Footsteps: Lani Santo & Abby Stein

The Five-O-One is joined by Footsteps CEO, Lani Santo, and author of “Becoming Eve,” Abby Stein. In this episode we discuss how Footsteps is helping those seeking to leave their ultra-Orthodox communities, how the ultra-Orthodox community is changing, and what the journey out of this community was like for activist and author, Abby Stein.

To learn more about the organization visit www.footstepsorg.org.

Talia: So this story all begins in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Abby, can you bring our listeners back for a moment to your childhood in the ultra-Orthodox community?

Abby: Well, I grew up in a Hasidic Williamsburg neighborhood in Brooklyn. I have five older sisters, then there's me, then I have four brothers, and then three more sisters. I grew up in what would be called a rabbinic family. They are the families of the Rebbes, who are the Hasidic supreme leaders — the institutional, communal, spiritual and political leaders of the Hasidic community. My parents come from these families. Growing up in the Hasidic community impacts every part of your life, like literally every second, it impacts which language you speak, the education you get, or rather, the lack thereof, almost an entirely religious education, specifically for those who were attending boy schools. The dress code for men, is mostly black and white, kind of following an 18th century aristocratic dress code, specifically if you come from a rabbinic family. For the women, the dress code is mostly about following rules of modesty, not like rules of modesty that I think a lot of people are used to in Orthodox communities, this is a whole new level. I know the rules that my family follows was that your skirt or dress has to be at least four inches below the knees, but it also has to be 10 inches above the ground; so too short is a problem, too long is a problem. It has to be in what they consider mostly neutral colors. So like black and navy, colors, red and pink are not okay.

Talia: And I think I also read somewhere that there are very specific rules about stockings.

Abby: There are way too many rules about stockings. For some reason stockings is like a symbol. So my family actually still considered beige, that totally doesn't look like skin, to be too close to skin color — so they only wear black. My parent’s engagement hinged on the color of my mom's tights, which has actually since changed, partially after I left, because I left — she started also wearing black tights. To have a better way of understanding the Hasidic community, I think people are used to religious communities in the US, but this community is not the only conservative community. I think where they have become so unique is the fact that they live in bubbles of the outside world. So take TV, for example —  we're probably not the only community where parents don't want their kids to watch any TV shows, but I think we might be one of the only communities where the kids don't even know which TV shows exist. It wasn't like I knew there are shows that are not religious enough, I didn't even know that these  shows existed. Halloween is another example; I know that many Jewish communities don't like to celebrate Halloween, but I didn't even know that that's a thing. I never heard that word. I was unaware that Thanksgiving exists. It wasn't the things were forbidden; I had no idea who Britney Spears was. We didn't know much about the outside world and that is kind of the culture that I was raised in.

Talia: So a little later, we'll talk about how you left that insular community. But first, Lani, can you tell our listeners a bit about what Footsteps does?

Lani: Sure, Footsteps supports people who are thinking about leaving Orthodox communities, or people who have already left. When people leave ultra-Orthodoxy, they're really at risk of losing their family support and their social support networks, and what Footsteps is there to do is to provide a combination of critical resources to support them in that journey. And really, most importantly, to let them know that they're not alone. The journey out could be really isolating for people, and it takes people a while to build or rebuild their social and community support, and so we really serve as the bridge between those two worlds.

 Talia: And I know that this predates you entering the organization, but how did this organization come to be?  

Lani: So Footsteps was founded by a young woman named Malkie Schwartz, who was born in Crown Heights, and was one of those folks that had questions in her adolescence and in her teenage years. When it came time for her to graduate high school, and go down the path that was predetermined for her -- which was getting matched in a shidduch process, a matchmaking process, and then getting married and having kids --  and she wanted something different. She wanted to pursue an education, she wanted to go to college;  back then, this was nearly 20 years ago, going to college in the Lubavitch community was not really something that was much of an option,  but her family was not supportive of her. She had the luck, if you will, and that's really how she saw it, that she had secular family; both of her parents had become Orthodox, and she was in touch with secular relatives who she reached out to, and they helped her fight tooth and nail for her high school transcript. She had high school transcript, but they weren't releasing it, which is pretty common when people want to go to colleges that are not on the approved list. So they helped her fight for her high school transcripts. They helped her apply, get into Hunter, and she founded Footsteps. While she was a student at Hunter people were starting to informally reach out to her and say, “How did you do it? How did you figure it out?” And she realized she had resources because she had access to secular family that other people didn't have. And one day, she was talking to a friend who was formerly Mormon and gay and had left that community and said there should be an organization for people like us, and he said to her, “yeah, there should be, you should start it.” So she started Footsteps with a vision of really supporting people who are coming from all various fundamentalist backgrounds.

Talia: Oh, interesting. So the organization was initially conceived to serve all fundamentalist communities.

Lani: Yeah, and that's our founding vision. And for us, what it emerged into is that Malkie was in New York City and founded this organization, and the biggest fundamentalist religious community is the Jewish community is the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in New York. And so it made sense that our programs evolved to support them. For us, we've had to make a decision about staying focused, because there's so much need in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community right now, that we still can't meet all the needs that our members present with.

Talia: So Abby, back to you. Your book details this constant struggle in your life, with your identity and your religion. And at some point, you decide to explore the world beyond your community. How exactly did that happen?

Abby: So I was in a very bad place, and I thought it was going to get better if I just lived my life secretly but actually it was just getting worse. So in January of 2012, when I was 20, that was when I reached the peak — I had already read a lot of books that I wasn't supposed to read. I had an uncle who was a Rebbe, who used to say that you shouldn't ask which books you are not allowed to read, you should ask which books you are allowed, because, by definition, you're not allowed to read any book that was written by outsiders. I had reached a point where I felt that all the answers that I could get from within the community I'd exhausted, and I couldn't find myself — so I decided to go online. I had never used WiFi before, but I knew everything about WiFi, because we were always told that if you buy a computer, you should take it into this organization that's going to make it kosher. Because even if you don't have an internet plan, and even if you don't have internet at home, you could connect it to WiFi by mistake. I had this friend who had a Tablet, I don't think he ever actually connected it to the internet, but he was enough of a rebel that he didn't make it kosher -- It had the ability to connect to the internet. I figured out that if I take the Tablet to a mall or to anywhere where there's a lot of businesses, I will have a WiFi connection. So I went to this place, a strip mall and they had these single stall unisex bathrooms that are fully enclosed, and I had the perfect WiFi connection there. So that's where I started doing research all in Hebrew at the time, because I didn't speak English. So that lead me to a Wikipedia page which led me to an online forum for people who have left religious communities. From there, I learned about Hillel — not the college campus organization —  another Hillel which is a sister organization of Footsteps in Israel. And then around the same time, I made a Facebook account. But finally, and this was already a few months after I started being online in January — this was happening in June and July, the summer of 2012 — I went on Facebook, and there was a Facebook group called “off-the-derech,” which is still around. So I posted and it's still up there.

Talia: Wait, Abby, can we look back and find what you wrote?  

Abby: I could try. Yeah, let me see. Let's see the date posted… let's see if I can look back at 2012. Here we go. Okay, it's there. Oh, my God. “Hi, everybody. Um, I am totally off-to-derech inside. But outside I am normal (misspelled the word normal), Hasidic, (totally misspelled), from the Vishnitz community living in Monsey, New York, (which is a community I lived in), and in a few weeks, I want to leave my community to start a new life. As of now I'm suffering from being outside frum, including at home, because that nobody knows my situation. And I'm looking to speak with everyone that can help me pass that few weeks over the phone and in person. And then I put my phone number and email, which is a terrible idea. But yes, that’s what I wrote.

Talia:  How does that feel to read that?

Abby: It's like looking back… well, it doesn't feel like me, which is the other thing ... I have the same thing when I look at old pictures. But I wanted to say this is already six months into studying English. So in January, I started taking online courses —I went to YouTube and there are English courses for Hebrew speakers. First, it was almost all exclusively online just listening to YouTube classes starting from the very beginning. And then I remember getting a second-hand GED book to study a bit. This is already six months into studying English.

Talia: So what happened when you posted in that group?

Abby: So yeah, let's actually see what happens. There's all kinds of comments. Oh, yes, please take everyone's advice and contact Footstep, you're exactly the type of person that they want to help. From everything I know about Footsteps, they will help you make calm and steady decisions about your life, and they will also help you get some secular education which you need. And yeah, after a day of talking to people, I already contacted Footsteps.

Talia: Lani, you have helped countless Abby's during the 10 years that you have been with Footsteps? How do these individuals who want to leave typically find you?  

Lani: Usually through word of mouth, sometimes that's positive word of mouth — maybe they've met someone who's left the community on social media. When people were gathering in person, people would find out through networks, sometimes that are underground, sometimes that are more known about, and sometimes it's through a negative word of mouth.

Talia: And that negative word of mouth that typically comes from within the ultra-Orthodox communities?

 Lani: Yeah, they're usually myths that are circulated in Orthodox communities about Footsteps wanting to force people to become secular, or force people to break Shabbat, or force people to eat traif (non-kosher) foods. And that's not at all what we're about, our core value is one of choice. And so when people come to us with questions, we really are there to be a non-judgmental listening ear for folks who often might have presented these questions in other spaces, but in those spaces, they were told, don't ask, just do and at Footsteps when they come to us we say, have you ever told anyone that you've had doubts before? What are you concerned about? And we help them think through the consequences of various decisions that they have in front of them. Our social workers are trained to make sure that we're helping people come to decisions that are really their own and not suggesting that they do certain things. This is a decision that's not taken lightly, and people are risking a lot, and it’s not for everyone. 

Talia: So Abby, what happens when you do reach out to Footsteps?

Abby: So I showed up for the first meeting with a social worker. I just was hoping they were just going to tell me “here's some help to get your GED, and now you could go live somewhere and just leave.” Instead, in the most loving way they told me, “you’re not going anywhere, you're not leaving tomorrow, before you leave, you need to get an education, you need to get a job.” But also, more importantly, and I think this is something that people need to understand, they were pushing me to talk to my now ex-wife, then my wife, and try to see if I can make it work with her. We got along really well, at least relatively for an arranged marriage. We got engaged when we were 17, and we had a child together. I think deep down, I wanted to make it work because I specifically wanted to be with my son. But I was in such a bad place that I couldn't think of it, I just wanted to leave, I wanted to disappear. I was convinced that the second I tell her, she's just going to leave, and that's it, she's going to leave the marriage. But we did it. We stayed married for almost a year, until April of 2013. So then, I continued going to meetings, and started to go to events, and  for the first time I started to find my place. Looking back at it, I couldn't have asked for anything better.

Talia: And Lani, could you walk us through the offerings that you provide to the Footsteps community?

Lani: When people first reach out to us, they are in touch with folks who've gone through the journey on the other side — that is who is answering our phones — and they help connect them to our social workers, who will do an initial conversation. Based on that conversation we really build out individual plans. But a lot of what we offer is one-to-one work with social workers, support groups, access to therapy, and mental health supports through organizations and through individual practitioners. We have a whole array of economic empowerment programs, and that's where the GED would come in, if someone's trying to get their high school equivalency. We have a robust scholarship program that gives out over a half million dollars a year, this year to more than 130 people. We have a Career Services Program, financial counseling, and crisis funding. And then we also really make sure to offer access to partner organizations that are doing important work. Then if someone is a parent, there's a whole other layer of service offerings that we have around access to legal services; if they're fighting for custody or fighting for a relationship with their kids, they often need advice on legal services, access to pro-bono services or low-bono services, and then the emotional supports and wherewithal it takes to go through a custody battle, which is pretty challenging. So there's all of those, which is what we call our critical support services, and then on top of that, and often most important to our members is the community building piece. So we have a peer support model always in groups; there are parents groups, there are groups for new members, and then there's one-to-one peer mentoring where peers advise each other. And then, of course, large social events. Also increasingly, as our community of parents has grown, we have family programming.

Talia: So I want to shift gears a bit, Lani, you were responsible for expanding Footstep’s profile with the Netflix award winning documentary “One of Us”, which outlines the experiences of three Footstep members. Can you talk about that a bit?

Lani: The decision to engage with documentary filmmakers, which had been approaching us for years, we'd get one or two requests a month in my first set of five plus years at Footsteps, and we finally had folks reach out to us that we felt like we really trusted. We felt like we could trust them with our members --  that they had our members best interest in mind, and that they would really work to build trust with our members in order to make this a film that did justice to their journeys, which I think it largely did. Ultimately, what I could say is that we were really able to raise awareness about the battle that parents take on to fight for the right to a relationship with their children, which should be a basic right for any parent. And it really allowed us to shed light on this uphill battle. And the power that the community wields in such situations, could be very frightening for individuals who have very limited financial resources. What we wanted to put out there is that the individuals we serve and the parents especially who are out there, have us as an organization, and that there's a community of members, supporters, and allies standing by their side. And I think that we've been able to do that.

Talia: Abby, what was it like for you to watch “One of Us” and then to cameo in “Unorthodox”? Did you feel that they were accurate portrayals of the community and the experience of leaving the community?

 Abby: “One of Us” is amazing. I think what people are missing about “One of Us” and “Unorthodox” is that it's not attempting to tell the story of the community as a whole. Both of these are projects specifically telling the stories of people leaving, “Unorthodox” as a fictionalized version based on a real story, and “One of Us” as a documentary. It's a very accurate description of the experience leaving, but in “Unorthodox”, the one thing that is the most inaccurate is the sexual education piece. Frankly, I have a friend who is still in the Hasidic community, but he's more open-minded. He watched the show, and after he watched the sex education episode, he's like, “what is wrong with them? Since when do you get so much education?” Me and my ex and many people that I know got even less sex education than what Esti got in “Unorthodox”.

Talia: So Abby back to your story. What happened when you told your family that you were leaving the community?

 Abby: So with leaving the community, I never sat down my family and told them, “Hey, I'm leaving tomorrow.” It was more they learned that I was a member of Footsteps, they learned that I wasn't religious, and they learned that I was going to leave. And I did it in a more slow way. I didn't fully decide to leave, until it became very clear to me that there was no way for me to stay married, and to stay living with my son full-time, which is a big deal. My ex was forced to leave me by her family — it was a really heartbreaking experience for me, and I would think even for her — so it was more of a slow process. As I was going through that my parents sat me down and they told me they disagree with me. But my dad and I quote, word for word translated into English, he said, “I think it's almost like a cancer, but if my child has cancer, I'm not going to disown them.” And I think even that was conditional  — part of him was hoping that I would come back. But specifically with my mom she really believed that a child is a child, even if they live a life that you disagree with. That lasted until I came out of trans, that was was when he said I'm never going to talk to you again.

Talia: I can't imagine how hard that was. Wow... and Abby, have you found that others who choose to leave the community are typically shunned by their families?

Abby: I think it's less and less. When I was a child, everyone who left — and there weren't that many people — were shunned. And it’s partially thanks to Footsteps that we have managed to actually get support. There are more and more people that succeed. There are people who left without GEDs, who have doctorates; there are people who have all kinds of jobs in whichever field they want. The reality is that the more people that leave, the less the community feels the need to shun them. When I was growing up, every extended family maybe had one person that left, now every family has. So I think that is changing.

Talia: Here's my last question: what is your hope for the future of this organization?

Abby: Well, Footsteps has come a really long way even since I joined in ways that I couldn't imagine. It's a matter of time until people who have left ultra-Orthodox communities are becoming our own denomination within Judaism in beautiful ways. There's so much richness that a lot of people who have left the Hasidic community have, and so much to offer to the wider Jewish community. I want to see more and more people at Footsteps, which is already happening, feeling comfortable tapping into the knowledge and experience that we have and using it in our own way. And I think Footsteps is headed in that direction.