Saturday, July 25, 2015
What drives former Haredim to suicide? And what can we do to stop it?
In September 2013, I gathered with a group of friends to share feelings and reflections on the suicide death of one our friends, Deb Tambor, who had been struggling with a variety of issues related to leaving the insular Hasidic Jewish world. Next to me sat Faigy Mayer, a friend and fellow ex-Hasid.
Faigy and I talked for a bit, about Deb, and about our own lives. She told me she was doing well. I told her I was writing an essay about Deb’s death for an online magazine, and she offered me some helpful thoughts.
This week, nearly two years later, Faigy jumped to her own death from a 20-story building in Manhattan.
The news, when I heard it, shook me, as it did many in our community of ex-Haredi Jews. But it didn’t shock me. It’s almost as if we’ve come to expect another suicide in our ranks every so often.
Since leaving the Hasidic community in early 2008, I have lost at least half a dozen friends and acquaintances to death by their own hands, usually deliberate. There have been others too, friends of friends, members of our extended community, with waves of grief flowing outward far beyond those who knew the victims.
http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-world-opinions/1.667721
Faigy and I talked for a bit, about Deb, and about our own lives. She told me she was doing well. I told her I was writing an essay about Deb’s death for an online magazine, and she offered me some helpful thoughts.
This week, nearly two years later, Faigy jumped to her own death from a 20-story building in Manhattan.
The news, when I heard it, shook me, as it did many in our community of ex-Haredi Jews. But it didn’t shock me. It’s almost as if we’ve come to expect another suicide in our ranks every so often.
Since leaving the Hasidic community in early 2008, I have lost at least half a dozen friends and acquaintances to death by their own hands, usually deliberate. There have been others too, friends of friends, members of our extended community, with waves of grief flowing outward far beyond those who knew the victims.
http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-world-opinions/1.667721
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