But even with all this newfound knowledge, Haart figured it wasn’t the Orthodox community that had the problem; It was her.
“I was too afraid to leave because everyone you know believes this,” she revealed. “Everyone around you is content and happy, so you feel like something is inherently wrong with you that it’s not enough.”
Ultimately, it was her kids—Batshiva, 28, Shlomo, 25, Miriam, 21 and Aron, 15—that gave Haart the strength to leave. As she explained on Daily Pop, one particularly upsetting instance that provided motivation occurred when a young Miriam began singing a Passover song, but was immediately told to stop “because men weren’t allowed to hear her voice.”
“You see your children suffering like that…like, she wanted to sing to God at a table and she wasn’t allowed to,” Haart said, getting emotional. “Watching her suffering gave me the strength to walk out that door.”
