UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News
By Camila Ruz and Charlotte Pritchard
06 December 2016
Inside the closed world of Hasidic Jews in the UK are stories of mothers who risk everything in order to leave their communities, with their children.
Emily and Ruth are two women who found themselves locked in lopsided battles – facing harassment, intimidation, and crowd-funded lawyers.
Neither of them realised what it would cost them.
A door opens
It was late when Ruth walked up to the front door. She was already nervous and the dark November evening wasn’t helping. Pressing the doorbell, she heard it ring faintly inside. Light shone through the curtains but minutes ticked by and no-one came out. Why weren’t they answering? She’d been invited.
Finally, she heard footsteps and watched as the door opened a crack.
“I thought to myself am I supposed to walk in?” A few anxious seconds later, she turned to leave. But before she had gone more than a few paces, the door opened fully.
A woman stood there silhouetted against the light of the corridor. “I know her and she knows me well but she didn’t look at me, didn’t greet me, instead she just pointed towards the dining room.”
The dining room had a long table stretching away from her, with two men sitting at the far end. These were the men Ruth had come to meet. They knew her family and she says they had offered to help her. Ruth was separating from her husband and the situation had been getting messy.
One man rested his head and arms on the table. He didn’t look up. The other spoke.
We hear that you intend to end your marriage, he said. Ruth would write down their conversation in a diary later. The men had been told that Ruth would be willing to leave her children with their father after their divorce. “No, that’s not the case,” she replied, confused. This was not the conversation she had been expecting.
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