Leaving an Insular Community: The Case of Ultra Orthodox Jews

This article describes a study that used a qualitative mythology to capture the lived experience of individuals who grew up in Ultra Orthodox and Chasidic communities and left to explore a new path. A convenience sample of 19 individuals from the New York area was used. Non structured individual in-depth interviews were conducted to learn how these individuals perceive, describe, and interpret their experience. The interviews were content-analyzed. This analysis yielded six main themes: The nature of the process (beginnings, intellectual vs. relational motivation, phases, and pivotal points), social attitudes (of the families and the community), emotional issues, challenges, and coping strategies (reaching compromises and reasoning, relocating to a different geographical area, pretending, developing a “thick skin”, and catching up), support sources, current view of the Ultra Orthodox community and of self. These themes are discussed and illustrated. Implications for intervention and for future research are suggested.