VICE: Growing up as one of 12 siblings in the remote ultra-Orthodox Jewish community of Tifrach in Israel, Bar Mayer never touched a boy, went to the movies, or revealed the skin below her collarbones. When she was 17 years old, she removed her socks while scrubbing the floor at home one hot night. Her mother sent her to her room for exposing her feet.
A few weeks after this incident, Bar showed up on her brother’s doorstep in Jerusalem. He’d already broken with the community. She announced to him, “This is it. I’m not going back.” Fifteen years later, she still lives in Jerusalem. But sharing beers with me, she now wears skin-tight pants and lights a cigarette.
“You don’t go around with a sign: ‘I am ex-ultra-Orthodox,'” laughs Bar when I comment on her metamorphosis. But despite her outward appearance, she still carries her past life with her. Since leaving, she’s joined another group—the XO (ex-ultra-Orthodox) community.
The XOs are a movement of Jews in Israel and the United States united in their rejection of the ultra-Orthodox world. According to Hillel, an organization which supports people through the transition, around 1,000 people between the ages of 18 and 35 leave their communities each year. They estimate that 60 percent adopt a less stringent Jewish framework while 40 percent abandon religion altogether. With the number of XOs rising, many families ostracize those who have left. Some even “sit shiva,” which is the seven-day Jewish mourning ritual for death.
“Leaving the orthodox world basically means cutting all ties to your former world,” explains Yair Panet, a volunteer with Hillel. “Most families don’t allow any form of contact with ‘leavers.'” Bar is not dead to her parents, they speak only when necessary, a few times a year at most. The severance was painful, but Bar says she “understood that the ultra-Orthodox path was one of getting married, having kids, and staying in the community for the rest of [her] life, there was no other option.”
Many XOs are raised in total isolation from modern culture. As a result, they’ve never used the internet, watched TV, read a newspaper, or worn regular clothes. At schools in these insular communities, religious studies take precedence over basic education like math, languages, and science. Facts like evolution are denied in favor of creationism (before leaving Bar says she had not heard of a dinosaur) with up to eight hours a day spent on Jewish teachings and just two to four on secular subjects.
