Thread by @PosenIzzy

What's life like after leaving one of the most insular and religiously-controlling communities in the West?
#ThisOTDLife: a THREAD 👇👇

Pics: me in 2015 vs me now.

The Chassidic community is one of the most insular and fundamentalist religious communities in the West. I use those terms descriptively, not judgmentally. It has a unique, rich and beautiful culture and family life, with charitable social services to be envious of. /2

The chassidic community is also very religiously controlling, with little to no room for questioning authority or free thinking on theological/social matters. It is not very welcoming of non-conformists or those who think/live differently. /3

Those who leave or who get cast out are called in the diaspora OTD - off the derech, 'derech' meaning the beaten path. It is a tongue-in-cheek reclamation of a judgemental description. In Israel we're called 'Yotzim' - leavers. /4

The journey is incredibly challenging for everybody. The BBC followed mine a year in: bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04…

The Times featured me a little later: thetimes.co.uk/article/meet-t… /5

4 years into my journey @PorterAlice2 created this about my story for the BBC. It has over half a million views on YouTube: /6

I am now 6.5 years into this journey. #ItGetsBesser. It really does. The journey is by no means over yet, but over time you come to terms with what you've been through and you make peace with it.
Here is what being OTD means for me now: /7

Being OTD means that you are constantly dealing with very complex and painful family dynamics. You're excluded, banned, cast out. You no longer know who your siblings are. The younger ones don't know that you exist. You weren't invited to your siblings' weddings. /8

Being OTD means that you love your family and miss them everyday. They hurt you and you hurt them. You have traumatised your family and negatively affected their status in the community. They have traumatised you and left you completely on your own when you needed them so much./9

Being OTD means that you are in touch with 1 brother out of 9 siblings. You have only each other, you support each other and love and respect each other to bits. /10

Being OTD means that you are part of a special, beautiful community of people who are on extraordinary journeys and who have braved extreme adversity. There is hurt, pain, love, empathy, creativity, growth and sadly also suicide and loss. /11

Being OTD means that you are there for your fellow travellers and you turn to each other for advice and support. Not many people understand what we are going through, so we look out for each other. Those further into their journey mentor those who recently embarked on it. /12

Being OTD means that you have experienced life in 2 radically different societies and cultures. You give up trying to escape from, and erase, the way of life of your younger years. You learn to accept your complex identity and to integrate and cherish all aspects of your life./13

Being OTD means that you have to master the art of hopping between different worlds and the different norms and values that exist in them. With some friends your behaviour is Western/liberal/middle-class/educated. With others it is male-chassidic. /14

Being OTD means that you let each part of your life enrich and enhance the other. You're a chassidic man with a master's in physics and philosophy. You're also a secular young professional with a chassidic background. /15

Being OTD means that you get to forge your own life for yourself. You get to pick and choose from the buffet of cultures life has exposed you to. /16

Being OTD means that you are nostalgic towards the culture of your youth, even as you are aware that it wasn't all happy. /17

Being OTD means that now that you have left the confines of that restrictive life, you get to reclaim your chassidic identity and culture. It is yours and no one gets to tell you otherwise. /18

Being OTD means that you are forging a new way of being chassidic and practicing its culture. You bring into being the "cultural chussid", in the same way 19th century Jews created the cultural Jew. /19

Being OTD is about what you choose to make of it. There are no rules. But if you are wise and lucky, you make of it something fun and positive and make the best out of this one life you were given. /END

(Video: cultural chassidim singing chassidic songs: )