number of those who decide they want to leave.
Organizations that help ultra-Orthodox who have left the herd to navigate their transition from the highly structured and rule-based lifestyle to modern Israeli society have noticed an increase in demand for their services.
Experts attribute the outputs to a breach of supervision and routine, an increase in Internet use during the pandemic, and generally more time for questioning and self-discovery.
“If they are not in their usual educational structures and are on the internet, meeting friends and going to the beach, that leads to a lot of exposure,” said Gilad Malach, who runs the ultra-orthodox program at the Israel Democracy Institute, an independent think tank in Israel. Jerusalem. “They think of options that they don’t think of when they are on the yeshiva, and one of the options is to leave.”
For many, breaking up means being isolated by their families and leaving a narrow support system for an unknown culture. In extreme cases, the parents of the departing children sit down shiva, observing traditional mourning rituals as if they were dead.
While there is no comprehensive data on the scale of defections, Naftali Yawitz, who heads the division of the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs that helps finance these organizations, said there has been a “very significant wave” in recent months of new and more veteran layoffs looking for help.
One such organization, Hillel, which operates an emergency shelter with the ministry, as well as rent-free intermediate apartments for people leaving, has a waiting list for the shelter in Jerusalem, the first stop for many who have nowhere to go. He also saw a 50 percent increase in former ultra-Orthodox who sought help in the past year.
Out for Change, the other main organization, offered those who left the option of registering with the group for the first time last year, in part to help formalize their status in negotiations with the authorities. Although many are traumatized and in conflict with the rupture and reluctant to identify themselves, more than 1,300 have signed up.
This was exactly what the ultra-Orthodox rabbis feared and why some insisted so much on keeping their religious education institutions open, in violation of blocking regulations. In a letter calling for the reopening of women’s schools, Leah Kolodetzki, the daughter of an important rabbi, said that, in her father’s opinion, “boredom leads to sin” and puts girls in “serious spiritual danger”.
Israel Cohen, a prominent ultra-Orthodox political commentator, downplayed concerns about the growing flight of the ultra-Orthodox, known as Haredi in Hebrew, accusing Hillel, for example, of exploiting the health crisis to recruit more people who leave the country with an advertising campaign. But he acknowledged that the Haredi leadership feared losing control.
“There was a feeling that the coronavirus caused not only physical damage, in terms of illness and death, but also spiritual damage,” he said.
The pandemic has only accelerated a growing trend.
Even before the coronavirus crisis, the number of young adults leaving ultra-Orthodox communities reached about 3,000 a year, according to a study by the Israel Institute of Democracy, based on data until 2018.
Defections do not threaten the demographic influence of the Haredi. Haredim’s more than one million represent more than 12% of the population, and its high birth rate more than makes up for the number of people leaving.
Studies show that many who abandon Judaism do not entirely abandon Judaism, but seek more individualism and the ability to make their own choices about their lives.
But deserters often find themselves in an underworld, separated from their families, community and the only way of life they knew and, without a secular education, ill-equipped to deal with the outside world.
Most Haredi boys’ schools teach little or no secular subjects like math, English or science. Girls tend to study more math and English at school and go to seminars where they can learn certain professions like accounting.
After years of campaigning by activists, the Israeli government and the military recently introduced new policies recognizing ex-Haredim as a distinct social group, entitling them to special grants and courses to help them go to college, as well as funding for professional training programs.
“They are strong people who left their comfort zone, where they had few choices to make and everything was well defined,” said Nadav Rozenblat, chief executive of Out for Change. “If you chose to leave, it shows that you have motivation and firmness. It is like being a new immigrant in Israel ”.
The pandemic also opened the line between the Israeli mainstream and the ultra-Orthodox, who were hit hard by the coronavirus and attacked by critics for their resistance to anti-virus measures.
The battle for health and safety has only exacerbated existing resentments. For years, officials and experts have warned that the rapid growth of the ultra-Orthodox population threatens the economy. About half of all Haredi men study Torah full-time and subsist on government welfare. Most Haredi women work in low-quality jobs to support their families and, at the same time, be primarily responsible for raising children. Under a decades-old deal, most Haredi men avoid military service.
These concerns persuaded the government to offer financial incentives to young Haredi adults to stop studying full-time at religious seminars, to enroll for military service (a must for most 18-year-old Israelis), to take academic or training to compensate for gaps in their training and insertion in the labor market.
Under the new policies, those who have left the Haredi communities will have the same benefits, including educational and vocational programs offered to Haredi soldiers serving in special Haredi military units.
Likewise, the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs has recently started to define ex-Haredim as a special category eligible to receive vouchers for professional training courses, the same as those granted to Haredim.
The ministry also plans to open a preparatory course for those who wish to pursue higher education.
“It’s not just about learning ABC in English, it’s about social ABC,” said Yawitz, of the ministry. “It’s about talking to people. To learn from scratch what is normal and what is not. “
Yawitz himself left the ultra-Orthodox world when he was a young teenager. Isolated by his family, he lived on the streets and was arrested at the age of 17 for drug trafficking before being pardoned and rehabilitated. His personal struggle became the subject of a documentary.
Increasingly, however, the definition of ultra-orthodox has become more flexible as the community wears out. Some Haredim who adhered to modern life found options in some of the less rigid sects, allowing them to remain on the margins of the community instead of leaving it altogether. Others live a double life, maintaining a strictly orthodox lifestyle, but secretly breaking the rules.
Dedi Rotenberg and his wife, Divan, found that they both doubted the closet a few months after they were married in a union, the traditional method of marriage arranged in Haredi communities. About 15 months ago, they finally moved from Bnei Brak, the ultra-Orthodox city near Tel Aviv where the two grew up, to a secular life in the south.
“I still have to get used to a lot of things,” said Rotenberg. “Slang, movies. I hear my friends talking at least once a week and I have no idea what they are talking about ”.
Mrs. Ohayon attended an ultra-Orthodox school for girls, where the only story taught was Jewish history. The school had computers, she said, but they were not connected to the internet. She had never been to a movie, never worn a pair of jeans.
When she had to stop working because of the pandemic, she started to test the limits. She bought a smartphone and discovered new worlds of information and music through Google and YouTube. She entered the local library in Petah Tikva and started reading secular literature that was previously banned.
One particular novel, Kristin Harmel’s “The Sweetness of Forgetting,” took her out of her enclosed world. The novel follows the discovery of a Cape Cod woman from her secret family history, which spans the Holocaust and three different religious traditions.
Exposure to new cultures, people and ideas had a profound effect.
“I grew up with the feeling that the Haredim were special and different,” she said. “I discovered that I am not so special or different, that there are millions like me. That’s what suddenly made me say, ‘That’s it, I’m leaving.’ “