I think that someone should make a VH1 edition of “off the derech where are they now?”
Whatever happened to all the kids who went off the derech in the hey day of the kids at risk crisis curing the middle and late 90s, these kids would all be in their mid to late 20s by now and I wonder what happened to them. Of course I know what happened to some of them, after all I went to one of the prime off the derech creation yeshivas.
Many of them ended up at places like Niveh, Ner Jake, Priority One or the learner earner program at IDT. Then those who didn’t get brainwashed and frum out, came back to New York City to start their lives at Touro, Queens or Brooklyn Colleges or work in the 3 major off the derech fields of work, which are mortgages, real estate including property management or construction- which of course are all interrelated and which means that the housing market is a racket controlled by ex druggies who frummed out in Israel, but didn’t quite make it to kollel.
Of course you have a whole slew of off the derech kids who never made it, or shall we say made it, but didn’t make it how their Rabbis wanted them to make it. These include all of the bright off the derech kids who ended up in art schools or Ivy League schools- I know quite a few of these and they tend to be the ideologically off the derech types rather then the too lazy to keep shabbos and kosher off the derech types.
Let us not forget the off the derech kids that did in fact frum out and stay frummed out- the rarest of the bunch. You see off going off the derech is a big commitment that many kids cant handle. They tend to go off but still retain contact with their frum friends and family and even don their hats and yarmulkes when in the hood. So many kids who go off the derech fluctuate, they go off, go to Israel come back on only to go off again or become wishy washy with what they actually want to do. This situation sometimes repeats itself for several years, its expected that when someone goes to Israel they will frum out after the prescribed time of 3 months, then in the summer they go off again. Finally they get their bachelors of Talmudic law after several years and come back to work in construction, computers, real estate or a fathers friends warehouse.
But a few of those who go off and come back on actually become Rebbes and kollel yungerliet. I would call it post off the derech crowd- you know how people describe these folks. “Oh remember him, he’s so different now, so frum” but they say it in a way that denotes their past, says that we know exactly who you are- no fooling us with that wife and kids, we know about all the sex and drugs.
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Apparently going off the derech is a chronic condition that must be carefully managed to avoid acute flareups.
HESH:
i’m glad you specified that not all OTDs are misfits looking for trouble, as they are often portrayed to be. some simply didn’t fit like they fit in (whether spiritually, intellectually, socially, etc.) and just don’t belong in their former communities.
“which means that the housing market is a racket controlled by ex druggies who frummed out in Israel, but didn’t quite make it to kollel.” That is hysterical and so true.
I would like to add: Who am I most proud of of the off-the-Derech- VanHalenesque-Where-Are-They-Now Chevra? I’m most proud of the one or two guys I know who went into Kiruv so they could continue to be cool and a little out of the box while helping others even with their black hat. I’m also proud of the closeted-former-OTDers who I find at my kids’ MO school. They, like me, decided to get off one train and switch onto another one rather than completely stop moving forward.
A couple of months ago, we were at a Kiruv event with a former OTD guy from the 80’s and what I found hysterical is that he finds a way to tell me at some point that “You know I didn’t do half the things they said about me.” And all I can think is “I couldn’t care less whether you made out with the nurse’s daughter in the woods at Camp Sternberg. I admire you for it. “
Sex and drugs? I hear that same thing about Amish kids who go off the village.
I suppose I should be glad I never was on the derech in the Orthodox Jewish (or Amish) way. All the secular world just elicits a sort of shrug from me.
Grass is always greener they say, but I say there’s always someplace where the grass is greener, but do you really want to go there?
Hey no fair, I never went OTD, but I work in computers!
Dont worry Lenny I also work in Computers and I never went off- never had the ability because I was from a modern family.
No offense, utubefan, but young guys who go into kiruv are so sketchy. I feel like they’re really in kiruv because it’s a less judgmental environment… and so they can get some baalat teshuvah a**.
Kiruv guys get ass, where do I sign up?
hmm well I did all those sex and drugs things…my parents wanted to send me to israel for a year to ’straighten me out’ as per the rabbi’s suggestion, but I refused to go. Then they tried to convince me to go to stern college, but I told them I sent the application out and then didn’t send it out. I ended up at CUNY Hunter
And where am I now? Well I graudated summa cum laud, and am now ABD (all but dissertation) in a Joint PhD program in Sociology and Demorgaphy at one of those ivy league schools. I have several publications out, have taught classes at my ivy league graduate school, and once I graduate I’m planning on becoming a professor at a fairly decent school if all goes well. I’m marrying my non-jewish live-in boyfriend in a little under a year, and my parents barely talk to me, except to tell me how wrong it is to be with my boyfriend. Er, I guess my fiance now.
I’m very happy, I don’t live in NY, I still have sex, maybe still do other things, and I’m well on my way to a kick-ass career.
I guess I would charectarize myself as one of those ideologically off the derech types.
How about those OTD girls who became Rabbis??
Agirl, think “old OTD guy.” I’m an 80’s OTD so my people have middle-age pot bellies and stuff. This guys legit, btw. He works more with the boys and he’s excellent.
Are there really that many OTDs?
From the stats I’ve read, the Orthodox community has a retention rate of 89 percent. That’s pretty darn high.
How about them left brooklyn?
I know of one that is now dead of an OD
Yeh that guy in Niveh, but there was this one kid in Rochester that almost died of a cocaine OD- but he lived and is now a regular old married hippie-ish sort of guy.
I left Brooklyn, Live in DC. married a reform guy.
OTD!!!!
I never got on the Derech, although I’ve cruised alongside for a couple of miles.
Then decided to roll off-road using my beater!
Yea, Bikes Rock!
(Now wtf am i talking about?)
I’m OTD and getting a phd at one of them ivy league schools, marrying my non-jewish boyfriend in a little less than a year.
We are all very proud.
I wonder if OTD people that havent done teshuva yet can get an aliyah?
I know the reasoning for being meikel with the not-yet-frum is they’re considered tinuk shenishba for never having gotten any kind of real education.
This question kind of works itself out for the most part I think because this is the kind of person that is very unlikely to be in shul for the question to come up anyway.
I was accidentally set up with a guy who had gone off and come back. Over several phone conversations, he told me about the Spanish girls he slept with, and then asked me how I liked sex. I was too scared to date him.
Fair enough, utubefan. So what about those boys, then? Don’t you middle aged pot-bellied men like them, then? Just kidding. But surely you know what I mean.
Hesh, BT girls are not for practice.
Also, I wonder if it’s better to start out modern? It seems like really frummy kids who go OTD go really far OTD, while MO kids who go OTD end up less OTD. Although I’ve observed the opposite, too.
Agirl, I knew you would make a comment like that, but I said that the guy was a player in his day. He was blissfully, persistently straight with every girl in Woodburne. Now, about the frummies. Yeah, they go down in flames hard because they usually don’t have a clue about Halacha and Minhag and stuff. They know intellectually that it’s against the rules to be Mechallel Shabbos but so is making out with a girl so what’s the difference? And then there’s the anger factor. Frummy OTD kids are way angrier than MO. The MO kids are kind of numb or just pushing over boundaries, but some of the OTD Frummies are hell-bent on disaster because of the experiences at home or in school that they had.
raised fairly secular, though parents open with me choosing to become more religious or not….would’ve loved to have had a proper jewish educ. though
it’s never too late, jenny, if you want. that’s the fun of being a grown-up. well, that and staying up late and eating lots of candy.
I call myself on the fringe OTD b/c my belief in g-d and my being shomer mitzvos never wavered but I was def a bad girl with the boys…
I meant back in HS
I don’t think anyone posted this … but definitely relevant story about an “escapee” from KJ.
http://nymag.com/news/features/48532/
“I made out with the nurse’s daughter in the woods at Camp Sternberg.”
This has *got* to be on a t-shirt somewhere…
Abandoning Eden: Will you dump your boyfriend and marry me? I do prefer guys, actually, but I’m never gonna get a guy from Hah-vard, so a gal from an Ivy League is nearly as good. We could even start a blog about a frum girl and an unaffiliated Jew being married to each other. Think of the potential titles for it…
OK, that was a lame joke. But seriously, Abandoning, you sound like you’ve got a cool life, religious or not!