With the help of her secular Jewish grandparents, Gitty moved to Brooklyn and tried to start a new life with Esther Miriam. All was basically well until January, when Esther Miriam was snatched from a local playground during preschool by envoys from Kiryas Joel. Since then, Gitty has been battling with Yoely for custody of Esther, and her story really highlights the way religion can tear families apart.

The following passage shows the extreme pain felt by both Gitty and her (now ex) husband. Even though the practices strike me as incredibly controlling of the female body, you can also see how Yoely would find Gitty's behavior so terribly upsetting:

The critical battleground in the War Between the Grunwalds would prove to be niddah, or “separation,” i.e., when the menstruating female is considered “impure” and kept apart from her husband. “It isn’t just your period,” Gitty says. After a woman stops bleeding, she has to wear white underwear for seven days, checking constantly to see if there’s any discharge. Should spotting occur, the woman takes her underwear to a special rabbi who examines the color, shape, and density of the stain. It is he who divines when it is safe for the woman to immerse herself in the mikvah (ritual bath) and be reunited with her husband. “Great, huh? Some old rabbi looking at your panties with a magnifying glass?” Gitty asks. “This was so embarrassing to me. In KJ, everything is about sex—this idea of sex made up by men from 300 years ago. I wouldn’t do it anymore. I stopped counting, wore black underwear. I walked around the house in shorts, because when you’re impure, your husband can’t touch you or even look at your arm. Yoely would hide his eyes and start crying, ‘Put on your turban, please put on your turban.’ ”

I'm sure he really thought that Gitty was going to invoke the wrath of G-d by not wearing that turban. It's easy for us to judge the Satmars, call them backwards and misogynistic and sad. And while I privately do think those things, religious freedom means never telling someone else how to live. What is galling, however, is that the Satmars believe that they get to be the arbiters of Jewishness. According to New York: "On one of their last visits, [Gitty's grandfather] saw one of Gitty’s young stepbrothers regarding him warily. 'The kid says, ‘Dis is a Yid?’ I felt like screaming, ‘Yeah, for 70 goddamn years!’ But it wouldn’t have done any good.'" Oh man. If they're going to demand tolerance, they should preach it as well.

Escape From the Holy Shtetl [NY Mag]

I'll admit, I too figured I'd be the one suffering in the Rapture, no doubt. I left the Church when I was 17 (not that Catholics are eligible anyway, right?) and I've professed to being too lesser a being to know the nature of God thus never picked up another religion (it's sort of hard to pick when each says all the others are wrong and you're not sure any of them are right). Plus, you know, I had sex outside of marriage, used birth control, drank, danced, gambled, took God's name in vain, coveted, disrespected my parents occasionally, stole some office supplies, lusted some more, engaged in some sloth and gluttony and even some rage, so I figured that I was a shoe-in to be left behind. But one thing I tried really hard to do? Treat other people like I wanted to be treated. It turns out that Jesus was actually being honest in Matthew 22:35-40 when he said that the second superceding commandment was "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." Whoops. Sorry buddy.

So, like, it turns out that charging gullible Christians $40 a year to store their letters to their "bad" friends isn't exactly considered a really Christian thing to do, buddy. Also, hypocrisy sucks and being an ass to people of other religions suck and thus when "true Christians" were called up, well, those of you the rest of us never liked got left down there. And since we were all true Christians, we didn't think our wonderful friends of other faiths who spent their whole lives doing the right thing should get stuck with you guys either so we ginned up a petition to ask, but it turns out that the whole thing was just kind of a test from God as to whether or not we were actually worthy of being up here and they were just all waiting on the other side of this big door and yelled "Surprise" and then She threw us all a kick ass party. It lasted kind of a few years so that's why I haven't written before now. Sorry about that.

Anyway, so, have you learned anything in the last 7 years? Anything about how money isn't the be-all-end-all of life? Or anything about being kind to everyone because you have the option even if you don't have the obligation? How about how everyone is actually equal? Um, what about not judging people based on your (often ill-informed) opinion of what God thinks? Shit, what the hell were you guys doing down there the last few years? Just fighting wars and making money off the backs of others and increasing income inequality and spamming each other with ads for bigger penii? Great. Fuck, I hate having to go to work after a party.

Anyway, so, like it's been 7 years down there and I know that we're all supposed to come back and have dominion over the world and shit at the 7 year mark, but our collective hangovers really threw off the schedule (they actually don't hurt, it just makes us want to lie in bed and cuddle for a few months). Besides, people that are hissy about starting on time and their friends being a few minutes late are kind of asses anyway and didn't make it in. But it's cool, I think we'll be back down around January 20th? I hear there's another party to be had.

Kisses,
Megan

'Saved'? Site Lets You Send E-mails Post-Rapture [ABC News]