Chaviva has haters :(

[LucySnowe]

Someone asks Chaviva questions she doesn't like = haters.

kvetchingeditor.com/2013/04/ask-chaviva-anything-hater-edition.html

I'm rather confused by the contradictory nature of your adherence to tznius. You dress very modestly and yet you talk quite freely about matters which are rather intimate and inappropriate for the public sphere. Just today you posted about vibrators on your facebook page - isn't it a bit contradictory to be modest in dress and yet not in behavior?

I dunno, I think it's a perfectly legitimate question. One would assume that a person who actively promotes a modest appearance would also apply such an ideal to other aspects of public life. But no, this question must be mocked as coming from a hater, because obviously this questioner considers Chaviva's post about vibrators* to be "utter scandal". And this requires lecturing the hater on not understanding tsanua - even though her own definition includes "speech, actions, how you carry yourself, the company you keep, the way you eat, the way you sit, everything". Which, um, would include Facebook posts?

But then again, "Ask Chaviva Anything" is actually "Ask Chaviva Anything except about her weight, or how old her husband is, or what her prospective inlaws think about her staying frum, because she'll publicly smack you down for that".

[awaiting being labelled as a hater in 3...2....]

*The original post was about British pharmacies stocking vibrators. Which they do:

http://www.boots.com/en/Pharmacy-Health ... sage-gels/

[longskirts]

Well, I think it's okay for someone to define modesty in terms of clothing but to be more free in speech and other areas. This is often criticized as "legalism," which apparently Protestants detest, but we Jews don't necessarily think it's a bad thing.

But as you say, Chaviva does seem to have a wider definition of modesty, so she shouldn't be surprised when her readers hold her to it. The smackdowns on her blog do get tiresome.

[shedemei]

Okay, what you're confused about is what tzanua is. Above all, I frequently remind people about the many layers of tzanua, because as I discovered when I did The Tzniut Project a few years back, many people see tzanua as a very shallow thing -- cover the elbows, cover the knees -- when it's about so much more. It's speech, actions, how you carry yourself, the company you keep, the way you eat, the way you sit, everything.

I love how Chaviva's response to criticism that she doesn't practice modesty in speech (by mentioning vibrators) the way she practices modesty in dress is that the commenter is not aware that tzniut includes modesty in speech along with modesty in dress.

[Dinorah]

I have mixed feeling on Chaviva and how she speaks about herself, and maybe "haters" is too strong a word, but the comment from the person who wouldn't give her marriage 6 months was very rude, that is the sort of thought that's best kept for oneself.

Also, I don't know that much about her way of seeing modesty, but it looked like she was making a kind of jokey post, she wasn't really sharing something intimate (btw I used to live in England and never noticed the vibrators in the pharmacies).

[LucySnowe]

Yeah, it's rude to tell someone their marriage won't last six months. But someone politely asking you to explain perceived discrepancies on an issue that you yourself are promoting (modesty) isn't even in the same ballpark.

[silvia]

Someone asks Chaviva questions she doesn't like = haters.

kvetchingeditor.com/2013/04/ask-chaviva-anything-hater-edition.html

I dunno, I think it's a perfectly legitimate question. One would assume that a person who actively promotes a modest appearance would also apply such an ideal to other aspects of public life. But no, this question must be mocked as coming from a hater, because obviously this questioner considers Chaviva's post about vibrators* to be "utter scandal". And this requires lecturing the hater on not understanding tsanua - even though her own definition includes "speech, actions, how you carry yourself, the company you keep, the way you eat, the way you sit, everything". Which, um, would include Facebook posts?

But then again, "Ask Chaviva Anything" is actually "Ask Chaviva Anything except about her weight, or how old her husband is, or what her prospective inlaws think about her staying frum, because she'll publicly smack you down for that".

[awaiting being labelled as a hater in 3...2....]

*The original post was about British pharmacies stocking vibrators. Which they do:

http://www.boots.com/en/Pharmacy-Health ... sage-gels/

Yep, sounds like a legitimate question to me! I think Chaviva is interesting, but this refusal to acknowledge a request to explain her apparently inconsistent attitudes toward modesty smacks of fundamentalist thinking to me. If there was a good explanation, I feel like she'd have put it forth, instead of just talking about haters.

[FaustianSlip]

I pretty much though, "And I'm out," when Chaviva wrote that post about living in a settlement in Israel and spent paragraphs basically trying to justify it by saying (in summary), "You just don't understand! Settlements aren't what you think they are! They have a community there, and people, so it's totally cool!" Her responses to questions about that whole thing were very comparable to her response to the tzniut question here. "Oh, you just don't understand properly. If you did, you'd completely agree with me and what I'm doing!" That seems to be her go-to tactic in responding to criticism or even slightly difficult or pointed questions.

I also think she's gotten more fundamentalist over the last year or so, maybe in an effort to try and "make up" for the whole falling off the derech, dating a non-Jew thing? In any case, she seems happy, and I wish her well, but I don't really read her blog anymore.

[shedemei]

For someone who considers herself a social media professional, she's really not good at it when it comes to her own image. She overshares information—like putting her mailing address on her blog or publicizing details about her new non-Jewish boyfriend—then acts astonished when people react to it. I can understand that she's sensitive about things like her husband's age, but instead of calling people haters for asking about all she has to do is politely say that she's not comfortable discussing it, or that there is an age difference but it isn't important in their relationship. "OMG, you don't know me!!!" is not a good strategy. I was hoping that aliyah would be a fresh and positive start for her, but it looks like it's SSDD.

[Dysfundamental]

How old is her husband, anyway? 80? 18? Why is it a big secret?

[lagenialester]

I could write so much on this topic. Instead I will say that I've been forcing myself out of the habit of typing her blog into my browser for about 2 months now. I just can't do it anymore.

[LucySnowe]

How old is her husband, anyway? 80? 18? Why is it a big secret?

He's 35.

A fact I discovered three minutes ago by going to Chaviva's Facebook page, clicking on the link to her husband's Facebook page, and looking at his birthdate. And this article, published sometime after April last year, said she's 29:

tomorrowthemag.com/articles/pros-and-converts

If age is irrelevant, fine, don't mention it on your blog. The man being 5-or-so years older is about as mainstream as you get in this society, so I can hardly imagine anyone doing more than shrugging if you do talk about it. Why this is worth berating a questioner in public, I don't get.

[lagenialester]

She's grasping at straws. The wedding is over, she's settling into Israel, she's trying to find the next great "thing". That might just be her lifestyle, she needs to move from one exciting thing to the next, jump from place to place, but I always feel like "well, here's what she's going to be blogging about exclusively for the next 6 months...".

As somebody who read her blog frequently, I was starting to feel kind of manipulated. She would hint at something interesting, "I'm going to share some things I've been thinking a lot about in the next few posts"...*picture of kitchenaid stand mixer* I don't know how to explain my feelings on it, but I'm honestly disappointed. It's like she posts just enough to keep her numbers up, but I never feel like I'm reading anything substantial anymore.

I expect this will be responded to after she discovers this thread in her daily googling of herself.

[Not That Kind of Dr]

She certainly sets herself up for unpleasantness by inviting us to "ask Chaviva anything!" but then getting offended when readers take her up on her offer. Don't tell people to do something and then get mad when they do it. I suppose it gives all her diehard fans an excuse to get up in arms on her behalf, which must feel good for everyone involved. Also, the concern about the age difference between her and her husband is bizarre. I'm 37; my husband is 42. Other than his having an abiding love for Adam Ant that I don't share because I wasn't listening to popular music in the mid-1980s, the age difference is not problematic.

[kaetrin]

I don't follow Chaviva, but in what way does she think that age difference is an issue? My husband and I are the same distance apart but I'm the older one, which is way less common, and no one gives us a hard time about it.

(Well, except for my MIL's initial concern that I would have more trouble submitting, since I was so grown up and independent and all. Ha. Fortunately now she has decided to leave that issue up to God to convict me about.)

[shedemei]

Maybe it's a problem in her circles. But, five years is nothing! Maybe it's significant in her circles, or is personally an issue for her, and is not anyone's business anyway, but I don't think most people would bat an eye at five years.

[OnceModestTwiceShy]

How old is Chaviva? My partner is 16 yrs older than me, so this seems like no biggie unless she is a teen.

But I was "out" with her settlement logic too. There is no justifiable reason for living in a settlement. And Chaviva, if you read here, I am an ex-Zionist Jew so you can forget about screaming "anti-Semitism."

[LucySnowe]

She hasn't said anything that I know of about the age difference, but she got really touchy when someone asked how old her husband was. My first thought was that maybe it was a May December relationship (it was unlikely to be the other way around, as her husband has a nine year old kid) and she felt uncomfortable discussing it...but no, she was just snapping at someone who assumed that 'ask me anything' meant just that.

[guidedbybobafett]

Tznius is slightly different than just "modesty". It also can mean 'privacy', etc. In a lot of community situations the standards of tznius are defined by everyone (or you know, men) and are not exactly just personal. Most of the orthodoxy that I know would find vibrator talk to be untzniut. I don't practice at all and don't care, but it is a legitimate question particularly if its coming from a religious person. I'm very unclear on their Judaism- are they like messianic and adopted some but not all?

[longskirts]

I'm very unclear on their Judaism- are they like messianic and adopted some but not all?

No, Chaviva is rabbinically Jewish, but there have been some fluctuations in her level of observance.

[mystikchick17]

I pretty much though, "And I'm out," when Chaviva wrote that post about living in a settlement in Israel and spent paragraphs basically trying to justify it by saying (in summary), "You just don't understand! Settlements aren't what you think they are! They have a community there, and people, so it's totally cool!" Her responses to questions about that whole thing were very comparable to her response to the tzniut question here. "Oh, you just don't understand properly. If you did, you'd completely agree with me and what I'm doing!" That seems to be her go-to tactic in responding to criticism or even slightly difficult or pointed questions.

I also think she's gotten more fundamentalist over the last year or so, maybe in an effort to try and "make up" for the whole falling off the derech, dating a non-Jew thing? In any case, she seems happy, and I wish her well, but I don't really read her blog anymore.

This, all of it. I like Chavi and respect her willingness to be open about her ups and downs in her journey in the past, but when you're willing to do that in a religious world that doesn't necessarily condone those things, especially not for converts and all the tension that brings, don't be surprised if you get publicly smacked down for it. She's been through a lot, and I do see a lot of trying to overcompensate for her OTD days.

And that settlement post was...special. "No, really, I don't see any bad things happening to the Arabs! Everything's awesome! If only you knew just how awesome, you'd be convinced it was awesome too!" It was head-meets-wall oblivious in its tone. Have the decency to acknowledge the realities of your situation, whether or not you've personally experienced them.

And yes, Chaviva is halachically a Jew by Orthodox standards. I've never heard the term rabbinically a Jew before though, and I'm a convert - technically my conversion was also rabbinic as it was supervised by three ordained (Reform) rabbis at a beit din. She converted Reform first, then converted Orthodox a few years later. She went hardcore into the world of Teaneck, then divorced, moved to Colorado, and publicly announced she was experimenting with things like kashrut and dating a non-Jew. And then an epic, epic smackdown ensued on her blog and she locked it down and shut the archives.

[longskirts]

I've never heard the term rabbinically a Jew before though, and I'm a convert - technically my conversion was also rabbinic as it was supervised by three ordained (Reform) rabbis at a beit din.

Rabbinic Judaism is mainstream Judaism, as distinct from messianic or Torah-observant Christianity (sometimes referred to as faux Judaism).

[stonefruit]

Rabbinic Judaism is mainstream Judaism, as distinct from messianic or Torah-observant Christianity (sometimes referred to as faux Judaism).

I take/appreciate your point about messianic/"Torah-observant" Christianity, but usually Rabbinic Judaism is positioned in opposition to Karaite Judaism (Karaites being Jews who follow only what is in the Tanakh, and not what the rabbis wrote in the Gemara/Talmud).

[longskirts]

I take/appreciate your point about messianic/"Torah-observant" Christianity, but usually Rabbinic Judaism is positioned in opposition to Karaite Judaism (Karaites being Jews who follow only what is in the Tanakh, and not what the rabbis wrote in the Gemara/Talmud).

Right, I meant I was using it in that sense here in response to the question asking if she's messianic.

[stonefruit]

Right, I meant I was using it in that sense here in response to the question asking if she's messianic.

Oh! Gotcha. I guess I tend to think of the options in that case being "Actually Jewish" and "messianic/not-Jewish" :)

[mystikchick17]

Oh! Gotcha. I guess I tend to think of the options in that case being "Actually Jewish" and "messianic/not-Jewish" :)

Oooh, I get it now :D I'm like stonefruit - I would normally just go with Jew/messianic Christian, but the way you're using the term makes sense too. Thanks for clarifying!