Jew in the City Comes to Beren Unite Shabbaton

Josephs laughs as she recalls the matzah pizza she and her sisters constructed during Pesach, made entirely from premium kosher ingredients, and topped with pepperoni. Once, while sliding her creation into the oven, her mother entered the kitchen. “Allison!” she cried out in horror, “put the tinfoil down!”

Josephs says that while she was engendered with a sense of pride in her Judaism, and she and her family observed the major holidays, “I had been raised to believe that religious Jews were rock-throwing and women-hating.” Pride in your religion? Absolutely. But observing all of those outdated laws were for so-called fanatics.

Then, when Josephs was eight, she experienced her first ever existential crisis, after she heard on the news that a local father had killed his son and daughter before taking his own life. Hearing about such tragedy jolted her out of the bubble of childhood. Josephs said that all of the big questions we all struggle with occurred to her: Why am I here? What is the point of our lives? Why do so many people experience so much pain?

Without religion to help answer those queries though, Josephs said that she was often told not to think about it, or that there was no answer. The inability of all the adults around her to be able to explain what was going on, and the fact that nobody else seemed to want to search for the truth, made her angry. Josephs likened it to the Emperor’s New Clothes— out of the crowd of people in her life, she had the unsettling feeling of being the only one to see the naked truth parading in front of her.

Then, she encountered a teacher who taught after-school classes about Judaism, who got her started on the path to religion. Josephs said that she had always felt sorry for the people who kept Shabbat and Kashrut, viewing these things as impositions to living a full life. But this teacher showed her that “these things added to his life—they didn’t subtract. I thought he was missing out, but I was the one missing out.”

At this point, she was around sixteen, and began incorporating elements of her learning into her own life. At first, Josephs said, her family was none too thrilled. Her mother was more supportive, as she’d had religious grandparents, but her father used to call her “a zealot.” Both felt that this was simply a phase, an unconventional act of teenage rebellion.

Josephs remembers talking to her father about her decision to incorporate religion into her life; the challenge of learning to differentiate between the different Orthodox sects caused him to believe that his daughter was prepared to move to Kiryat Joel. Josephs told her father that in order to be able to understand, or even have a legitimate opinion, he must learn more about Orthodoxy. And so he did, albeit at first with the aim of proving to her how ridiculous the whole enterprise was. He began his studies to “save” her but got pulled in himself, as did her mother and two sisters.

Josephs says that she began Jew in the City to combat the sort of ignorance she had faced at the start—the lack of understanding about the nuances of Halacha and Orthodoxy. On a whim, she responded to an ad placed by a Spanish journalist looking to interview an Orthodox woman.

Afterward, she realised that during the interview, she had been given a unique opportunity to show the beauty and joy of a religious life, and that she could keep doing so, if she was prepared to work for it. This epiphany coincided perfectly with the rise of social media, and Josephs took to YouTube to post videos answering—and sometimes debunking—common questions about Orthodox Jews. Josephs said she was hoping to provide people with the same “aha!” moment she had with her teacher.

Josephs freely admits that, at first, she had no idea what she was doing. Over the years though, she built up a team of people who were interested in the same goals as she was. Josephs felt that they needed to rehabilitate the Orthodox image, to show that the term isn’t a negative one. However, as Josephs points out, with the media bias towards religious Jews, this isn’t easy. This was a chance to take back that narrative and redefine what people thought Orthodoxy meant.

For Josephs, the watershed moment was her first ever Orthodox All Stars list in 2012, which showed people that one didn’t need to sacrifice his or her religious beliefs to achieve success. Instead of religion being a barrier, it enriched the lives of these people. It showed them that “Orthodox people can be not just cool, but inspiring,” she said.

Josephs ends by speaking about her latest program, Project Makom. After a talk in Monsey, she was approached by a couple who told her that they had left their chassidic backgrounds and tried to integrate into a more middle-of-the-road community. After several months with no assistance or outreach from the community, they gave up and left religion entirely.

At that moment, Josephs said, she wasn’t sure exactly what it was she wanted to do, but she knew she wanted to do something. She realized that she wanted a space to show them Judaism in a positive light, and so she organized a shabbaton which was held this past July. Josephs said that she realized that she needed to rebrand religion, not just for non-Jews and the irreligious, but “for a lot of Orthodox Jews,” and show them how fulfilling this life can really be.

Josephs was the featured speaker for the Beren Unite Shabbaton on October 30th. The Shabbaton, said Rachel Rolnik, was “a major success. We were hoping to attract lots of different girls from all different circles within Stern… and we did just that. I’d say Jew in the City is applicable to us because her goal is to dispel negative images of Orthodoxy and explain how we, as Orthodox Jews, can fit into the secular world. Her story is inspiring, and her mission is something we can all relate to.”