Feeling Excluded on Tisha B’Av

It was as if I had received an invitation to the wedding of a friend’s child. I was thrilled to be included. I happily attended as a guest, and I danced enthusiastically. Then when the wedding photos were shared, my face was missing. I had been airbrushed out, after the fact and without my knowledge.

I experienced similar feelings after I was recently interviewed for–then dropped from–a podcast without my knowledge. I had been invited to discuss my memories of my revered teacher Rebbetzin Bruriah David on the occasion of her first yahrzeit. I had been pleased to be included in this episode, as she profoundly influenced my attitude toward Talmud Torah.  I was one of four women interviewed. Mine were the oldest memories, as I knew Rebbetzin David before she made aliyah and became the head of Bais Yaakov of Yerushalayim (BJJ), where she oversaw the post-high school Esther Schoenfeld Seminary. 

A month after the podcast went live, I found out that my segment of the interview was removed from this episode. My voice had been eliminated. 

When I questioned my interviewer–with whom I’d had a respectful and meaningful exchange–about why I was removed, he explained that he was pressured to eliminate me from his podcast because of my affiliation with the Modern Orthodox rabbinical school Yeshivat Chovevei Torah. For the past 16 years, I have served on the faculty of YCT–teaching pastoral counseling, mentoring students, and supporting rabbis in the field. My interviewer was surprised by the strength of the negative responses he received about my YCT affiliation, and he’d felt he had no choice but to eliminate my voice. 

I was silenced on a podcast where I shared 50-year-old memories of a respected teacher of Torah to women, my teacher Rebbetzin David, because today I am on the faculty of a Modern Orthodox rabbinical school. I was removed. My voice, my memories, and my contributions were eliminated.

How does this removal make any sense? And what does this mean about the state of our relationships within our Orthodox community?

Post-October 7, our Jewish community is experiencing increased levels of overt hatred from outside the Jewish community. We are enduring so much hate speech and maligning and slandering of Jews. We are encountering so much misunderstanding, both willful and naïve. So when I discovered this dismissal and experienced first-hand the disapproval and elimination of my words from within my own Jewish community, I was distraught. 

We are now in the midst of Tisha B’av. We are remembering the destruction of the Beit Hamikdash due to baseless hatred among Jews. Are we revisiting a time of senseless hatred? Are we living in a time when we cannot tolerate differences within our own family, and must we silence and eliminate differences of opinion? Is this the direction we want for the future of the Jewish people, that we eradicate the voices of those individuals with whom we disagree, even when discussing neutral topics? Do we want to eliminate all conversations and associations between the various factions within our group? Can we not learn from each other? Can we not try to see each other’s perspectives, even if we choose to practice differently? Can we not civilly agree to disagree? 

As the weeks have passed, I am sadder and sadder at this turn of events. I deeply respect this specific group of my fellow Jews, this group which has different hashkafic views from my own and which I believe is entirely in line with Rebbetzin David’s hashkafah. I admire the devotion, rigor, and deep commitment to Jewish practice at the core of this group’s identity. It saddens me that this group felt the need to silence my voice. 

I would love to engage in a sincere conversation with the individuals who spoke harshly to my interviewer and ask them why they pressured him to eliminate my voice. I might have understood if their pressure to eliminate my voice was due to my speaking critically about our differences, or if I expressed these opinions in a degrading manner. But none of this happened. I was sharing memories of a great teacher of Torah. 

I attended Bais Yaakov as a child and as a teenager I learned with Rebbetzin David. As an adult, my identity is firmly planted within the Modern Orthodox world, exemplified by my institutional affiliation, Yeshivat Chovevei Torah. I have found a spiritual home at YCT. YCT ordains rabbis who are deeply committed to halacha and to serving all Jews. The Yeshiva supports maximal participation of women in ritual and religious leadership. YCT builds bridges to other denominations and brings a joy and openness to serving God.  

I see value in a variety of approaches within Orthodoxy and sincerely appreciate what each offers the larger Jewish community.  Especially as Tisha B’av is approaching, while we have been focused on attempting to repair the brokenness in our world and we have been extra mindful not to speak ill of others, I am disappointed with how this incident unfolded. 

I want to thank my interviewer for engaging me in a profound and respectful conversation about my revered teacher Rebbetzin David. I am sad that the public will not have the opportunity to hear our conversation.