What Happens To Kids When Parents Leave The Ultra-Orthodox Community?
As Chavie Weisberger began questioning her faith and her sexuality, her neighbors told the religious authorities there that she was allowing secular behavior in her home.
Chavie Weisberger grew up in an ultra-Orthodox Hasidic community in Monsey, New York, where she raised her three children after her 2008 divorce. But as she began questioning her faith and her sexuality, her neighbors told the religious authorities there that she was allowing secular behavior in her home.
Her estranged husband sued for custody and won, in a secular Brooklyn court — it upheld a religious court document she signed at the time of her divorce. Weisberger didn’t realize that in it she’d agreed to raise her children Hasidic.
Ultimately, another court overturned that decision and restored full
