I don’t know this woman, or the ubiquitous Deborah Feldman, or anyone else in the news for going off the derech. I have said that I find Feldman’s leverage of her upbringing and bad experiences to be wrong on a number of levels, and this individual may simply be leveraging the media to get something that she couldn’t get in court or beis din. I don’t know. But I do know this. There is an elephant in the room, and few people are willing to talk about it. That is the following: None of us is perfect. I am not, you are not, our communities are not, and, even though they are on a (much) higher madrega, neither are our leaders. There are problems and challenges in our communities we need to fix, and it shouldn’t take publicity to maneuver us into fixing them. Not every mechanech does a good job. Not every shul or shteeble is welcoming or warm. Not every frum businessperson makes a kiddush hashem. Instead of wasting our time giving a geshrai over what I agree can be at the very least misleading and incomplete pictures of chareidi life, if not outright falsehoods, let’s do the necessary introspection on how our community can improve its capacity to inspire Jews rather than provoke them into turning away, beyond lengthening our skirts and sleeves, or looking down when we see a woman, which, while they may be admirable endeavors for some, do nothing to address the problems that bleed away our young people.
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