JEWISH W RLD

A path to a new life

Crossing from the world of Orthodoxy to the secular one is not an easy task,
but organizations like Hillel, which just celebrated 25 years of activity, try to
make it less difficult for those who take the leap

MANY PEOPLE who decide to leave their haredi community do so with no tools whatsoever to make it in the world outside the community where they grew up.
(Nir Elias/Reuters)

JOY BERNARD

very year, about a thousand

haredi men and women in Israel choose to leave the only
life they have known for a secular lifestyle an utterly new
and foreign existence.
These men and women often lack
basic education, work experience and
financial support. Their families, spouses, children and friends seldom support
their decision.
In fact, they often view them as im-

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DEceMBER 16, 2016

moral traitors who have turned their

backs on the only worthy and valuable
course of life. They are forced to leave
the segregated, religious communities
they were raised in with few to no resources. Where do they go next? Who
can they possibly turn to?
These men and women, referred to in
Hebrew as yotzim besheela (those who
leave with a question), often struggle
to receive the support they urgently require. Without that aid, it is difficult for
them to make the radical and terrifying
transition from ultra-Orthodox practi-

tioners of Judaism to members of secular society.

Several organizations in Israel offer
assistance to people who find themselves in these situations. Hillel The
Right to Choose is one of the oldest. The
non-profit organization has been helping yotzim for 25 years to integrate into
the wider society in Israel.
On a recent rainy Thursday evening,
dozens flocked to a gathering at the Eretz
Israel Museum in Tel Aviv to mark 25
years of Hillel activity and thank the organization that helped change their lives.

With funding from private donations

and help from the government, Hillel
serves roughly 860 yotzim aged 18 to
35 a year. The organizations two main
branches are in Jerusalem and in Tel
Aviv; a third will open soon in Haifa.

Pressing needs

Sometimes the most pressing need

for yotzim is a bed to sleep in and a safe
place to turn to where they can feel at
home. Hillel offers them free transitional housing and housing subsidies. In
addition, it runs an emergency facility

staffed by professionals that provides

shelter to 100 people at risk a year.
Hillel CEO Yair Hess says, The shelter provides initial response to homeless
yotzim. People can call us and immediately a spot opens for them. This is done
in collaboration with the Social Affairs
Ministry.
Another need is therapeutic support.
Most yotzim describe the process of integration into the wider society in Israel
as a grueling, alienating and confusing
mental experience.

psychotherapy.
Many yotzim see the therapist as
some sort of supplement to their rabbi.
In their past lives their rabbi used to tell
them what to do and how to act; now
they expect the therapist to take on that
role. That creates an interesting discussion, because the end goal is for them to
integrate into the secular world and not
to exchange their rabbi for another authoritative figure.
When patients expect me to tell
them how to live their lives, I raise

explain to them that there are no clear

rules to the subject, that its their free
choice.
And then they raise another question: Whats free choice? What do I do
with that? The whole dating world is
alien to them.
Michaelson deems therapy successful
when the yotzim can define what matters most to them, what kind of job to
pursue, and when they find a relationship and employment.
To me, the greatest success is if I can

English teacher at the Tel Aviv branch

and went on to become the branchs
head coordinator, a position she quit
recently.
One of the students at my English
class asked me to be his mentor after
two months of learning with me. He
would come to my house for private English lessons. Ive been seeing him every
week for 12 years now. Hes become part
of my family, she says. He comes to
our birthday parties, to holiday celebrations and Friday meals. My children feel
like he is another sibling, they treat him
as a brother.

People didnt
understand what
we were fighting for.
They thought we were
against religion and
didnt realize we were
just trying to provide
a response that the
government didnt offer
to ex-Orthodox Israelis
who were helpless...

Two-way path

MIKI AND TAMI Cohen, founders of Hillel. (Courtesy)

They grieve the loss of everything
they cherished and knew, miss the families who choose to cut off all contact
with them, and feel inadequate in the
face of a world whose culture, habits
and logic they were never exposed to.
About 100 psychotherapists regularly volunteer at Hillel. Each volunteer is
matched with a yotze, providing oneon-one psychotherapy. Hillel also offers
group counseling.
Tirtza Michaelson, a trained psychotherapist, serves as Hillels mental
health coordinator. She explains that
treating yotzim is different from regular

questions such as, What does leaving

religion really mean to you? What does
being secular mean to you? It turns out
that many of them have no clue what
being secular is and theyre looking for
the rules of the secular world. Its really
hard for them not to live by rules, not
to have that whats wrong and whats
right guidebook for living, she adds.
Another challenging topic raised in
counseling is romantic relations.
Relationships come up in therapy all
the time, and thats a sore spot. How do
I look for a partner when its no longer
through a shadchan [matchmaker]? I

help a patient re-forge some connection

with his or her biological family, she
emphasizes.

Where to now?

The majority of the yotzim join the

secular world with no academic background whatsoever because haredi
communities provide only Torah and
Gemara studies.
Zivit Hauser is an English lecturer at
the Levinsky College of Education in Tel
Aviv who has been volunteering at Hillel for the past 13 years to help yotzim
catch up more quickly. She started as an

Two very special guests attending the

25th anniversary celebrations were Hillels founders, husband and wife Tami
and Miki Cohen.
The pair, who define themselves as
secular and have devoted decades of
their lives to volunteer work in different
sectors of Israeli society, recognized the
need for an organization such as Hillel
through their son. Years ago, he left his
secular life to become religious.
When we started with Hillel, people
didnt understand what we were fighting for. They thought we were against
religion and didnt realize we were just
trying to provide a response that the
government didnt offer to ex-Orthodox Israelis who were really helpless,
Tami recollects.
There was so much opposition to our
work that we had to work underground,
discreetly. We couldnt even hand out
our telephone number for fear of being
harassed by extremist opponents.
Its moving to look around the room
and see how much the organization has
grown, Miki remarks.
One of the most significant changes Hillel has undergone, says Hess, is
the fact that we no longer have to hide.
We proclaim loud and clear that we are
here to stay. The number of people who
use our services increases every year by
30%. Now our challenge is to convince
other organizations and the government to help us more, to make it a team
effort. 

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