Chavie Weisberger grew up in an ultra-Orthodox Hasidic community in Monsey, New York, where she raised her three children after her 2008 divorce. But as she began questioning her faith and her sexuality, her neighbors told the religious authorities there that she was allowing secular behavior in her home.

Her estranged husband sued for custody and won, in a secular Brooklyn court — it upheld a religious court document she signed at the time of her divorce. Weisberger didn't realize that in it she'd agreed to raise her children Hasidic.

Ultimately, another court overturned that decision and restored full custody to Weisberger.

Here & Now's Robin Young talks with Weisberger (@iamchavie) about the issues faced by Hasidic men and women who leave the community, and is also joined by Lani Santo (@notinabox_ls), executive director of Footsteps, a social services organization that provides social and financial services for those transitioning to a secular lifestyle.

Interview Highlights

On protection from the outside world

Chavie Weisberger: "I would say I was very protected. I didn't have a lot of understanding of larger ideas of how people lived. I didn't have access to education past my high school education, which was in an all-girls ultra-Orthodox school. My exposure to secular ideas and people was very, very limited."

On questioning her lifestyle, and reaction from people in the community

CW: "I think a big part of the process for me was very internal. It was me starting to question if I was going to live a life that was honest and raise my children according to the values that I really believed in. Then, how would I do that in a way that I can live fully and honestly and was protective of my relationship with my children? And, eventually, that started expressing itself externally. And that's when, you know, neighbors in the community started having strong reactions."

On the contract she had signed in religious court agreeing to practice her faith and raise her children Hasidic, and how it ended up in secular court

CW: "The original agreement that I signed in the beth din, which is the Jewish court of law, is seen as negotiation or an arbitration agreement, and then was just presented in front of a judge and signed. And that's why it had such legal binding later when when my ex-husband took me back to court to fight for custody of our children."