Chaviva closed her blog

[longskirts]

I don't agree that Skylar's posts obviously referred to Chaviva. That's debatable. Topics like off the derech, changing minhagim, etc. are very common in frum blogs. Maybe Skylar was reading the Frum Satire coverage of Deborah Feldman and that inspired her to write about going off the derech.

[stonefruit]

You know what, longskirts, I have to take back what I said about Skylar w/r/t KvetchingEditor.com being shuttered. She posted today and linked to cached versions of two of Chaviva's recent posts, and some of the commenters were downright cruel in a way that I've never seen Skylar be. My apologies!

[Soldier of the One]

I've read up on this controversy a bit and this, of course, is the danger of blogging. First of all, putting your personal life online (with real, identifying details about yourself) is a big risk and I think that those who do it are incredibly brave. Second of all, communicating opinions - and worse yet - feelings online is tricky business. We all read stuff differently and without all the non-verbal and visual cues, it's hard to read someone's subtle intentions.

Whatever happened between Skylar and Chaviva... I hope they have sorted it out and wish them both the best of luck. I don't think Chaviva said anything particularly inappropriate about her divorce (uttering bemusement at very quick remarriage doesn't count as 'lashon hara' - slander - in my book) and I think she has been refreshingly candid when it comes to blogging her own journeys. I think Skylar's general writing-style is more aloof/emotionally detached and that is a (valid) choice she has made. Whatever has gone on 'behind the scenes' I cannot judge, nor is it my place to judge.

The pink elephant in the room in this whole discussion is the huge (implicit) pressure placed on (Orthodox) converts to Judaism. Maybe both would have responded differently under less social duress?

[OrangeTulips]

Yeah, I'm thinking Skylar probably had a lot to do with this behind the scenes, and not just because Chaviva has now basically said so on her Facebook. Since Chaviva's big reveal of her relationship with Tyler and evolving Jewish identity, some of Skylar's posts have seemed a bit, well, pointed. Chaviva posted about choosing/changing her minhagim, post-divorce, and Skylar almost immediately posted about choosing a waiting time between meat and milk, but with a nice little aside at the end saying that once you choose a minhag, even for expediency in marriage, you're not allowed to change it. Call me excessively analytical, but I really don't think the correlation is accidental. In the same vein, Skylar's recent posts about being off the derech, vegetarianism and Orthodoxy, picking and choosing mitzvot, Jewish names after conversion, and judging have all struck me as slightly less-than-coincidental in timing and content. Skylar has also decided to go on "hiatus" just as this shit storm is starting. Convenient.

Howdy. Skylar here. Your points have all been very interesting. Helpful even. And someone was right, I just happen to be a detached, overly-logical kind of person. And I do want people to see orthodoxy realistically instead of getting trapped in a community that is bad for them or taking on too much too fast. I was the opposite; I did everything too slow and sat on the fence forever. I can see how I can be a downer on the blog. I'm cool with that. I don't fart rainbows in real life either. But as someone pointed out, I'm trying to talk about the stuff people don't necessarily tell you. It's about trying to not look like an idiot in everyday conversation, basically. And that means it's usually based on bad or awkward experiences I've had. So many blogs out there tell the happy, "this is what happened to me!" story. But when I looked for more "how do I stop looking like an idiot" and "what does X mean" answers, I didn't find a blog that did that. So I started writing. It is what it is, and I'm here to serve a very specific purpose, not to make friends and talk about my life. That's what Twitter and FB are for. (Personally, I really hate personal life blogs. If I wanted to watch people live their lives, I'd watch Netflix. I read blogs for information and advice, though it's primarily personal finance and law blogs.)

So all that out of the way, this section above is really quite interesting. I haven't read Chavi's blog in at least a year and a half except when big bombshell posts have come out that people linked to repeatedly, which has been 4-5 times. I assure you that there has been literally zero contact between myself and Chavi since The Big Reveal. This correlation stuff is really far off base, but I can see how someone could come up with it when you put it that way above.

So minhag changing came up in conversation that week with a friend getting married, and I thought it was an interesting discussion. We looked into it, so why not share what I learned?

Vegetarianism was inspired by the video by Mayim Bialik that's at the bottom of the page. She and the organization that produced it released the video the day before, and questions about vegetarianism have come up in my blog comments a lot.

Off the Derech wasn't inspired by Debra Friedman, it was inspired by the woman Perl (I think that's how you spell her name) who got divorced and has left her ultra-orthodox community and become a fashion model. She's being called off the derech, but she says she is keeping an observant home in Lakewood. Friends who read my blog mentioned being confused by people calling someone off the derech when they appeared to be orthodox. Certainly, the same argument could apply to Chaviva, but that wasn't my intention, and she wasn't discussed on the blog or off of it.

Name changing came up because I learned two friends of mine, both male, have chosen "Jew-y" names to fit in, complete with a last name change that is not a legal name change. I think that's a lot of work to fit in that could really blow up in your face, and I was surprised multiple people within a relatively small sample would have independently followed the same route.

None of my posts jump out to me as being about judging unless you're listing the off the derech post twice.

Picking and choosing mitzvot came up in a question from a friend about a mitzvah that he struggles with. I wrote him a really long Facebook email, then said, "Hey. That would be a good blog post. Why don't I just copy and paste it?"

As for the hiatus, I just started working full-time after 10 months of unemployment, and I suffered through trying to blog 5 times/week while at my first week of work. It didn't go well, and I didn't sleep much. I think I deserve some adjustment time to figure out how to balance two very time-consuming commitments. I'm also out of state for most of the coming weeks. It's worth noting that most posts are written weeks in advance and scheduled to post at a set day and time. At least half of these posts were written long before there was anything to compare them to on Chavi's blog. Maybe we were both tapping the same section of the cosmic subconscious. Maybe the posts based on friends' questions were inspired by what they were reading by Chavi. Who knows? What I do know is that I don't read a single Jewish blog unless a particular post gets really popular on Facebook or is forwarded to me by someone.

Overall, I just want to assure you that my life doesn't revolve around Chaviva. Because that's what it sounds like above, and even I got creeped out. There are plenty of faults I can be accused of; I hope creeper isn't one of them. For the record, I admit I misjudged the effect she might have on conversions, and that's why I deleted my comments. Yeah, conversion politics suck. And I share the exact same rabbis with Chaviva. But since December, I have said nothing on the subject to her or about her, on my blog, on her blog, in real life, not even to my friends. It was a closed topic, as far as I knew.

[LucySnowe]

chicagocarless needs to reexamine his interpretation of 'blogger bullies'. He could have written that entire post and made valid points about Judaism, conversion, and the internet, instead of turning it into a tirade about Skylar. And deliberately linking to her full name means it's now available to anyone with Google. That borders on harassment, in my book (which doesn't mean anyone has to agree with me, of course).

(For those not bothering to follow, and in case of a tiresome deletion: 'Skylar Curtis, this means you. Congratulations on your recent Orthodox conversion. In my eyes, you were already Jewish since you had already converted Jewishly in a different denomination. Also in my eyes, your online bullying makes you a lot of things, but, Jewish is not one of them. But I will tell you what one of those things is that I think you really are. Shameful.')

And he drags FJ into it in the latest comment. :eyeroll:

Skylar - thanks for stopping by; I hope the rest of your hiatus is peaceful, and I look forward to reading your entries when you return, and good luck with the new job. I'd love to hear more about your personal life on the blog but completely understand why you don't want to write about it and, frankly, I don't blame you in the slightest.

[Guest Anonymous]

Link to the Chicago Carless post mentioned in LucySnowe's post: chicagocarless.com/2012/03/12/orthodox-blogger-bullies/

It's not the easiest one to navigate. I know that setup is supposed to increase clicks and it probably does, but it also annoys me.

[ilovetchotchkes]

I've read up on this controversy a bit and this, of course, is the danger of blogging. First of all, putting your personal life online (with real, identifying details about yourself) is a big risk and I think that those who do it are incredibly brave. Second of all, communicating opinions - and worse yet - feelings online is tricky business. We all read stuff differently and without all the non-verbal and visual cues, it's hard to read someone's subtle intentions.

Whatever happened between Skylar and Chaviva... I hope they have sorted it out and wish them both the best of luck. I don't think Chaviva said anything particularly inappropriate about her divorce (uttering bemusement at very quick remarriage doesn't count as 'lashon hara' - slander - in my book) and I think she has been refreshingly candid when it comes to blogging her own journeys. I think Skylar's general writing-style is more aloof/emotionally detached and that is a (valid) choice she has made. Whatever has gone on 'behind the scenes' I cannot judge, nor is it my place to judge.

The pink elephant in the room in this whole discussion is the huge (implicit) pressure placed on (Orthodox) converts to Judaism. Maybe both would have responded differently under less social duress?

I think this is the crux of the issue period. And one of the BIGGEST reasons why I myself refuse to pursue an Orthodox conversion. I KNOW I just couldn't hack it and I'd probably have my conversion yanked. What ever happened to treating converts like born Jews, period? I thought that's how it was supposed to happen!

[Beeks]

I think this is the crux of the issue period. And one of the BIGGEST reasons why I myself refuse to pursue an Orthodox conversion. I KNOW I just couldn't hack it and I'd probably have my conversion yanked. What ever happened to treating converts like born Jews, period? I thought that's how it was supposed to happen!

Yep. Who would want to live completely paranoid that you or somebody ELSE might do something that could cause your conversion to be revoked? Awful.

[Soldier of the One]

...and that is part of the large amount of stress (Orthodox) converts are placed under. I hope Skylar and Chaviva both find their place in the Jewish community and I appreciate Skylar stopping by to clarify things :)

[Magnetophone]

As someone who has followed Chaviva's exploits since she blogged from Chicago, I have another perspective. I was going through a Conservative conversion in 2007 and found Chaviva's blog through Jewsbychoice. Blog after blog was about how she felt on the "outside" in the Chicago Jewish world and was displeased with her Reform temple. I posted on her blog that try the Conservative shul which had an active young people's group, very progressive Torah study groups, and one of the most lauded conversion programs in the city. From what I read on her blog, she went once to shul, complained that people were staring at her, that there was no young people's group, blah blah blah. Then she proceeded to bash the shul. I suggested later that she might try the Modern Orthodox shul down the street. I think she was happy there, but she became super dogmatic and started posting that if you weren't converted Orthodox, you weren't halachically Jewish (and therefore, she wasn't). It became kind of amusing. She popped up on yelp, caused trouble there, posted amusing incidents that Dunkin Donuts gave her a sausage biscuit, which caused her to miss her train stop and end up in a bad neighborhood. Friends of mine who followed the blog found it funny that she kept posting all day how she was going to bring that sausage biscuit back to Dunkin Donuts hours later and tell them how they had destroyed her day. Anyway, she was gone from Chicago soon after, on to her exploits in Connecticut.

In Connecticut, it was one thing after another--the university wasn't kosher enough, her Bennington Hebrew immersion was filled with born Jews who weren't Jewish enough. Then the dating, and the marriage, Teaneck. I stopped following. I was comfortable enough in my own Judaism that she was more of an oddity to observe and feel sorry for. My overall point, though, is that Chaviva/Amanda never stopped once in pronouncing judgment on non-Orthodox converts once she became one. She acted like she was the authority on halakhah--everything she says she despises in Skylar. She put her life out on the blog, declared herself some kind of blog celebrity, then anytime she felt attacked, played the victim. I think the saddest thing is that one time I saw her on a bus, recognized her from the Internet--this larger than life online entity--just a small, sad person looking down at her lap. It was heartbreaking.

I do wish her the best, even if I don't know her, but she needs to stop playing the victim, stop thinking she's an Internet celebrity, and begin living the life she wants and stop making excuses for it.

[yupitsme]

As someone who has followed Chaviva's exploits since she blogged from Chicago, I have another perspective. I was going through a Conservative conversion in 2007 and found Chaviva's blog through Jewsbychoice. Blog after blog was about how she felt on the "outside" in the Chicago Jewish world and was displeased with her Reform temple. I posted on her blog that try the Conservative shul which had an active young people's group, very progressive Torah study groups, and one of the most lauded conversion programs in the city. From what I read on her blog, she went once to shul, complained that people were staring at her, that there was no young people's group, blah blah blah. Then she proceeded to bash the shul. I suggested later that she might try the Modern Orthodox shul down the street. I think she was happy there, but she became super dogmatic and started posting that if you weren't converted Orthodox, you weren't halachically Jewish (and therefore, she wasn't). It became kind of amusing. She popped up on yelp, caused trouble there, posted amusing incidents that Dunkin Donuts gave her a sausage biscuit, which caused her to miss her train stop and end up in a bad neighborhood. Friends of mine who followed the blog found it funny that she kept posting all day how she was going to bring that sausage biscuit back to Dunkin Donuts hours later and tell them how they had destroyed her day. Anyway, she was gone from Chicago soon after, on to her exploits in Connecticut.

In Connecticut, it was one thing after another--the university wasn't kosher enough, her Bennington Hebrew immersion was filled with born Jews who weren't Jewish enough. Then the dating, and the marriage, Teaneck. I stopped following. I was comfortable enough in my own Judaism that she was more of an oddity to observe and feel sorry for. My overall point, though, is that Chaviva/Amanda never stopped once in pronouncing judgment on non-Orthodox converts once she became one. She acted like she was the authority on halakhah--everything she says she despises in Skylar. She put her life out on the blog, declared herself some kind of blog celebrity, then anytime she felt attacked, played the victim. I think the saddest thing is that one time I saw her on a bus, recognized her from the Internet--this larger than life online entity--just a small, sad person looking down at her lap. It was heartbreaking.

I do wish her the best, even if I don't know her, but she needs to stop playing the victim, stop thinking she's an Internet celebrity, and begin living the life she wants and stop making excuses for it.

As I read this, my head cocked further and further to the side. What blog were you reading exactly? If you could please copy and paste the links to which you are referring, I'd be incredibly happy to read them and clarify anything.

I'm about 90 percent sure I know who you are, since you mention the "trouble" I caused on Yelp, and if by trouble you're referring to the bashing I received by two born-Jews, then I'm 100 percent I know who you are. In which case, I don't view anything you write as legitimate, truth, or even close to the truth.