But the Orthodox community is diverse, with diverse beliefs, including feminists and advocates against dangerous extremism. Take Shoshanna Keats-Jaskoll, co-founder of the Orthodox organization Chochmat Nashim, which directly translates to “women’s wisdom.” 

Although she was born in Lakewood, New Jersey, a very traditional Orthodox community whose practices oft border on extreme, Keats-Jaskoll did not grow up religious, and therefore was not a witness to this extremism. Her drive to oppose extremism, she says, came later in life. However, justice has always been a core value of hers. Her grandparents, Holocaust survivors, inspired her not to stand idly by as others were being hurt. When Keats-Jaskoll joined the Haredi Beit Shemesh community in Israel, she first encountered extreme behavior taking place, for example, in the form of women and girls’ erasure in images and her young daughters pressured to sit in the backs of buses. Keats-Jaskoll subsequently arrived at the conclusion that the driving force behind the behavior was not Torah, but a desire to control. “There was just a sense that the Torah and the Judaism that I loved was being used for abusive purposes by those who wanted to control others,” she says. 

It spurred a revolution.

Chochmat Nashim was born after several factors came together for Keats-Jaskoll. Serving as the physical representative for her aunt, whose husband, in refusing to give her a get (Jewish divorce document), had fled to Israel and left her an agunah (chained woman), Keats-Jaskoll experienced disillusionment in the religious court and leadership. This, combined with an influx of letters from people who read her blog in the Times of Israel, telling her about how they had noticed similar extremism on the rise within their own religious communities, led Keats-Jaskoll to co-found Chochmat Nashim. Chochmat Nashim is an organization dedicated to fighting extremism within Orthodoxy and fighting for women and their rights. What makes Chochmat Nashim unique is the internal nature of the advocacy. When calls for change come from within the house, it is more likely to be perceived as originating from a genuine desire to help and improve, as opposed to external critiques, which are perceived as empty criticisms intended to belittle its practitioners. It is therefore less likely to be viewed as an attack and more likely to be heard. When there is a social problem plaguing the community, responses from within are more welcome.

Chochmat Nashim’s initiatives include the creation of a photo bank of ordinary Orthodox women, designed to counter the extremist erasure of women in Orthodox publications; a subtle campaign inside the Haredi world for breast cancer awareness, intended to encourage women to get checked; fighting for other agunot (women who are victims of get refusal), and a project for women to write more articles in spheres wherein female contributions to Torah insights may have gone unnoticed. Most recently, following the breaking news of the Chaim Walder case, Chochmat Nashim was involved with the distribution of flyers raising awareness of sexual assault and the dangers of including the Biblical prohibition against gossip in the dialogue around sexual abuse. 

Chaim Walder was a well-known children’s book author and therapist in the Haredi world, who was accused of serial sexual abuse of women and children over the course of decades in an exposè by Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz. Following a conviction by a Safed rabbinical court, Walder committed suicide. In the aftermath, the Haredi community varied in response to the allegations. Some newspapers reported on his death without mentioning the accusations, painting him as a hero; others included them. 

In general, Walder’s death prompted a wave of discourse on the appropriate response to sexual abuse within the Haredi world. Some, including anonymous Haredi women working on this campaign alongside Keats-Jaskoll, were horrified by the seemingly halfhearted responses to sexual abuse in their communities. Others cited the halachic prohibition against gossip as a reason not to discuss allegations or, presumably, address them. This notion is exacerbated by the old adage that lashon hara kills, and is therefore equivalent to murder. Keats-Jaskoll, in countering that concern, describes a hypothetical scenario in which a young Haredi boy sitting in school will, upon hearing this, think to himself, “Wow, I’m so happy I didn’t tell anyone that so-and-so touched me. And now I never will.”

The Haredi community is saying, ‘you’re not sacrificing our children anymore for the klal, for the entirety.’

In some cases, says Keats-Jaskoll, “anything that could bring harm to the community as a whole has to be stopped, regardless of who’s harmed in that process,” the community’s needs being prioritized over individuals’. There has been a change in sentiments brought about with the Walder case. Now, says Keats-Jaskoll, “the Haredi community is saying, ‘you’re not sacrificing our children anymore for the klal, for the entirety.’” A line has been drawn. No longer will Haredi people stand by as sexual predators’ crimes are brushed off, ignored under the guise of avoiding gossipmongering. To advertise the cause and their support for victims of sexual abuse, Haredi women put up fliers offering support to victims of sexual assault, redirecting them to available resources. As the community deeply values halacha, Jewish law, as well as the perspectives of Rabbinic authorities, they will sometimes obtain Rabbinic approval in order to address sensitivities of the Haredi world. A set of fliers that were put up quoted Rabbinic statements, elaborating on the importance of reporting sexual assault, and affirming that reporting sexual abuse does not violate the laws of lashon hara.

In the long run, Chochmat Nashim’s goal is to fight extremism and protect Orthodoxy. Extremism begins, says Keats-Jaskoll, by targeting the most vulnerable members of society, women and children. But when the most vulnerable members of society are treated fairly, that serves as indication that Chochmat Nashim has done its job. “When women are back in pictures in Orthodox publications, and there’s a systemic solution for Jewish divorce, so that no one’s trapped in marriage,” says Keats-Jaskoll, “I’m happy to close my doors.”

Change on the ground starts with change in the conversation.

It is clear that Chochmat Nashim has had an impact in recent years. “Change on the ground starts with change in the conversation,” says Keats-Jaskoll. And the conversation has changed. Various individuals have reached out to the organization to thank them for providing the words and the terminology to discuss their feelings. Members of the community reach out to Chochmat Nashim for advice on how to make change–and it works. Some people have even thanked Chochmat Nashim for being the reason that they did not leave Orthodoxy.

“I see change in the community wanting to take action, meaning they’re not sitting silently,” says Keats-Jaskoll. “They want to know, ‘How do I make personal change?’ As opposed to waiting for change from the top-down, I see a real movement of people wanting to make change within, bottom-up.”

The Orthodox community is complex. It isn’t easy to maintain a millenia-old legacy in a new world, and we will not always agree on the best approach. But we are, as one, driven by the beauty of our religion and committed to following its ways. Chochmat Nashim is a perfect example of the struggle to preserve our values, keep our faith, while simultaneously keeping a balanced, healthy Orthodoxy.

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Dor Yeshorim has disavowed the video, and claims that the girls reached out saying they regret the video’s leak. Since the girls are remaining anonymous, it is unclear if this is true, so as a compromise, we will not post the video here but link to it.  You can also read the full lyrics on Genius.

I decided to reach out to my resident expert on both Yeshiva life and rap music to analyze the girls’ song (#frumcore?) and decide whether or not it lives up to the hype, and examine its rap style and origins:

No disrespect, Beis Yaakov girls, I love what you’re doing, and you know I only say this because I’m truly genuine but someone’s got to say it: your flow is a shtickel wack. As a matter fact, all these frum MCs need to seriously step up. The current state of Orthodox rhyming is a chillul hashem, no question.

OK, OK, am I being too harsh? Aren’t these just kids? Of course I am, of course they are, but stick with me.

When I was in yeshiva a young fellow named Yaakov Shwekey was burning up kumzitzes and keduashas. There was genuine excitement in my high school when he passed through Chicago. I didn’t follow my friends to the concert, something I still regret. I bet Shwekey puts on a great show.

This was 2001, and while pop charts were dominated by Destiny’s Child, a smattering of R&B artists and the last gasps of commercial pop rock, Yaakov Shwekey’s music featured a disco beat. How significantly was Orthodox music behind the times? Disco Demolition Night was 1979, so let’s round it off to a solid thirty-year lag.

(Was Shwekey just disco? Of course not. There’s Carlebach in there, along with chazonus and a lot of other things. But the disco groove is undeniable.)

Back to the frum MCs: Our rap game is in the 1980s. We’ve got to stop rapping like Ronald Reagan is in office. Flow has evolved tremendously since then. In particular, rap no longer sounds like this:

Though, about 30 years ago, it did:

So, yeshiva boys and Beis Yaakov girls, turn off the metronome, loosen up. Some internal rhyme, please. And your rhythms sound like nursery songs. These day, rap sounds like this:

I don’t mean to boast, but damn, if I don’t brag

Them crackers gon’ act like I ain’t on they ass

The Martha Stewart that’s far from Jewish

Far from a Harvard student, just had the balls to do it

Minus the “damn,” “ass” and “balls” I see no reason why frum rap can’t sound more like this.

In conclusion, frum girls, your rhymes are wack. But they need not be. Study up, and start catching up.

Image credit: Pixabay

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The sidewalk outside Arlene’s Grocery on the Lower East Side of New York is usually populated by die hard rock fans and frat boys looking for late night shenanigans, but last Thursday night was a different scene: TV cameras, news vans, and hordes of women—many of them Orthodox Jews—were eagerly awaiting the official live debut of Hasidic alt-rock girl band Bulletproof Stockings, in front of a female-only audience. (The Jewish law of kol isha prohibits Orthodox women from performing in front of men.) There were long wigs, hippie headscarves, chic hats, sleeves and skirts of varying lengths—not to mention the non-Orthodox attendees dressed in less modest summer attire, canvas tote bags slung across bare shoulders. The eclectic crowd chatted freely with the many journalists who had come to cover the show, which was being filmed by filmed by Oxygen for their forthcoming TV series Living Different.

“Mom, I’m so glad we’re doing this together,” a twenty-something woman in an unassuming dress said to the bewigged, middle-aged woman standing next to her. Teens dressed in the ‘uniform’ of Orthodox high-schoolers (button-down shirt, pleated skirt, flat loafers) tried to conceal their excitement at stepping into a real, secular rock venue. Inside, the crowd generally avoided the bar, some ordering ice water from a bored-looking bartender. “It doesn’t even look like they all came from Crown Heights!” a woman triumphantly cried as she scanned the room, waiting for the listed set time of 7pm to begin.

Previous BPS shows have traditionally targeted niche Orthodox audiences through private fundraisers or school events, but this was the first gig open to the public, and it clearly made its mark in the press and on social media. Facebook seemed to be the primary driver of the evening, along with the promise of dancing alone with no men in the crowd, and of course, the music. “We are Jews. We like music!” a young woman informed me, explaining why she and her friends had come. “That’s it, really.”

A pair of Orthodox sisters-in-law from New Jersey and Brooklyn had convened in Manhattan for the event. For them, it was a opportunity to have a great night out in a women’s only crowd, but in a non-traditional, not-super-Jewish setting. “The focus seems to have been about the headline: men excluded,” they observed. Their dress indicated different degrees of Orthodoxy: one wore a wig, long sleeves and skirt; the other was dressed conservatively, but with her hair uncovered. While attending shows in mixed company isn’t universally unacceptable among more modern Orthodox Jews, it was clear that the option to attend a Ladies Only night was welcomed by many in the audience, regardless of their level of religious observance.

“That’s actually the only reason I came! I don’t want to be bothered!” laughed Miriam Heimowitz, a Brooklyn music lover who heard about the show on Facebook and looked forward to dancing on her own, without risking the sexual harassment that often presents itself at the average music show. “I heard one song. I wouldn’t have come if I didn’t like the music,” she clarified, but admitted she was intrigued by the band’s story as much as their sound. “I think it’s so neat, I love it.”

Expectations were undeniably high as keyboardist and vocalist Perl Wolfe opened the show. “I see a lot of people I know, and a lot of people I don’t know,” she said, as roommate and BPS collaborator Dalia Shusterman got settled behind the drum kit. “Have you seen the news? Guys are not liking it… I guess they just really want to see us play live!”

Wolf’s powerful vocals are reminiscent of Fiona Apple and Florence and the Machine, but BPS’ songs are far from the standard female indie pop-rock. The duo has brought on several other band members to enrich their sound, including a cellist, violinist, and bass player. There was an acapella version of a classic Chabad-Hasidic niggun, Tzamah Lecha Nafshi, sung by Wolfe to a silent crowd (but those familiar with the tune hummed along during the refrain). Later in the set, their Middle-Eastern/gypsy version of a classic Chabad High Holiday tune inspired a crowd of women to dance in a decidedly non-Yom-Kippur-like manner.

There were tinges of indie rock, pop, blues, and even funk throughout the setlist, augmented with covers of Chabad songs, along with hits from the band’s first EP, released in 2012. The dancing picked up in tempo as they kicked into a classic Chabad niggun referencing “Ashreinu Mah Tov Chelkeinu” (“How Happy are we with our lot, how grateful are we with our inheritance”), the beats closer to the tune’s Eastern European peasant origins than the version popularized by the Rebbes of Chabad. The jiving crowd of hipsters, housewives, and ladies of all sorts were the epitome of BPS’ mission and vision: to empower women, and give them a chance to have fun on their own turf, in their own space.

Though BPS has been buzzed about in the local Jewish press for a couple of years now, they really became a New York media sensation in the lead-up to Thursday’s show. The spin varied from supportive to curious to suspicious to misogynistic. Some, such as Gawker, championed the women’s ability to ban the “mixed-junk crowd,” others seized upon the essential point that men had been excluded from the audience. Some commenters expressed concern that the event could set a precedent for all-white, all-men, or all-Jewish shows in the future.

For those used to the more typical indie rock-band circuit, the set might have seemed loosely constructed, the music almost repetitive, the technical problems a little too frequent. But the majority of the crowd wasn’t fussed, drinking up every element of the experience, relishing their opportunity to let their hair (or wig) down, rock out, and support women in music all at once. The show closed out with an encore of the hit “Frigid City,” played earlier in the set to an excited crowd, leading Wolfe to admit that “maybe we should’ve saved that one to the end.”

Freidel Levin, a florist and events planner who hosted the first ever BPS show in her Crown Heights flower shop, said she felt “extremely proud” of  Shusterman  and Levin, “who had a dream, and made it happen, because that is not something you find often, and I support that 100 per cent… I started my own business, and the people that supported me give me so much strength. I want to give that to my friends. They rock, they really do! I love their music and I love their vibe. It’s win-win!”

Chatting online later that night, Shusterman said she was still overwhelmed by the attention the show had received. She laughed off the flack from the anti-feminist underbelly of the Internet, complete with cheap shots at religion and cries of misandry. “We expected some, but these guys are getting really emotional about it!” she said, recalling some of the comments she’d been urged not to read that had nevertheless slipped through the net. “We’ve got guys making up halachos (Jewish laws), and others saying we’re bringing them back to The Stone Age, bless them… They’ve got us cracking up.” Online conversation has often focused on the restrictions of kol isha, rather than BPS’ mission of empowerment. “The vibe was electric, the women were on fire, totally enjoying themselves!” Dalia effuses, recalling the Hasidic-style mosh-pit, as bewigged heads banged to the hit Frigid City encore. “This was not a night about restrictions. It was about breaking off the shackles of social expectations.”

Rishe Groner is a writer and music blogger in New York, by way of Australia. Follow her on Twitter @rishegee.

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The term “Jew fetish” can have many meanings. There’s Jew fetish, Jew fetish, and then there is this.

The Other Ground men’s discussion board, a dark corner of a Mixed Martial Arts news site, has honed in on the demure sexiness of ultra-Orthodox Jewish women, lifting photos of this modesty-conscious species from Facebook and Instagram. The conversation that follows is naturally pretty perverse, but it’s also hilarious and eye opening, highlighting how mystified Jews and Gentiles alike are about the Orthodox. Myths and theories about these exotic creatures abound in the discussion board, from the hole in the sheet theory to “orthodox Jews in Israel don’t date, period! They write each other hand-written letters.”

“Anyone ever “BEEN” with an ORTHODOX Jewish girl?” username In Limbo practically pants, adding, “in the “biblical” sense, of course.” (Thanks for clarifying, In Limbo!)

He continues charmingly:

These are just random pics on the net, but throughout my life i’ve seen MANY HOT orthodox girls….way hotter than any pics available on the web. they seem so different and insular, yet they have a familiarity bc they sound like every other jersey woman when they speak, they do their hair (wigs?), many of them are stylish in their own ways….stylish, modern, or traditional lots of them are hawt i know at least one of you OGers has snagged one i believe they are the ultimate forbidden fruit for the goyem

In Limbo is not the only user with strong beliefs about Ortho chicks. There are some gems in there, but I suggest you check them out for yourself so that I can keep this post nice and clean. One classy dude even posted a photo of his own “snagged” Ortho gal alongside a selfie with his tongue hanging out. (Hawt!)

Fortunately, the “Ortho broads” have a good attitude about the whole thing. Sharon Langert, who runs an Orthodox fashion blog and is among the women featured (violated?) on the forum, sent me a statement:

In my opinion, the post on that message board does not incriminate any of the women shown. These women, many whom I know and am friends with are all wonderful, modest girls who wouldn’t dream of going near a person like that. Many are dedicated wives and moms as I am. We are simply victims of photo theft by some immature and pathetic people. On a different note, many orthodox women are breaking new ground by actually putting themselves out there to share with the world that we can be fabulous and real and still true to our values. Part of that package is risking the chance of something like this happening. I choose to ignore the silliness and rise above while continuing to spread my positive messages to the world.

Many of the other Jewish hotties featured are fashion-conscious Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic women, as indicated by the leafy backdrops of Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.

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In a well-known portion of his standup act, comedian Louis C.K. talks about how it’s better to be a white male. Not that whites are better, mind you, but that it’s clearly better to be white. To prove his point, he uses the example of time travel and how only white men can go backwards in time. And since I’m in no way funnier than he is, I’m just going to quote him directly:

Here’s how great it is to be white. I can get into a time machine and go to any time and it would be fucking awesome when I get there. That is exclusively a white privilege. Black people can’t fuck with time machines. A black guy in a time machine is like, ‘Hey anything before 1980, no thank you, I don’t want to go.’ But I can go to any time. The year two? I don’t even know what was happening then. But I know that when I get there, ‘Welcome, we have a table right here for you sir.’

This bit came to mind when I was considering data published in The Unfinished Revolution, Kathleen Gerson’s 2010 book about modern attitudes toward relationships, work, and family. Encouragingly, 80 percent of young women and 70 percent of young men said that ideally, they would favor an egalitarian arrangement where both partners have high paying careers and share equally in child rearing responsibilities.

But since we don’t live in an “ideal” world, Gerson asked her respondents about how they would handle a situation where this 50/50 split isn’t possible.

When confronted with the impossibility of attaining equality in their relationships and professional lives, the men opt to jump into their time machines and go back to the past—preferring that their female partners deprioritize their jobs and tend to hearth and home while they continue on their career paths and become the primary breadwinners for their families.

Women, on the hand, opted to keep their jobs and hypothetical children—and ditch their men. They wouldn’t give up their careers and become housewives. Because women, unlike men, can’t mess with time travel. For most women with modern sensibilities, life in the 1950s is not a palatable choice.

Obviously, this is a pretty extreme example. There are many couples who may not have perfectly equitable partnerships—working women still do a disproportionate amount of the childcare and housework compared to their male counterparts—but have made it work while keeping their jobs and being supportive of each other’s goals.

Yet this data reminded me of another place where gendered time travel is possible—the Orthodox community. It’s a world where the old gender roles are still alive and kicking. Orthodox women may have careers, demanding ones at that, but once they step into the synagogue, that ritual space with its male-only clergy and clearly demarcated sections and roles for women, they may as well have traveled backwards in time.

I can’t take full credit for the Orthodox time-traveling analogy, sadly. I recently bumped into a guy I met on J-Date several years ago (he was testing the Orthodox waters just as I was getting out of them, and it never went beyond one date) who directed me to the Louis C.K. clip in the context of our discussions of Orthodoxy. We had stayed in touch and during one conversation a while back I remember expressing my disapproval of his choices. How, I asked, after being raised secularly, could he choose to enter a world where he, as a man, possessed certain privileges that were the result of biology, not merit?

This, I later realized, was wholly unfair. He wasn’t trying to oppress women or deny them their rights or take more than his fair share. He was merely searching for the best spiritual course for himself. He didn’t create the system even if he benefited from it—the same way that I, as a white woman with well-educated parents, wasn’t turning away advantages or opportunities that came my way as a result of my race and educational class.

I also realize that part of my frustration was due to my own confusion. At the time, I felt a sentimental connection to Orthodoxy and was trying to maintain some semblance of it while also feeling that it was wholly incompatible with my feminist beliefs. The fact that he could slip easily (or at least I thought) into the world I was born and raised in really bugged me.

It’s the same sort of annoyance I feel when anyone expresses nostalgia for a so-called halcyon past, as Aaron Sorkin did before the premiere of The Newsroom, when he waxed poetic about journalism in the age of Walter Cronkite and Edward R. Murrow—a world that excluded women and minorities. Nostalgia, I learned in one college class, entails a whole lotta forgetting.

And time travel. As Louis C.K. pointed out at the end of the bit, white men can travel in only one direction—backwards. “I don’t want to go to the future and find out what happens to white people,” he says. “We’re gonna pay for this shit.”

I certainly don’t wish to see any group punished. But if I were to time travel—future only—I hope to see a little less privilege and a little more fairness for everyone.

(Note: this whole essay about time travel was written without any recollection of Back To The Future, so my apologies if I got any of the science wrong.)

Previously: A Jewish Childhood After Divorce
Don’t Call Me a Rebel
The Problem With Modesty Blogging

(Art by Margarita Korol)

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