Keep your past outta my present!
Some of you may know about my family's terrible traumatic break with the Orthodox Jewish community of Richmond. Most of you probably don't know it because it's a painful story to tell. The story brings up a burning hatred in me that I've never felt for anything else and hopefully never will.
It started with my my family leaving the Jewish day school (Rudlin Torah Acadmey, or RTA) for public school. Pinina (older sister), Eitan (older younger brother) and I were all attending school there but were forced out due to the actions of the principal and the school's financial backer. The principal then used the fact that we were all in public school to pressure families into shunning us. The public school kids couldn't be trusted around the pure Jewish kids who were "on the path" (of Jewish righteousness) because we would lead them astray. Instead of trying to keep us connected to the community every orthodox Jew needs, we suddenly found ourselves without anyone to celebrate holidays with or to talk to at synagogue. We were made to feel unwanted. The girls in the Jewish high school were forbidden to talk to my sister and I, despite the fact that my sister had attended the school for 3 years and I was already friends with several of them. We lost family friends that had been around since I was small with barely a word.
This past Friday while were having family dinner, I discovered that the school's principal had been trying to get together a group to do the Jewish version of excommunication to us. The Jewish version of excommunication isn't really excommunciation, it's cutting the person off from the Jewish people and is considered a harsher punishment than the death penalty. I'm not sure how this would work in today's world, but I know that it would have meant we would've needed to move far away from the east cost to escape it. Pinina found out about this when she had coffee with one of her old school friends months ago, and my mother only told me about it on Friday.
During this same dinner, I also discovered that the whole chain of events was kicked off by my mother being suspicious about what the school's primary financial backer was doing with the profits the school made. Obviously the backer didn't like this, and because he was in bed with the principal (figuratively) and the principal had the power in the community, he was able to make life hell for my family. The whole thing of kicking us out of the school and cutting us off from the community was to protect the financial backer. This tells me he was guilty of something, but that's not the point. These two fuckers sacrificed my entire family to "protect the community" from my mother's "dangerous ideas." It didn't matter that my mother was the best fundraiser the school had ever had and that she created several events that put the school on the freakin' map. It didn't matter that they were ruining our lives and going against the teaching of Judaism. These people who claimed to be the religious leaders of the community used their power to decimate my family to save themselves. My mother may have suffered, but the ones they hurt the most were us kids. Their fear of my mother made them lash out at her through her children because they knew that she would fight for us. Hurting her children was the most efficent and effective means of hurting my mother and oh god did they do it well.
This new information has taken my disgust and hatred of these two people to an entirely new level. I honestly did not think that I was capable of such incredible loathing. It's a burning passionate hatred for anything associated with these people. I've written words here, but they just don't convey the pure hatred I have of these people. Wrapped up in this hatred is all of the emotions I felt as a confused 14 year-old Jewish girl in a public high school with no support. The betrayal, the sadness, the loneliness, the confusion, the alienation, it's all smashed together with my adult understanding of what happened and that what these two people did was absolutely and unequivocally wrong.
What sparked this off? I came home this evening to find a letter inviting me to the Boys' yeshiva building dedication and asking for donations. This is the same building I spent K-8 in, just renovated and re-purposed. The letter was from RTA, and it was signed by the principal.
I don't know how they would have gotten my address because I've never received any other alumni stuff and my address isn't even on facebook, nor do I have a listing in the white pages because I don't have home phone. No one in the Jewish Community of Richmond should have my current address unless they have gotten it from one of the corporate entities I do business with, so in addition to being infuriated, I am also creeped out by how they found me. But aside from that, what I feel right now is how dare he have the chutzpah to ask me for money for his new venture? I'm bad enough to toss out of the community, but still good enough that you can accept my money?! Bastard, charlatan, criminal, false religious leader, embarassment to the Jewish people! If he were here I would spit in his face and hope that I had deadly flu so he would get it too. I hope that he and the financial backer get found out and they live long enough to watch their empire crumble around them. I wish upon them all of the humiliation that my family had to go through. May they be punished in the way in which they sinned.
I don't really feel better now, but I had to get that out.
It started with my my family leaving the Jewish day school (Rudlin Torah Acadmey, or RTA) for public school. Pinina (older sister), Eitan (older younger brother) and I were all attending school there but were forced out due to the actions of the principal and the school's financial backer. The principal then used the fact that we were all in public school to pressure families into shunning us. The public school kids couldn't be trusted around the pure Jewish kids who were "on the path" (of Jewish righteousness) because we would lead them astray. Instead of trying to keep us connected to the community every orthodox Jew needs, we suddenly found ourselves without anyone to celebrate holidays with or to talk to at synagogue. We were made to feel unwanted. The girls in the Jewish high school were forbidden to talk to my sister and I, despite the fact that my sister had attended the school for 3 years and I was already friends with several of them. We lost family friends that had been around since I was small with barely a word.
This past Friday while were having family dinner, I discovered that the school's principal had been trying to get together a group to do the Jewish version of excommunication to us. The Jewish version of excommunication isn't really excommunciation, it's cutting the person off from the Jewish people and is considered a harsher punishment than the death penalty. I'm not sure how this would work in today's world, but I know that it would have meant we would've needed to move far away from the east cost to escape it. Pinina found out about this when she had coffee with one of her old school friends months ago, and my mother only told me about it on Friday.
During this same dinner, I also discovered that the whole chain of events was kicked off by my mother being suspicious about what the school's primary financial backer was doing with the profits the school made. Obviously the backer didn't like this, and because he was in bed with the principal (figuratively) and the principal had the power in the community, he was able to make life hell for my family. The whole thing of kicking us out of the school and cutting us off from the community was to protect the financial backer. This tells me he was guilty of something, but that's not the point. These two fuckers sacrificed my entire family to "protect the community" from my mother's "dangerous ideas." It didn't matter that my mother was the best fundraiser the school had ever had and that she created several events that put the school on the freakin' map. It didn't matter that they were ruining our lives and going against the teaching of Judaism. These people who claimed to be the religious leaders of the community used their power to decimate my family to save themselves. My mother may have suffered, but the ones they hurt the most were us kids. Their fear of my mother made them lash out at her through her children because they knew that she would fight for us. Hurting her children was the most efficent and effective means of hurting my mother and oh god did they do it well.
This new information has taken my disgust and hatred of these two people to an entirely new level. I honestly did not think that I was capable of such incredible loathing. It's a burning passionate hatred for anything associated with these people. I've written words here, but they just don't convey the pure hatred I have of these people. Wrapped up in this hatred is all of the emotions I felt as a confused 14 year-old Jewish girl in a public high school with no support. The betrayal, the sadness, the loneliness, the confusion, the alienation, it's all smashed together with my adult understanding of what happened and that what these two people did was absolutely and unequivocally wrong.
What sparked this off? I came home this evening to find a letter inviting me to the Boys' yeshiva building dedication and asking for donations. This is the same building I spent K-8 in, just renovated and re-purposed. The letter was from RTA, and it was signed by the principal.
I don't know how they would have gotten my address because I've never received any other alumni stuff and my address isn't even on facebook, nor do I have a listing in the white pages because I don't have home phone. No one in the Jewish Community of Richmond should have my current address unless they have gotten it from one of the corporate entities I do business with, so in addition to being infuriated, I am also creeped out by how they found me. But aside from that, what I feel right now is how dare he have the chutzpah to ask me for money for his new venture? I'm bad enough to toss out of the community, but still good enough that you can accept my money?! Bastard, charlatan, criminal, false religious leader, embarassment to the Jewish people! If he were here I would spit in his face and hope that I had deadly flu so he would get it too. I hope that he and the financial backer get found out and they live long enough to watch their empire crumble around them. I wish upon them all of the humiliation that my family had to go through. May they be punished in the way in which they sinned.
I don't really feel better now, but I had to get that out.