Sara Glass was only 19 when she married. As she describes in her memoir, “Kissing Girls on Shabbat,” she may have looked like a picture-perfect ultra-Orthodox bride. But inside, she felt shame, confusion and a desire that she couldn’t understand.
Twenty years later, as an out lesbian and clinical therapist, Glass is using her own experiences to reach others. She will discuss her memoir on May 22 at the Oshman Family JCC in Palo Alto.
“It has resonated with people — men, women, people of all genders, teenagers, young adults, older adults — so it’s just for anybody who wants to be more true to themselves,” she told J. on Monday.
Glass, who lives in New York City, will be in conversation at the JCC with Lani Santo, CEO of Footsteps, a nonprofit that supports Jews leaving ultra-Orthodoxy.
“Sara’s phenomenal,” Santo told J.
The book describes Glass’ early-teenage queer relationships in Brooklyn’s Borough Park, and the way she tamped down her desires out of shame, praying to God for forgiveness. It follows her unhappy arranged marriage to Yossi, the birth of their two children, and the increasing bleakness of her life as a wife in the Ger, or Gur, Hasidic community, which was founded in Poland and now is one of the largest sects in Israel.
With a history of mental illness in her family, Sara felt drawn to become a therapist. She decided to attend college, even though it went against what is expected of a Hasidic wife. Eventually she left her husband, married a Modern Orthodox man, earned a Ph.D. and, in a final step toward freedom, left that marriage and came out as a lesbian.
But it wasn’t a simple trajectory, and Glass rejects the idea that her book is about escaping a religion.
“I don’t feel like I ‘escaped’ my Hasidic community,” she said. “I feel like I was raised in a community I love, I miss, that has serious flaws and that wasn’t aligned with who I needed to be, and so I left.”
When her journey started, she felt she had almost no personal identity of her own, other than what was expected of her by family, friends and her religious community.
“I thought their needs were more important than mine,” she said. “Then I deviated from that and had to learn that I matter. My needs matter, my body matters, my rights matter, my children matter.” At that point, she lost compassion for her Hasidic community “and became more resentful and fearful and angry.”
Writing the book helped her rediscover that compassion, she said, even when it was hard — as in the case of her first husband, Yossi.
“Maybe he was anxious and scared, just like I was,” she said. “Maybe he was only trying to do the right thing, but he didn’t know how. Maybe the system we were both raised in was the oppressor, and it wasn’t him or even his rabbi.”
The book also traces how Glass’ divorce from Yossi was complicated due to restrictions around exposing their two children to influences outside of Orthodoxy — and by her fears that taking a step too far could mean losing her parental rights. (Others who have left observant Jewish communities have lost custody of children.)
This is a common issue for those who leave ultra-Orthodoxy, Santo said.
“It’s never a decision that’s taken lightly, like, ‘Oh, maybe I should leave,’” Santo said. “Often they’ve tried every other pathway and have realized that if they’re not true to themselves, they can’t actually be alive for their children. They won’t be able to be a parent for their children because they’re crumbling inside.”
After many attempts, Glass was able to take the steps she needed, including enrolling her children in schools where they could get a broader education than what is taught in Hasidic schools, a struggle she details in the book.
Santo said that’s one of the reasons Glass is an important role model.
“The people, they could see a Sara Glass out there and know that you could leave and retain custody of your kids and live authentically as yourself, that you don’t have to give everything up in order to live authentically,” Santo said. “And that’s huge.”
“Kissing Girls on Shabbat” was released in June, and Glass has been touring with it since. She feels that her message about the freedom to live authentically resonates with everyone, not just those who have stepped away from ultra-Orthodoxy.
“When I talk, I combine my personal experience with my expertise as a trauma therapist and use that to help audiences, hopefully, look within themselves and think about what they want,” she said.
Santo pointed out that it’s important, too, that audiences and readers from more secular backgrounds have empathy for the many forms that leaving ultra-Orthodoxy can take — even if it’s messy — and not get too focused on exoticizing the details.
“We really try to educate our allies and supporters around the balance and the nuance of what does allyship actually look like, and what does it mean to not vilify and not romanticize, but something in between,” she said.
Glass also said she gets messages every day from those still inside the ultra-Orthodox world.
“People from within the Hasidic and ultra-Orthodox communities have been reaching out to me over social media more because that’s where they can access someone like me without having to be caught out in public talking with me,” she said.
And it’s for them that the book was written, in many ways. Glass “got to the other side,” as she put it, but she hasn’t left everything behind. Instead, she’s reaching out a hand to anyone still there who needs it.
“I moved to Manhattan. My children were attending schools where they could receive a real American education. I was able to date women,” she said. “And 10 miles away from where I am right now, my nieces and nephews are getting married off at really young ages. There are queer youth who are thinking that they’re sinners.”
Helping all of them find their true selves is the real impetus behind her book, she said.
“How could I not do anything? So that is why I started to write.”
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