Passover is here. It is usually one of my favorite holidays. I love the ritual of preparing the house, the smell of the food and the joyous atmosphere at the Seder table. But this year is different. Passover begins only three days after the one year anniversary of my father’s suicide. My father was trapped…
Sara Mayer, the 31-year-old Brooklyn Hasidic woman who hanged herself Sunday four months after her sister Faigy’s suicide, reportedly went into a tailspin after she was forced to marry her first cousin. Mayer never recovered mentally from the arranged marriage five years ago, . She was also the victim of years of both psychological and…
Ever since New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman published his best-selling 2005 treatise on globalization, “The World Is Flat,” I’ve been troubled by a nagging question: If globalization and technology have opened limitless opportunities for anyone with the skills and resources to reinvent themselves, what happens to folks who aren’t clever or connected? What if…
On an early summer Friday in 2012, David Gordon was exploring the Galilee Mountains, near Tzfat, on his own. An Israeli couple saw him — a friendly-looking 19-year-old — on the trail, and asked if he would take their picture. Gordon happily agreed, and by the end of the conversation, in typical Israeli fashion, he…
A few weeks ago a professional window cleaner came to work at my house in central Jerusalem. The window guy was an affable, middle-aged, native English speaker. After a brief episode of Jewish geography, he began cleaning on the top floor, working his way down to the main floor, where I was writing on my…
I am appalled by your portrayal of Faigy Mayer’s suicide. An event like this deeply saddens all of us, regardless of race or religious denomination. Yet it amazes me how you have used this woman’s story to wrongfully generalize about ultra-Orthodox Jews (specifically women) worldwide. Thankfully, as thousands of our success stories don’t end in…
In bright pink paint, the words “Life is Beautiful” are splashed in graffiti on a wall in New York’s High Line, next to a young 30-year-old woman named Faigy Mayer brandishing a paint roller with a mischievous grin. The cover photo which illustrated countless tabloid news articles on Mayer’s death Tuesday, topped a Facebook timeline…
Another beautiful soul died this past weekend, prematurely and unnecessarily. Thirty-year-old Faigy Mayer was after having plummeted from a 20-story building in Manhattan. Officials described her death as a possible suicide. While Faigy may have taken her life, the will to live was taken away from her by a community that is sadly complacent and…
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