No more Kvetching Editor

So I'm sure most of you have heard of Chaviva Galatz's blog at kvetchingeditor.com. It was one of the first conversion blogs I started reading. Well, now she's taken it down, and apparently she intends for it to be permanent. (see here) I don't know the details, but supposedly some comments were posted that attacked her, and after the same thing happened a few months ago, she decided that she had enough.

This makes me upset --- goodness, people can be so judgmental.

Thoughts?

Well, I didn't see what has been said of lately. I did read her blog just the other day, maybe day before yesterday? There weren't any comments at that point about her last few posts. As for previous posts, have seen some of the comments she's talking about. Some were unecessary...others, I actually agreed with to an extent. But like I said, I didn't see anything today.

I think that she's going through a lot, she's making changes and people are going to react. She chose to put herself out there in the world and when you live that way you have to accept the feedback. She needs much more privacy then she was allowing herself. I know I certainly wouldn't want to deal with a divorce, moving across the country, job issues, financial struggles and religious complexities all while hundreds of people watch me...and give me their opinons. There seems to be this idea now that since we have the internet we should share our every thought and feeling. I completely disagree. Our lives do not need to be on display all the time.

That was probably beyond what you were asking.

It's a shame to see good sites (jewsbychoice.org being one) going away.

I made a website years ago when I was in college. Even though I stopped adding to it and updating it, it's on a free host, so I left it up and just removed my contact information from it. That way people can still get the information, but it's not something that's continuing to take up my time.

Blogs do not HAVE to have comment sections. You can always turn off comment for posts if they get too bad.You also have the ability to ban offenders from commenting (although, if they change their e-mail, they will circumvent that).

I caught her post before her blog was shut down for good, and saw her complaining (with good reason) shortly before it happened. Hers was one of the first blogs I began reading when I wasn't even really sure what Judaism was about. I'm really sad to see it go.

Wait, she is divorced?

I think the big problem is that being Jewish and opinionated sucks. More so if you are a convert. That's probably what happened with JewishByChoice, too. Having moderated a number of sites - it helps to learn how to balance things, and how not to overreach (like having a personal blog can do). Dena seems to have a good balance this go-round. :)

<3

http://www.chicagocarless.com/2012/03/12/orthodox-blogger-bullies/ - looks like I'm done with reading Skylar's blog. She kind of bugs me sometimes, though, but it was interesting.

I wish the culture of "I am better than you" would go away. It exists everywhere, but it shouldn't be FOSTERED.

maculated wrote:

Wait, she is divorced?

Yes and her new boyfriend isn't Jewish which caused quite an uproar.

From Evan? How sad all around, but I hope she finds joy no matter what.

/feels like a soap opera person referring to people's names and personal lives she doesn't know

maculated wrote:

/feels like a soap opera person referring to people's names and personal lives she doesn't know

I know, it's weird isn't it?

maculated wrote:

http://www.chicagocarless.com/2012/03/12/orthodox-blogger-bullies/ - looks like I'm done with reading Skylar's blog. She kind of bugs me sometimes, though, but it was interesting.

I wish the culture of "I am better than you" would go away. It exists everywhere, but it shouldn't be FOSTERED.

I've been reading her blog(Skylar) and read Chicago Carelss's blog about her. Sorry for being ignorant, but where does she directly attack "Kvetching"? Did I miss something?

Maybe I'm overlooking something in her "Off the Derech" blog?

I did see where she said that she didn't think women wearing pants was "Off the Derech", so I'm confused here.

Please understand that I may not understand how a convert (and I don't like to use that word, I'd rather just say a Jew, but it would have been hard to get my point across) feels since I am not one.

I'm more of a "returnee" but I can see how certain sects even may not think I am Jewish!

But I know there are all types in all religions. So to me, staying "On the Derech" is to be growing each day.

I've heard it said and I'll always repeat it;

There are only 2 kinds of Jews, those who are growing and those who are not.

I think the comments were made in Chaviva's post, not in Skylar's direct blog.

Yes, the comment were made on Chaviva's blog. There were posts made by others too but it seems Skylar is being singled out. Perhaps because people know her blog and she was pretty vocal.

searchinmyroots wrote:

I've been reading her blog(Skylar) and read Chicago Carelss's blog about her. Sorry for being ignorant, but where does she directly attack "Kvetching"? Did I miss something?...

You may have, but it wouldn't have been your fault. After a particularly pointed round of argument and bullying a few months ago (around autumn or so), Skylar systematically went through the comment threads on Chaviva's blog and deleted many of hers out of fear of being "tainted" by her comments even appearing on the blog of an "off the derech" Orthodox convert. This was before her Orthodox "re-conversion" was complete, and she was afraid her beit din would stop her conversion for being associated with a blogger such as Chaviva.

Among the comments she deleted were several telling Chaviva how she was potentially ruining the lives of other Orthodox converts by not keeping silent about her life, how discredited Chaviva was as an Orthodox Jew by calling Orthodoxy into question through blogging her questions, doubts, and disagreements, and how Chaviva should suffer in silence for the good of others. In one comment, Skylar went as far as saying that positive things like love, compassion, and joy were secondary to necessary Orthodox community limitations aimed at keeping up appearances and it was too bad that people like Chaviva might be hurt by those limitations, but that's just how it was in Orthodox Judaism and (essentially) how dare any newcomer to Orthodoxy rock the boat. Skylar was very outspoken about all of this, too--I'm not making any of this up.

Yeah, that sounds a lot like her voice. That was what bugged me. I remember those days of "I can make it work." I think blogs and the like are important in helping people share life experiences. It causes the writer pain because people are invariably critical but it does so much good. Chavi helped me in a dark time through her blogging.

Michael,

Thank you for your reply.

Now I understand what happened as it wasn't clear to me.



I didn't get that impression of Sklar from her own blog site, but from what you've said, it looks as if she was a "bit" too outspoken on her views.

In my opinion, I think when a person is trying to change something about themselves, sometimes they tend to "over react" to someone else that may not be at the same pace or have the same views.

It's sort of a psychological thing that reinforces/justifies what you are doing.

Of course one should never put down another because they don't share the same views.

I think we can help each other by getting us to think about things we may not have thought about before, but to ridicule and shame is totally uncalled for.

Thanks for the explanation Michael.

I did see Skylar's comments on "The Big Reveal" post (about dating a non-Jew) a few months ago before she deleted them, and those were way, WAY out of line. The most I've seen of the last "Did Divorce Hurt?" post is the cached version on Google, which may or may not have all of the offending comments. As far as the one comment of Skylar's that I did see -- I don't think it crossed the line into harassment. (It basically said that this is a public forum and not appropriate for airing grievances against your ex-husband, etc. Although Skylar did bluntly state her opinion/feelings about Chaviva's posting about such a private/sensitive subject, she didn't explicitly use the term "lashon hara" anywhere -- the closest she gets is when she says that she's "seen defamation lawsuits for less than this.")

The way worse comments, in my opinion, came from the person named "YouCrayCray," who, after repeatedly insulting Chaviva's supposed level of observance (or lack thereof, in his opinion), said that he would never marry a convert because they have a tendency to go "off the derech."

Again, because the real post doesn't exist anymore, it's possible didn't see all of Skylar's comments, but I'm not rushing to judgment on her for her comments on this particular post.

I don't spend any time reading blogs and have taken a look at Skylar's blog since the subject came up here. This is one aspect of Judaism that drives me crazy. The attitude of how we observe and the rightness and wrongness of others in their observance. The labeling of us as "real" Jews or not. I have lived comfortably within my community and had not had to really see this ugliness because I was just happy within my own group. I made the transition out of my first community into another one without any issues.

I used to struggle with the issues of the orthodox not seeing me as Jewish and what would that mean for my kids but with all this I have finally come to a conclusion. I have chosen to be Jewish in the movement that I want to be a part of and that I love. My kids won't be accepted by the orthodox and if the ugliness I have seen seems to mainly come from the orthodox corner then I am not missing anything.

If they ever want to be a part then they will just have to go through another conversion but they know that they don't need to do that to be more observant. They can be a part of any movement with the exception of the orthodox. I suppose all this talk finally helped me to put it all in perspective.

I know that it has caused me great angst but for YouCrayCray to say he would never marry a convert because they have a tendency to go off the derech is such a bad thing to say. Jews by birth can go off the derech and they do.

I want to thank everyone here for being here!

tamar wrote:

I don't spend any time reading blogs and have taken a look at Skylar's blog since the subject came up here. This is one aspect of Judaism that drives me crazy. The attitude of how we observe and the rightness and wrongness of others in their observance. The labeling of us as "real" Jews or not.

I never saw Skylar accuse Chaviva of not being a real Jew.

tamar wrote:

My kids won't be accepted by the orthodox and if the ugliness I have seen seems to mainly come from the orthodox corner then I am not missing anything.

There can be ugliness anywhere. Yes, there is ugliness in Orthodoxy. There is also ugliness in Christianity, Islam, Reform Judaism, Conservative Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, etc. There isn't any group that is immune.

Dena wrote:

tamar wrote:

I don't spend any time reading blogs and have taken a look at Skylar's blog since the subject came up here. This is one aspect of Judaism that drives me crazy. The attitude of how we observe and the rightness and wrongness of others in their observance. The labeling of us as "real" Jews or not.

I never saw Skylar accuse Chaviva of not being a real Jew.

tamar wrote:

My kids won't be accepted by the orthodox and if the ugliness I have seen seems to mainly come from the orthodox corner then I am not missing anything.

There can be ugliness anywhere. Yes, there is ugliness in Orthodoxy. There is also ugliness in Christianity, Islam, Reform Judaism, Conservative Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, etc. There isn't any group that is immune.

I don't think I said she did, it just brings up for me the whole idea that the Orthodox have that they can and do get to decide who is a real Jew or not.

I said: The labeling of us as "real" Jews or not. I did not say she said this.

Yes there is ugliness in other religions the difference is you don't inherit your Christian or Muslim faith through a parent and so when someone says you are not a "real" Christian it does not have the same issues.

In Judaism we have the Orthodox who can and do say others especially converts are not Jews and it matters.

There is Israel that has a government that would allow me to come to Israel but I would not be registered as a Jew because I am not orthodox. There is craziness that one would have to convert again orthodox to be seen as a Jew and even then that really does not guarantee that all orthodox would accept them. This craziness does not occur in those religions that are not inherited.

It bothers me that she was silenced because she had an opinion.

tamar wrote:

It bothers me that she was silenced because she had an opinion.

Who, Chaviva?

Dena wrote:

tamar wrote:

It bothers me that she was silenced because she had an opinion.

Who, Chaviva?

Yes, she took her blog down and she seems to have had an issue with folks not agreeing with some of what she had to say according to some of the comments here.

LineyLu wrote:

So I'm sure most of you have heard of Chaviva Galatz's blog at kvetchingeditor.com. It was one of the first conversion blogs I started reading. Well, now she's taken it down, and apparently she intends for it to be permanent. (see here) I don't know the details, but supposedly some comments were posted that attacked her, and after the same thing happened a few months ago, she decided that she had enough.

This makes me upset --- goodness, people can be so judgmental.

Thoughts?

I think is is awful if she took her blog down due to being bullied by those who don't agree with her.

Having followed along the past few months it appeared to me that she posted a lot of very personal information and didn't like the feedback she received. Again, she posted personal information and didn't like the feedback so she deleted most of her blog. I can totally understand why she would want to just remove it. Putting yourself out there must be very difficult, especially when you can't control everyone else's opinion. She went through some rough stuff and people commented on it.

That being said, she was not silenced. She chose to remove all of her posts. Her blog is actually still up and she's said she's going to continue with it. She's still on twitter too.

I personally think this has been blown way out of proportion (not here). Yes, there were some questionable comments in regard to the things she posted a few months ago. I read them, some were paranoid and some were a little mean spirited (I thought). But now we have an online community pointing fingers at one person, calling her names, claiming she's a bully and making this an issue of Orthodoxy vs Non-Orthodoxy. We all have opinions. I may disagree with you, you may disagree with me, we may disagree with the guy next door. That doesn't make any of us bad people.

I just really wish we could get along. Rockets are raining down on Israel and here we are arguing over our blogs. It's a luxury I suppose, to concern ourselves with such things.

I'll admit to being taken aback when Chaviva announced that she was dating a non-Jew. That said, I think it took stones to be so honest about it, and her observance is her concern.

I think Skylar has gotten pretty holier-than-thou of late, and I also think that in saying that Chaviva (or people like her) are "what's wrong" with Orthodox conversion, ruining it for other converts, et cetera, falls under the category of oppressing the convert. She very deliberately called attention to the fact that Chaviva is a convert, tried to shame her into silence by insinuating and outright stating that Chaviva's dating habits would cause other conversions to be revoked and said some stuff that, IMHO, was pretty out of order. I also think she's being disingenuous in a sort of, "Who, me?" kind of way that I find distasteful. I don't think it was an accident or a coincidence that the three posts Skylar made before her hiatus were, "Phrase of the Day: Off the Derech," "Can You Be an Orthodox Jew Who Happens to Be Vegetarian?" and "What If You Don't Like One of the Mitzvot? Can You Still Convert?" I mean, I took them to be about Chaviva, in a passive-aggressive way, and I actually read Skylar's blog more than I read Kvetching Editor. So there's that.

That said, Skylar's allowed to post about whatever she wants and comment in whatever manner she wants. I, on the other hand, am allowed to draw conclusions about Orthodoxy and Orthodox conversion from those comments if I so choose. Frankly, I think Skylar's comments and the behavior of a number of the commentors on Chaviva's blog reflect very poorly on Orthdoxy, and they've mostly filled me with a sense of relief that I didn't end up pursuing the path of Orthodox conversion. If the end of that road is the level of paranoia I've seen in some of Skylar's comments and blog posts, count me out.