Gitty, Ex-Satmar From Monroe in NYMagazine Feature (Chulenters Mentioned)
(This long boring and redundant article is all over the place with her criticizing everybody including Chulenters in the second excerpt below. I did not quote the main reason for the article which is that they they took away her daughter to be raised in Kiryas Joel, or so she says. Click on headline below for full article)
Escape From the Holy Shtetl
Gitty Grunwald fled the pious world of her mother to return to the secular city of her grandparents. There’s only one problem: The Satmars kept her daughter. A family saga of four generations of American Jews.
…
“In KJ, [Kiryas Yoiel - Monroe] you’re supposed to screw on your wedding night,” says Gitty. “If you don’t, then the marriage isn’t consummated.” The night before, Gitty says, “they get you a kallah helper”—literally, a bride helper—“who tells you what you need to know about sex, because you know nothing. I was such an innocent virgin, you have no idea.”
While dispensing with the old story about the sheet with the hole as a myth, Gitty explains many other birds-and-bees facts of KJ life, “like how sleeping with your husband on Friday night is twice as good as any other night. But you can’t look at him. The room has to be pitch dark. There’s no foreplay. This is totally about reproduction. You’re supposed to be thinking about G-d the whole time.
“A lot of grooms faint on their wedding nights,” Gitty continues. “You see—before you get married, they keep you apart. You talk to the person once or twice. On your wedding night, you’re supposed to get it on with this total stranger. It is really bad for guys. Hasidic men are told all their lives if they masturbate they go to hell. Spilling the seed—that’s the biggest sin. At school, a lot of the boys had their pockets sewn up so couldn’t poke around with their hands. Then, all of a sudden, they’re with this naked woman and they think if they don’t screw her and produce more Jews, G-d is going to get really, really mad at them. That is a lot of pressure….
After she left Kiryas Joel, Gitty fell in with the crowd of Hasidic “dropouts” and “rebels,” people who, like her, had fled places like Kiryas Joel or been kicked out. “In KJ, I was a freak,” Gitty says. “The rebels told me I was cool. I felt like I’d just gotten out of prison. If there was a party that night, I might think about going.”
This was the beginning of the wild times, making the rounds of pads in Monsey and the Lower East Side, hanging out with artists, people trying to make something beautiful, not ugly. When Esther Miriam was snatched, Gitty became a scene celebrity. Everyone knew the story of Gitty and her baby.
In the end, however, Gitty decided the scene had too much “damage” for her. Here were these brilliant, ruined people, floating from place to place, homeless, stoned out of their minds half the time. Last Purim, one of the rebels OD’d on coke and ground-up Xanax, a typical ex-Hasid drug concoction. The rebels were stuck between two worlds, Gitty thought, a dangerous place to be.
“First I loved it, then it scared me, now it makes me sad,” said Gitty one early spring afternoon, standing on the edge of a pond near South Fallsburg, not far from the now-shuttered Pines Hotel, once a Borscht Belt standby. The rebels had gotten hold of a country campsite, a wild A-frame house heated only by a wooden stove. Everyone was hanging out, some on acid, playing Hasidic songs, wrapping each other in prayer shawls, shouting praises of the Baal Shem Tov, and screaming they were “the new hippies.”
There was a fine, doomed romance in the moment, but Gitty was unimpressed. Watching stoned rebels paddle across the half-frozen lake, she said, “Don’t they know if they fall in they’ll freeze to death?”
Judaism.com
July 14th, 2008 at 3:50 am
where is her blog? where is the link?
July 14th, 2008 at 7:12 am
tzemach,
moron. google.
yiush,
fuck u for your fucking introduction.
“First I loved it, then it scared me, now it makes me sad,”
is this what hit your nerve?
July 14th, 2008 at 7:23 am
You people have no fucking idea what she is going through.
July 14th, 2008 at 7:36 am
Leah, the article describes this as good as anyone can. What else do you what? Yes you have to be in her shoes, but this is given.
July 14th, 2008 at 7:43 am
comment #9 on mag article:
“I have no doubt that this story is far more complex than what is presented in this article. What is more certain, however, is that NY Mag manipulated this young woman into posing for pictures that will not serve her interests. That’s abuse and exploitation of the worst (and most cynical) sort.”
By Moishe on 07/14/2008 at 8:32a
July 14th, 2008 at 8:43 am
Unlike the moron moihse and the moron “if u cant take the heat” normal people actually read the article, not only look at the photos.
July 14th, 2008 at 10:27 am
A typical chulenter. Lost and no place to go…
July 14th, 2008 at 10:47 am
I know a few Chulent people who helped her when she had no where to sleep so I think it is definitely not nice for her to speak of Chulenters that way. The people she was hanging with that night had jobs and apartments, neither which she has.
An irresponsible little bitch.
July 14th, 2008 at 11:10 am
hope she get her baby back…we at chulent chevra helped her with money and moral support.i dont get the whole story,failing a drug test is not helpfull to her case,,,,,remember its us chulent that were there to help her am ecad
July 14th, 2008 at 11:37 am
“An irresponsible little bitch.”
do you have a job or your OWN apartment you irresponsible little bastard?
have you never spoken negatively and told it like it is about ppl who might have helped you, you hypocritical ingrate.
July 14th, 2008 at 11:51 am
hey asshole,
That night there was a very nice gentelman who took her back and forth. He comes to chulent, has a job, a car and an apartment. He was very nice to her and was not even the one who was her boyfriend etc. The same can be said of Mark from a previous comment. She paints a blanket picture of all frum people and of all chulenters. Obviously something is askew and more fucked up with her than those about whom she makes blanket statements…
July 14th, 2008 at 12:10 pm
no doubt she’s fucked up. and her fuckedupedness allowed her to see the fuckedupedness of the MAJORITY of chulenters. i’m sure she can make a distinction between individual ppl who helped her and the stoned loser CULTURE of chulent unlike some of the idiotic commenters here.
July 14th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
the author of the article comes to cholent too. does that mean that he’s “one of those”?
July 14th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
people are too hard on gitty, both in and out of satmar. i think she has done pretty well for herself, compared to other ex-orthos. and chulenters should maybe learn to use insults constructively, which is something that satmar isn’t so good at.
July 14th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
if you noticed, the article not once mentions cholent by name, nor where it is located. as far as we know, she could be speaking about footsteps, monsey (as she mentions) or some other hangout. even “lower east side” could be ridge.
as for the post-purim incident, there’s no mention of the purim party per se.
just b/c there’s mention of people who go/went to cholent doesn’t mean it’s criticizing cholent per se.
& there’s some truth to her statement about some of those who show up. she’s not the only one who says this. quite a few peeps told me that they don’t come b/c it makes them feel sad/bad etc.
but who cares? fuck them!
July 14th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
she hit the nerve since all of you are foaming about this, morons.
July 14th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
no, it’s A-rod & kabalah that really ticking us off…
July 14th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
Go commie Red Sox!
July 14th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
always knew it: yankees = chasidim
red sox = snags
July 14th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
red sox are Zoroastrian Islamists, dodgers are chassidim, Yankes loshen Yekis.
July 14th, 2008 at 1:40 pm
Zoro,
Good point. There apparently are a number of “groups” she could be referring to (though they all do seem to overlap somewhat) - like the “frum crew” that frequently has shaboses with like fifty people…various Monsey groups vechulu…
And she wasn’t really criticizing (I mean how harsh is saying that they are crazy because they’ll freeze to death if they fall in) - she was only contrasting these hangouts with the stability she is looking for and which will likely have a strong bearing on her custody case…
July 14th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
I met her and I think she is a nice person.I hope she can get her life together and get her baby back.
July 14th, 2008 at 2:01 pm
shes pretty cute. id bang her.
July 14th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
I think we all need to take a step back.
This is an article written by a Journalist and as the wise sages of the Talmud said, Toiv Sheh’B'Journalists L’Gehinom.
The gentleman that introduced her to the journalist had an axe to grind (doesn’t much like Chasidim).
The journalist has his obvious interest.
Anyone that has dealt with (nearly) any journalist knows that they will do hours and hours of interviews and pick out a few statements here and there that comport with their thesis.
I am confident that she also made statements as to how supportive the (Chulent etc.) community was, but the journalist found them not juicy enough or not in line with the story he wanted to tell.
She is a kid making her way in the big city.
July 14th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
Yankees=Am Yisrael
Red Sox = Amalek
July 14th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
why am I an asshole? because I said I think she’s cute and that I’d bang her? I do and I would.
I’m not looking to cure ALL her problems, I wont pay her rent or legal bills or sympathize with her. I didn’t say I’d marry her. I’d Bang her. Thoroughly.
(not on the head of course)
July 14th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
http://1beautiful-stranger.blogspot.com/
July 14th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
so you wouldn’t bang her?
July 14th, 2008 at 4:13 pm
maybe she’s referring only to a few people in particular, cholenters aren’t one striped, they’re not all ex choosids….
and i wouldn’t blame the journalist for the pictures without knowing who was the photographer for the story…
so… some of it was cool, some of it was kind of creepy, depicting chasidim like cockroaches ; very typical anti semitic sentiments..
but that’s life i guess.. i don’t necessarily agree that it’s so easy to get a williamsburg chasid to say good shabbos or give directions…
i feel bad for the girl, but the secular courts are pretty fucking shitty as well.
i wish her luck, custody cases are disgusting business no matter what..
i miss cholent… but it’s too far! maybe cholent could come to washington heights and tap into the monsey choosids…. no i don’t know a place.
July 14th, 2008 at 4:45 pm
A few comments link to 7fatcow as well!
Is 7fatcow back on the map?
http://jezebel.com/5025025/23+year+old-woman-leaves-religious-sect-loses-daughter
July 14th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
ag231 wrote:
“Zoro,
Good point. There apparently are a number of “groups” she could be referring to (though they all do seem to overlap somewhat) - like the “frum crew” that frequently has shaboses with like fifty people…various Monsey groups vechulu…”
Oh, so there are two groups here! How dare i forget?! There is the educated group that has their shit together, and no, no, as pointed out by zoro and ag, Gitty can’t be speaking of you proper educated folks. God forbid! You guys are just damn terrific! Nothing like that other group of losers!
July 14th, 2008 at 6:06 pm
no, you dumbfuck. people are people. she was talking about people, not chulent. you feel she meant you, that’s your problem. (touches a nerve???)
it was you who interpreted her words to mean cholent.
July 14th, 2008 at 6:19 pm
Just spoke to Gitty. She wasn’t speaking of those with bachelor degrees.
petz.
July 14th, 2008 at 6:22 pm
“ag231 wrote:
“Zoro,
Good point. There apparently are a number of “groups” she could be referring to (though they all do seem to overlap somewhat) - like the “frum crew” that frequently has shaboses with like fifty people…various Monsey groups vechulu…””
Nuff said.
July 14th, 2008 at 6:23 pm
Before there was Chulent, before there was Corporate Raider, before Pearl Gluck unsuccessfully ran for the office of Queen of the X-Os, there was this “utopia” called 888 where a group of Lubavitcher “explorers” and “dropouts” hung out.
Most of us were convinced that no one “truly understood” our “matzev” outside our close knit incestuous bunch. But little by little we discovered others, chasidim and litvishe that were just like ourselves. We met guys and girls and our little chevre grew.
As I look back at those days I realize that the women tended to do far better than we men. The girls assimilated faster, they were quicker to land jobs, graduate college, enter into meaningful relationships. Thirteen years later, one of the original 888-ers is a doctor, her dream back then, while another is working on her doctorate in English, after a detour in radio journalism, and a gig as a producer for a show on WNYC. On the whole we men with our delusions of grandeur, come in a distant second to our female counterparts.
This is not only true of 888, but of the whole X-O, chulent, etc. etc. movement, as I look back now.
My theory of why this is true is oversimplified like this. While men’s yeshiva prepare us for nothing, seminary, and even high school, prepare women (or at least put them in the mind frame) to work hard, bear children in order for the great zechut of marrying a “ben torah” and slaving away while her dead beat “kollel yungerman” is osek in torah.
when we drop out, we men are unprepared, so we replace one stream of learning with another. But even then, our Torah learning was never goal oriented, other then the “farher” we had to take every other month. Nor was it structured. As so we do what we do best, engage in mental masturbation and expect everything to be handed to us.
Women, on the other hand, who were trained to be goal oriented and providers, do what they need to do to survive and provide for themselves. Plus, and this is the case of far too many women, they see their deadbeat fathers, how hard their mothers had to work to make ends meet and they want nothing to do with this.
Is it any wonder that Gitty realized that Chulent and its chevre didn’t offer much?? You guys (no different then myself 13 years ago) probably reminded her of her dead beat dad, step-father, and her probably even her husband. Chances are she wanted no part of that. Cut the girl some slack. She has a little girl to think about and the awesome responsibility of raising her.
Let the ridicule begin!
July 14th, 2008 at 6:28 pm
kovi, can you email me this to post on mental
July 14th, 2008 at 6:29 pm
as the old bumper sticker reads:
“You’re not a total failure; you can always serve as a bad example”
July 14th, 2008 at 6:36 pm
Tzemach,
Just copy paste and link.
Zoro,
i remember a certain somebody, years ago, while we were strolling in Manhattan, counter the claim that this group was made up of losers, by composing a song about the virtues of being a loser.
Beatnik = for being “beaten” not as the beats later tried to give it the beatific connotation.
The nothingness, as in the seed, dissipation can lead to the infinite.
Herbert Hunkle over Stephen Jay Gould, Gregory Corso over Lionel Trilling.
Even if you disagree, at least appreciate the perspective.
July 14th, 2008 at 6:37 pm
the women of 888 are discussed in “Mystics, Maverickks & Merrymakers” by Stephanie Levine. He is a Lenny Lopate interview:
http://www.wnyc.org/shows/lopate/episodes/2003/12/03
To note: one of the 888 femmes has/d an exhibit at the Queens Museum of Art.
to yiush: don’t worry: you will always be a piece of living performance art… you’re there already.
July 14th, 2008 at 6:46 pm
Ok du drei kop, du. You’ve got a pretty big inferiority complex or paranoia or something. As ziy already said (right out of my mouth), why the hell did you associate the article with cholent? And why do you think I was somehow differentiating based on education? In fact, all I was saying was that there is no direct connection to chulent as she could be referring to any number of places were there are xo people who hang out. I was just adding other places she could have had in mind. And then I said that even if she was referring to chulent, so what? She didn’t say anything terrible (and nothing which is not the truth) and I totally understand that she is in court and that she may be trying to find for herself some sort of stability and get her kid back. What, you don’t think that it is a reasonable thing in her situation to stay away from week-long hangouts and drugs (at least till she gets custody)? It has nothing to do with level of education – it is you who brought up this issue and I’ll now accuse you of thinking of chulent as being oh so intellectual and shit…chalere…
July 14th, 2008 at 6:55 pm
And she definitely wasn’t speaking of those who assimilated.
uch.
July 14th, 2008 at 6:58 pm
yiush: of course, appreciate:
shlomo’s “holy shleppers”
women=binah yeseyrah
“special children”
& other euphemisms
& other platitudes
& other barditchever meylitz yoyshers
& other lurianic inversions
- remember: “Kenny is MOSHIACH!!!”
bahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!
July 14th, 2008 at 7:02 pm
I remember Nikki Friedman in the late 80’s reviewing Potok’s “gift of asher lev” in the nytimes b.r.
She dismissed Asher lev’s decision to return to his roots and raise his children as Chassidic Jews, with something like “for all the progress Asher Lev has made he should have remained in Brooklyn.”
I remember reading this, then, and being very pissed off at her. New Jersey is better than Brooklyn?
July 14th, 2008 at 7:08 pm
ag231 wrote
“why the hell did you associate the article with cholent? ”
Every person to whom she is referring in that excerpt comes to Chulent. Every single one.
They just make grammar mistakes, are unemployed and still run to their Rebbes on Roish Hashunuh.
And I think very highly of them. Higher than I do of the educated chix of whom Kovi speaks.
July 14th, 2008 at 7:09 pm
Jeez zoro,
Linear - elitist = boring.
July 14th, 2008 at 7:10 pm
i luv you, yiush… the rebbe would be so proud…
July 14th, 2008 at 7:14 pm
zoro, you are scattered and boring.
July 14th, 2008 at 7:17 pm
Zoro and AG231:
What got me pissed in the 1st place was the underlying presmis in the article that secular equals better equals happiness equals education equals a good versus the evil of the people she lambasts.
As an example, of how she is evolving to good instead of evil, along this premise, was Gitty moving away from those who fall into the religious and uneducated and thusly evil and inferior camp.
When you brought the example of the other said groups I took it as a slight on them by you, following Gitty’s premise.
July 14th, 2008 at 7:22 pm
yisuh, the article was written by this dude not Gitty. He opbviosuly brings a lot of his “hashkofos” into this and overposwrs his subject clearly. In a way she is just a backdrop to his ideas.
July 14th, 2008 at 7:27 pm
Tzeach,
cut and paste away.
Kovi
July 14th, 2008 at 7:30 pm
Yiush,
I know. Chas vesholom afra le-pimi if i said such a thing…;)
I hear you on the premise of “secular equals better” thing but i’m really unsure about it - i’ve been going back and forth on this issue for a while now…but that it becomes a given is something that ticks me off too…
Let me ask you this…how would you have framed this whole maisah?
July 14th, 2008 at 8:28 pm
Will this be the most commented post?
July 14th, 2008 at 10:22 pm
why is the media so obsessed with ex frums any way?
and why they posting those photos (slideshow?)they don’t say anything at all
at least not to me
July 15th, 2008 at 8:22 am
“What got me pissed in the 1st place was the underlying presmis in the article that secular equals better equals happiness equals education equals a good versus the evil of the people she lambasts.”
Yes. That is a popular opinion in the world now, and what makes you think it’s not true?
“As an example, of how she is evolving to good instead of evil, along this premise, was Gitty moving away from those who fall into the religious and uneducated and thusly evil and inferior camp.”
Evil and atavistic. This is the opinion that holds that big monlithic religion/cultism IS Avodah Zarah, and the test for how bad something is is how much it demands that you be cut off from the world.
You’re so defensive of a religion that you don’t follow anymore, why? Out of habit? Affection? You don’t write like someone who ever grew up in Satmar, so why fetishizes the local klipas? I don’t think secular nessesarily = more happy, because the main maila of the kedusha-lie is family-community-sense-of-purpose. But here, the religion/cult is The End of family, and a hostile terrible community for her. Secularism here really is freedom and a return to the religion of her ancestors, and the article really does give the impression that this form of retreative, insularizing religion, where a woman’s kids can be taken from her by a gang of thugs, self-empowered not by G-d or righteousness, but by violence, really is bad, and should be stricken from the earth. I’m convinced.
Strange detail– the abusive meshichist father. I’ve heard alot of first and second hand weird stories lately featuring exactly that– abused wives of frustrated meshichist fathers who can’t deal with the world because of the filters in their brainsouls. funny, huh? I guess that I get to hear about them is a testament to the Rebbe’s successful circulation of the problems in Judaism and their successful exposure to the air of the outside world, through kiruv. Praised be his name!
July 15th, 2008 at 8:40 am
Jesus Christ yho! Bresolv and Carlebach lunatics are known as way worse husbands than anybody else. A bunch of irresponsible wrecks. (That is why I get a long with them.)
July 15th, 2008 at 8:55 am
“Yes. That is a popular opinion in the world now, and what makes you think it’s not true?”
from being around secular people for most of the past twenty years.
“I don’t think secular nessesarily = more happy, because the main maila of the kedusha-lie is family-community-sense-of-purpose.”
contradicts the first quote.
+ as far as who has it better,
my opinion is that everybody is fucked up, every system fucked up, and nobody really found any key to happiness, infinity utopia. we suffer. we die. in middle we have a few ice creams. same shit for everybody.
July 15th, 2008 at 10:38 am
p.s. I’ve never met an abusive “Carlebach” husband, nor heard stories of one.
July 15th, 2008 at 10:49 am
After reading the article I still don’t understand how they were able to just grab the daughter without it being kidnapping.
July 15th, 2008 at 10:56 am
I am wondering yhosephus if I can take you to task here about your comments about mishichists. Give details of where you heard this. Is it just heresy as in “I have been hearing”?
July 15th, 2008 at 11:11 am
“Bresolv and Carlebach lunatics are known as way worse husbands than anybody else. A bunch of irresponsible wrecks”
Yiush, That is totally generalizing. It’s like saying all Jews a cheap.
July 15th, 2008 at 11:15 am
If she wants her daughter back she could go through the court systems. She will win!!!The mother of the child usually wins!!!
July 15th, 2008 at 2:49 pm
can someone get me her email addy ?
ill tyr and use my shtick dreck yicus to help her.
July 15th, 2008 at 2:56 pm
frankly without the sensasionalist ex-frum angle this would be one run of the mill non story.
July 15th, 2008 at 8:54 pm
but its not
July 16th, 2008 at 6:51 am
how and why this gitty article came into being and whose advice she was taking bears investigation/discussion. i just remember being asked if it could make the cover of “new yorker” magazine (i misheard) i burst out laughing. it’s all about context.
July 16th, 2008 at 9:31 am
It is a typical story,
Boy meets girl
Boy marries girl
Boy divorces girl
Boy gets custody of kid because his family has money and she is broke
July 16th, 2008 at 11:50 am
what this whole parshe points to is that both rabayni yoelish & mendel melech hamoshiach were right about one thing: SATMER & LUBAVITCH SHOULD NEVER INTERMARRY.
July 17th, 2008 at 7:26 pm
Read gitty’s respond to all this
in her words
www.FriendsforGitty.com
July 19th, 2008 at 7:23 am
who cares what gitty says? don’t you get it? this is about us.
or, real lives don’t matter, just ideas.
July 23rd, 2008 at 7:08 pm
She is just a big looser trying to get some attention.
Who cares what she thinks about Yidishkeit?
She a stupid 23 year old who thought if she’ll only act like a goita, she’ll turn into the luckiest person.
Like so many other Chasidic drop-outs, she obviously proved herself wrong and is now trying to blame the world for it.
Why doesn’t she explain what exactly went wrong with her marriage or why she felt this great urge to stop doing “Tahras Hamishpocha”?
We can only assume she wouldn’t come out to be this great victim, had she gotten more detailed about it!
September 6th, 2008 at 10:28 am
Hasidic Jews are like the arabs…. Lost in a time that doesn’t suit the era…… Get with it! You’ll be swallowed by the ebb and flow of time. This poor girl, to be manipulated by an acient belief! Stop living in caves, dragging women around by the hair and dressing like idiots. Get with the times… Religion is NO Salvation for the perpetrators!!!
September 6th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
“dressing like idiots” - it’s stupid anti-semitic comments like that that makes me sympathetic to chasidim.
September 6th, 2008 at 6:47 pm
Baal,
Would you rather have them all go to a Philip Roth nightmare? Read his “Eli the Fanatic” where he shreds shitpricks such as you. In his other stories also, but in that one, you will come out real bruised.