If you're no longer frum and are interested in taking a short survey elaborating on your journey away from religiosity, please email mali_aune_main@yahoo.com and let her know that you'd like to receive the questionnaire. It's for a project about people who have been raised as Orthodox Jews and as adults no longer practice. The project is only meant to explore the experiences of this little known subculture, not to denigrate Judaism or to admonish those who no longer practice.
Update: A blog has been started to get more info on the survey: http://nolongerfrum.blogspot.com
18 comments:
Thank you!
You'll need to do better than that. Who? Why? For what?
I don't know the full details. Direct all queries to the above address. Sorry.
Then why post it? That's irresponsible.
Irresponsible? What's the big deal? Just direct any questions to her.
What's irresponsible about it? Who's getting hurt or harmed by me posting this info?
I can answer those questions:
I am a long time working student in Seattle, Washington. I left the ways of my frum family nine years ago. It has been a struggle, lonely, confusing, filled with tears and family strife. But there was something in me that felt that what I was doing had to be done. I know there are others like me in the world. I want to hear their stories. This project will eventually manifest itself in a sort of non-fiction novel form. All answers will be anonymous, the only identifying statistics used would be age, occupation, neighborhoods/cities where one grew up. I would really appreciate your time. Please e-mail me at mali_aune_main@yahoo.com for any further questions.
DH, you're too trusting. It could be a kiruv org or even a Jews for Jesus tactic.
Malka, If you want to play the game, you need to abide the rules. A researcher, especially one studying a personally sensitive topic, has to be more professional and open than randomly spamming craigslist and blogs with requests for emails. Set up a site with contact info and explain yourself.
Take a look at how Faranak Margolese did it:
http://www.notobservantanymore.com/
Her setup was not without problems, but it's light years beyond your amateurish and inappropriate fishing expedition.
I've been on Margolese's site.
To address any concerns that I may be kiruv:
I guess you'd have no way to know, but I could easily be a kiruv group and set up a website with a survey embedded and pretend I am just a student trying to write about the experiences of people like me. I can give you my mothr's phone number, she will tell you all the ways that I have disappointed her and made her cry.
DH has taken the survey, he knows my story, or parts of it. If he wanted the whole story, I'd give it to him, as I would anyone who was interested or hesitant about taking the survey because they don't know me.I encourage people to ask me any questions they want. I understand I am asking for personal and sensitive information. I work full time and I am in school full time. I don't have the time or resources to set up a website at this point. If you don't like the idea, don't participate. There is no need to attack me.
Furthermore, I don't care if my attempt is "amateurish". I am not a statistics or market research major. I've gotten one hundred responses up to now. I just want a few stories to include with my own.
I'm not attacking you. I'm suggesting that you go about your survey in a more principled and open manner.
There are better ways to have initally made this comment without implying that I am possibly a dishonest kiruv organization or Jews for Jesus and without calling me amateurish and condemning the messages I've posted as "inappropriate" and "spam". That being said,you are right. It would probably be better to have a website, so that people have something they can look over before emailing me or taking the survey. But as I've said, I have neither the time nor resources to do anything on the level of Margolese's site, so this blog will have to do.
http://nolongerfrum.blogspot.org
Mistake made in web address above
http://nolongerfrum.blogspot.com
...heck, Margolese had a nice looking web site and her angle was "kiruv" (and that was not obvious from her approach, unless you Googled her history), but a lot of us played "nice" with her...
Ben Sorer Moreh
I really don't see why everyone cares so much about this. What does it matter why someone wants to know why a group of people are choosing a certain path? Unless they want to use that information to harm or take advantage of others, who cares? Margolese took a survey and wrote her findings up. So what if she wanted to use it for "kiruv"? (Anyway, I don't think her angle is kiruv, more like preventative medicine of a painful experience than trying to win anyone back.)
What's everyone so afraid of? That some frum person will understand a persons rebelliousness better and will then consequently "handle" a potential rebel in a more skilled way? So what? What's so wrong with that? Do you mean to tell me that I should never tell anyone about my perspectives because they might in the future use that information in a "kiruvy" way? Isn't that what all these blogs do anyway? Express the motivations and catalysts for our choices? How is a survey any different from me writing these things out openly? In fact, I probably already addressed every question on that survey in one of my blog posts at some point or another, and everyone's reaction has always been "Hear! Hear!", and not, "Don't tell people these things because it might improve their kiruv tactics!".
Seriously, I don't get why people care so much about this. Maybe people are being a little too oversensitive?
I checked into this - this researcher is certainly legitimate. The question is whether her geirus was legitimate :)!
no fair, i like surveys but i'm not qualified for this one! :-P
Chochom, if her geirus was done improperly, and acccording to her blog it most certainly was not done right, that means that she was NEVER Jewish and therefore her no longer being frum does not include any aveirois as she is only obligated in the 7 Mitzvos Bnei Noach.
Only a fool would think that it is an insult to question Jewish status when it is clear the person is questioning herself and would like very much to find out that she is indeed not a Jew so that she can clear her mind once and for all. Her OWN description of her geirus makes it clear something is wrong. READ HER BLOG!
Now, get a life. And quit using all the silly Yinglish or yeshivishe redt or whatever it is you speak.
Hi, just read these posts. This is Malka, it is my blog and survey all of you have been discussing. Thanks for the support but Itzik_s was not trying to insult me or anyone else. My blog clearly shows that I question my own conversion and I have no problem with other people surmising its very possible deficiencies.
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