Leaving Orthodoxy but Keeping Judaism

Wake up babe, new OTD memoir just dropped.

A good memoir isn’t about recounting exactly what happened, but about carving a meaningful story out of lived experience. Having read a fair share of “Off the Derech” (OTD) memoirs (stories of people leaving Orthodoxy), the standard formula is pretty clear. The protagonist typically spends most of the book detailing how insane it was to grow up ultra-Orthodox. They recount the crazy rules, the strict norms, and the deeply sheltered lives they led. All the while, they portray themselves as inherently different from their peers. They had a secular neshama just waiting to break free. They, and only they, understood how cult-like their environment was, and they revel in showing the reader just how nutty it all was.

Then, toward the end of the book, comes the dramatic exit. The author takes a massive leap into the secular world, which embraces them with open arms, and they finally find the happiness they’ve been searching for. These memoirs rarely spend much time on the actual exit route. In the final chapter or two, as a tidy wrap-up, they announce their “escape.” They might lose everyone and everything they loved, including family, friends, and sometimes even their own children. However, that loss is framed as the inevitable price of freedom.

I read and reviewed every OTD memoir I can find here:

The best OTD memoirs transcend these simplified tropes. They tell stories that are complicated, messy, honest, and vulnerable, rather than contriving the perfect escape narrative. Brooklyn Odyssey by Zalman Newfield is a fantastic addition to the genre, exploring the nuanced reality of growing up Chabad and leaving as an adult.

Newfield begins by describing his childhood in Crown Heights toward the end of the Rebbe’s life. It is a fascinating inside look at growing up in the heart of Chabad, at the height of Chabad messianism. He details how his parents entered the Chabad fold from the outside as baalei teshuva and the education he received, or rather didn’t receive.

One notable aspect of his upbringing is the intense focus on the Rebbe.

"To me, the Rebbe was infallible. Every word he uttered was true, and everything he did was perfect—by definition. It was established fact, accepted without question by Lubavitchers, that the Rebbe performed miracles."

He describes all the crazy hijinks he did as a child, just to get a few extra moments with the Rebbe. The Rebbe isn’t just another tzadik for him, but a direct pipeline to God. Another stark element is his complete lack of secular education. Zalman couldn’t even read English until he taught himself as a teenager. I always thought Chabad was more moderate in this regard, and while Zalman does note that some schools give a better education, I was shocked schools like this exist in Chabad.

"The language of instruction in my school, Oholei Torah (the Tents of Torah), was Yiddish, and the curriculum included only religious subjects: Bible, Talmud, Hasidic philosophy. No English, mathematics, or social studies."

His childhood stories culminate in the death of the Rebbe and the subsequent earthquake that fractured the Chabad world into the meshichists and the anti-meshichists (or at least, the “not-as-loud” meshichists). What is truly appreciated in these chapters, though, is that Newfield never makes the reader feel like a voyeur. He doesn’t point at his past and shout, “Look at this insane cult I grew up in! They didn’t even teach me English!” Instead, he presents the facts clearly and entirely stripped of sensationalism.

The next section covers his time as a bachur in Chabad yeshivas. He starts off as a diligent student but eventually grows sick of the relentless and repetitive learning. He describes a strict atmosphere where the only acceptable activity is learning, and absolutely anything else is fiercely discouraged. As he writes:

“The dictum of Heraclitus, the ancient Greek philosopher, that says that one cannot step into the same river twice seemed to be contradicted by the sameness of each day and each year of my yeshiva studies. The monotony and length of each day’s schedule was exhausting.”

This part felt more familiar. As in any good yeshiva, he describes boys getting kicked out simply for meeting with girls. But the narrative really catches fire when he decides to learn English. With his uncle’s help, he studies English in total secrecy. He literally hides in the yeshiva bathroom so no one will catch him, persisting until he’s finally fluent enough to read. Secular books then become his lifeline. He describes all the books that made an impact on him, from children’s books like The Call of the Wild to philosophical and historical works like Viktor Frankl's Man’s Search for Meaning, Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel, and the short stories of Jorge Luis Borges.

Soon, reading replaces learning entirely. Literature opens the door to a universe outside of Chabad. In this new world, he can finally breathe and stretch his mind:

“I was like a villager who discovers one day that there are scores of modern metropolises beyond the muddy alleys of his ancestral home. My thirst was unquenchable.”

Breathing this fresh air brings the narrowness of the yeshiva world into sharp focus.

His observation about the sheer uniformity of the yeshiva experience struck a chord for me. He studied in Chicago, in the heart of the gay community in South Beach, and in Buenos Aires, yet he saw almost nothing of those vibrant places.

“It’s like a McDonald’s franchise. Although the language spoken by the employees may vary, and although the environment outside of the establishment may be quite different, what happens inside the walls of the establishment is remarkably similar across the globe. Culturally, all yeshivas I attended were like bunkers, but the large brown brick building of the yeshiva in Argentina is actually physically a sort of fortress."

Much like a prison, it doesn’t really matter what’s on the outside if you’re never allowed to leave the walls.

His path begins to diverge from Chabad when he starts traveling internationally on shlichus to do outreach with non-Orthodox Jews. His travels take him everywhere from Russia to Singapore to Beijing. Encountering these new cultures broadens his horizons even further. What stands out is the sheer variety of fascinating people he meets along the way. Even before his intercontinental trips, he is constantly striking up conversations with interesting characters, something that feels uniquely characteristic of Chabad. During his shlichus, he meets non-Orthodox Jews who encourage him to pursue a secular education, which he ultimately does. He starts at Touro College before eventually moving on to, gasp, a goyishe university.

It’s in its final act that the book truly shines. When Zalman eventually cuts his beard, his mother, with whom he had always been very close, tells him he is no longer welcome to visit home. This is the rupture where most OTD memoirs end. They usually feature an embrace of secular culture and a permanent severing of ties with the old community. But Newfield refuses to let the story end there. He pushes back, determined to remain a part of his family’s life, even compromising by dressing like a Lubavitcher when he visits.

This part of the book is fantastic. So many who leave Orthodoxy assume that the minute they declare they are no longer frum, the story is over. They made a clean break, and now no longer have to deal with their own frum upbringing or any of their frum family and friends. They can move to Yehupatzville and be a goy. But Zalman captures the profound messiness of it all. He shows the true slow process of figuring things out. The surreal experience of sitting in a college classroom still wearing full Chassidish garb. The delicate, painful back-and-forth of navigating a new dynamic with family. The critical role of therapy in surviving the transition. He realizes that “the secular world” isn’t a monolith, but a complex web of different people where you have to carve out your own space.

Perhaps the most compelling aspect, however, is how he holds onto Judaism. One of the lies of the frum world is that it’s all or nothing. You’re either frum or totally not frum. But this isn’t true. Just because you no longer believe, you don’t have to suddenly drop all Judaism out of your life. There’s no OTD mitzvah to do aveiros. Instead, you can hold onto whatever you still find meaningful. Zalman still puts on tefillin, even after he stops believing in God. As he perfectly puts it to a rabbi who encapsulates the all or nothing approach:

“My decision to put on tefillin even though I didn’t believe in God meant that Judaism was something that I controlled and not something that controlled me. I thought of Judaism as a cultural treasure to enrich my life, not a master that held me hostage.”

It is deeply admirable how he kept Judaism central to his identity entirely on his own terms, and I love how he explored the journey he took to get to that place.

All in all, Brooklyn Odyssey is a stellar addition to the OTD memoir genre. It explores the specifics of the Chabad community and its yeshivas with an incredible level of insight and nuance. Anyone looking to think more deeply about community, faith, or lack thereof, would enjoy this memoir.