My family belongs to Neturei Karta, which is the most extreme community in Stamford Hill. They’re the people that go on the pro-Palestine marches because they don’t believe Israel should exist until the Messiah comes. Someone I know well was arrested for burning an Israeli flag.
It wasn’t a great place to grow up and my family was what I’d call fanatical. The school I went to was considered the very worst in Stamford Hill. The education was extremely limited. We had lessons in English for three hours a day, but we didn’t learn much science and we didn’t take any GCSEs. The main focus of our education was on Jewish studies – obviously not studying the Torah, as girls don’t do that – but on preparing to be a Jewish wife and mother, to make a man happy. I wasn’t a very good student; I was accused of daydreaming a lot.
What I really wanted was to become a doctor, and I was never shy about voicing that. But in that community, it was an impossibility. I knew my destiny was to get married and have a bunch of children, which excited me because I love children and am good with them. I always assumed I was going to have a big family; it was all I knew. I’m the youngest of 12, which isn’t unusual or even considered large. One sister has 14 children and my aunt has 17. I have more than 100 nieces and nephews, and can name them all. A family with fewer than eight kids is considered small.
When I finished school, I became a teacher there – despite having no qualifications. It’s really the only job a girl can get: teaching or childcare. And at 18, I got engaged to a boy my family had arranged for me to marry.
In my family, we didn’t say the word love. It was a dirty word. I didn’t know what attraction or intimacy were. I didn’t have the knowledge or the vocabulary
In my family, we didn’t say the word love. It was a dirty word. And I didn’t know what attraction or intimacy were. I didn’t have the knowledge or vocabulary to articulate these things. Even the colour red, or a picture of a love heart, were forbidden. What I also couldn’t articulate was that I was gay. But by then I had a girlfriend. We didn’t know what it was that we felt for each other, but we were very much together. We just knew that we loved each other and spent as much time with each other as we could. Looking back, we didn’t hide our relationship very well – we didn’t try to because we didn’t know what we were hiding.
On the day of my introduction to my fiancé, I remember coming home from work, getting dressed and then being taken into a room to meet his parents. I didn’t talk much; it wasn’t expected. Then the boy was brought in and we were together for 20 minutes. He didn’t look at me; he was very quiet, switched off. I tried to talk to him about school, to get some information out of him, but he wasn’t communicating. Afterwards, we were engaged. I said I wanted more time. I knew he had mental health issues, but I told myself I could fix him. Although I didn’t really say yes to the marriage, I don’t think I actually verbalised a “no” either. And as is the custom, I didn’t see him again till the night of the wedding.
In my heart I knew I didn’t want to get married. Obviously, my girlfriend didn’t want me to get married either. I was heartbroken, traumatised by it all. My girlfriend had to be at my wedding, involved in all of it, which was particularly hard. I think my family definitely knew at that point.
My wedding night was traumatic. I’d had one lesson about what was going to happen physically, and my teacher gave me the idea that it was just going to happen the once
My wedding night was traumatic. I’d had one lesson about what was going to happen physically, and my teacher gave me the idea that it was just going to happen the once. The teacher my husband went to told him he should do it no matter what. “Even if she screams or cries or asks you to stop, don’t stop.” So that’s what happened.
The moment I got married, I knew it was a mistake. I was physically very sick. I didn’t eat, I just kept throwing up. In our very first week of marriage, we had to go to see these men in the community who get involved when marriages are in trouble. Divorce wasn’t an option. No one in my family had ever got divorced. My parents used to say, “Once you’re out of this house, you don’t come back. No matter what.” My husband was very abusive and degrading. He put me down a lot, laughed at me, criticised my appearance, saying my clothes were ugly, I was ugly. He also forced himself on me all the time – it wasn’t consensual – and sometimes he hit me. At other times, he got into a very depressive state, refusing to shower. We went to the GP together to try to get him a diagnosis, and someone was brought in to try to teach him how to behave, but it didn’t work.
I got pregnant very quickly and my daughter was born – prematurely – nine months after the marriage. That’s when I realised I had to get out. My husband wouldn’t hold her, he’d just let her cry, and he spoke about her in a degrading manner. I didn’t want her to grow up in this environment.
One weekend, when my daughter was almost a year old, my husband went to visit his parents in Manchester. I helped him pack, even made him his favourite sandwiches, like a good wife. As soon as he’d left, I changed the locks. Then I filed for divorce.
But I didn’t leave Stamford Hill because I didn’t know there was any other option. I had no money, no education, and I was still religious. The community reacted very, very harshly, particularly my family, for whom my divorce was a black mark on their name. They didn’t speak to me for several years, and one sister even crossed the street so she didn’t have to pass me. I got letters in the post, mostly anonymous, threatening me, telling me I was going to go to hell, saying my daughter was going to grow up unstable. I was made out to be the villain, because it was me that wanted the divorce.
My father kept asking me to go back to my husband, even though he knew how he’d behaved. When I told him my husband had hit me, he cried – the only time I’ve ever seen him cry – but then he said, “Go back, he might change.” He actually paid a rabbi in the States thousands to perform a miracle and make me return to my marriage. I think my father’s reaction was the most hurtful part of all.
Publicly, my husband claimed he still loved me and wanted me very much, and that I was the best wife ever. He refused to give me a get and sent me begging letters, sent people to my door to try to change my mind. It was hard and I had nobody. I stayed home for years, doing nothing, speaking to no one, just waiting. It took four years for my divorce and then the get to come through.
Throughout this time, I was still in touch with my girlfriend. About three years in, she got engaged and, out of the blue, I received a message from a stranger – I still don’t know who they were – saying, “You can’t be in touch with her ever again.” That was real heartbreak for me. I’ve heard she got married, moved to America and had a baby. She hasn’t called or texted since that night.
My husband never paid child support, so I took a job in a local shop while I tried to save enough money to leave Stamford Hill quietly. Unbeknown to me, my divorce lawyer had put in a standard application for child support. One day, three very large, very heavy-set men came into the shop and surrounded me. “Why are you asking for money?” they threatened. I didn’t know what they were talking about, and I was terrified.
In 2020, just before the pandemic, I managed to put down a deposit to rent a house in Hertfordshire, applied to schools for my daughter there, and quit my job. But my husband – who had remarried and moved to Israel – found out I was planning to leave and took me to court. Unfortunately, I lost the deposit on the house. I took a job as a childcarer, specialising in babies with special needs, but every penny went to the lawyer. Nobody told me about legal aid, and I was in debt to him for years. After two court cases, I couldn’t afford it anymore, and gave up. That was probably my lowest point.
By a stroke of luck, I met a cousin on Facebook, a woman who had left the community 20 years before. She was always held up to us as an example of what not to do, as someone crazy and mentally disturbed. I sent her a message and, when she was sure I hadn’t been sent to harass her, she replied. We became very close and this gave me renewed motivation to get my daughter out. I knew I couldn’t let her stay at the school I’d gone to. My cousin found me another lawyer and introduced me to Emily Green at Gesher, the charity that helps people who’ve left Charedi communities. They supported me practically and emotionally.
A year ago, 12 years after my marriage, I finally left Stamford Hill. The community didn’t make it easy for me, even persuading the Jewish school my daughter had been offered a place at to withdraw it, but they weren’t as vicious as during my divorce. And my lawyer told me that they couldn’t stop us leaving.
My daughter started at a mainstream secondary school the month after we moved. It wasn’t easy. Once the initial excitement had worn off, she kept wanting to go back to Stamford Hill because the school was huge and so different, and she missed her best friend. She had some anxiety issues. But now she’s absolutely thriving, making friends, doing so many extracurricular activities, like music. Many of her classmates have divorced parents, so she’s no longer the odd one out. At primary school in Stamford Hill, she was bullied for not having a father.
She’s signed up for a boxing class, she can read whatever she wants to read. She can even say, “I don’t want to have children”, and nobody will question it. She won’t be forced to marry at 18. She thinks she might want to become a vet, or a surgeon – things that I could only dream about, she can actually do. She can just be a normal person.
I’m not in touch with my family, except for one of my sisters. But she won’t let her children come to my house. I am doing a university degree in health sciences and I’m also training to be a foster carer. I still pinch myself sometimes, that we got out. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. But I’d do it again in a heartbeat.
As told to Hilary Freeman. Miriam* is a pseudonym
GesherEU is holding Between Two Worlds, a panel discussion on the complex legal and emotional challenges children face when a parent leaves the Charedi community, on Thursday October 29. For tickets click here
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