I have a friend named Gifty but this isn't her
I don't remember where I first read this but I think credit goes to What Would Phoebe Do?.
I am not a fan of the rightward swing of the Orthodox world in general. I have no problem with piety; but since community standards have moved more into line with written law (read about it), we have shrunken our "big tent". But this week’s NY Magazine story about Satmar and a woman named Gitty isn't only an affront to right wing orthodoxy (if we can call Satmar that), it's a crudely shaped attack on the freedom to not live as a drug addicted hipster. The author of the article seems to take umbrage with the fact that poor Gitty isn't allowed to have custody over her daughter, despite the fact that her life was recently: "hanging out, some on acid, playing Hasidic songs, wrapping each other in prayer shawls, shouting praises of the Baal Shem Tov, and screaming they were the new hippies." The bias is evident in the reporter’s depiction of the court proceedings:
Obviously, this was Yoely’s plan from the start, Gitty said. He knew about the rebels, that Gitty had hung out with them. Gitty’s lawyer, Daniel Schwartz, offered his client only cold comfort. “You fail that test, and you can kiss custody good-bye,” he told her. “You’re sunk.”
If checking to find out if the mother of his child is still a daily drug user is a "plan" then I hope that all fathers "plan" carefully when they are negotiating for custody. This is a simple tale of a marriage gone wrong and a banal custody fight, not the cultish disaster depicted here. She herself doesn't even claim that she was prevented from leaving, held hostage, and all that seems to be preventing her from getting more custody over her daughter is a general lack of stability. It would be impossible for the author to understand the twists and turns of the moderate Orthodox community, much less the trip down the rabbit hole that is Satmar. And is it me or did the author mostly choose pictures of Gitty showing a little leg or cleavage?
But as much as I'm critical of the reportage I have an equal amount of bewilderment at the inner workings of Satmar. When it is clear that a woman is going off of the derech, why aren’t there people who have connections to “middle of the road” orthodox communities; so when someone who chafes against the hard embrace that is Satmar, they can find a place for her there. Surely it’s better for a woman to be shomer mitzvos (but not like the Satmar) than to live in NYC like a shiktza. The other subtext to this sad situation is the ongoing issue of baal teshuvah integration into established communities. Was Gitty’s mother prepared to raise a little girl in her chosen shtetle? Raising frum girls is hard enough when you yourself grew up that way, from what I hear it’s even more difficult when your childhood bears no resemblance to the experiences of your child. Also, at what age was Gitty brought into the Satmar world? What damage did her mother’s remarriage do to Gitty? What support systems are there for those who are in combined families, Gitty didn’t seem to have a positive experience:
“Soon, very possibly, Esther Miriam would become nothing more than an afterthought, the bad memory of her ex-husband’s first, terribly failed marriage. She’d be the older stepsister charged with the care of her younger, favored siblings, a drudge cleaning between the floorboards for weeks before each Passover, someone who saw beautiful rainbows and felt only dread.”
*sigh*
UPDATE: her blog
