“It’s hard for me to see what that year was like and how hard it was and how I really really tried and how I kept hoping for things to be very different, and things looked pretty good for me for a while because I had custody of them for a year,” Ausch said.īeing away from her kids and the experience of leaving the Orthodox world still weigh heavily on Ausch every day. She always waited outside when the film played because she found it too difficult to watch and then answer questions. Following the film’s release, she was invited to speak to the audience after screenings. He told JTA that he is now working in technology and is planning to start college in the fall.Īusch has only watched “One of Us” two or three times, she said, because it brings up bad memories.
Since leaving his Hasidic community, Twersky has appeared in various roles, including on the hit show “Transparent” and in a Yiddish production of “God of Vengeance.” In the film Hershkowitz, who says he was sexually abused as a child, struggles with drug addiction and leaving behind a life of familiarity. Twersky, who left behind his wife and children when he decided to stop being religious, is seen trying to make it as an actor. The film chronicles the lives of Ausch and two other former Hasidic Jews, Luzer Twersky, 32, and Ari Hershkowitz, 20, as they deal with the fallout of leaving their communities and try to adapt to a secular lifestyle. “My hope is so low, if I can work it out, it will be great, but if they just don’t want to make it happen, I won’t be surprised,” she said at the time. She later told JTA that the visit did not happen. “They think I’m a bad influence and all that.”ĭuring the interview last month, Ausch was trying to schedule a time to see her children later in the week. “They’re trying to keep me out of the children’s lives just because I am not religious,” she said. Three of her children live with her former husband and his new wife, while the remaining four live with relatives. She declined to discuss the details of the current custody agreement between her and her former husband. Though Ausch talks to her children on the phone every day, she says the tight-knit community hasn’t let her see them since June. Elected officials have been accused of pandering to the Orthodox vote on issues like reporting sexual abuse or a controversial circumcision practice called metzitzah b’peh. The film suggests that a local court favored Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn, where haredi Orthodox Jews tend to vote their community’s interests in local elections. “There’s a huge need for it there,” she said, “but knowing what it is like when I went through it there and the lack of justice, having this whole bloc voting system where they vote people into court and they basically have no standing chance - I don’t want to go up against something I can never win.” Though Ausch went through the experience herself, she does not want to defend others who are leaving Orthodoxy. “Being able to be a voice for other people is important to me,” she said. Ausch said the filmmakers told her that Netflix made the decision. The filmmakers were aware of this and shot footage of Ausch with her girlfriend, but that part of the story was left out in the editing process. Years earlier Ausch had come out as a lesbian, and at the time of filming she was openly dating a woman. It also shows Ausch slowly breaking away from Orthodox Judaism, eschewing long skirts and a wig for pants and her natural hair, which was shaved according to a Hasidic custom.īut there was one significant detail left out of the story, Ausch revealed to JTA last month. It alleges that the Hasidic community bands together, harassing her and raising money for her former husband’s lawyer. The acclaimed film, directed by Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady (both of “Jesus Camp” and “Detropia”), shows Ausch’s custody battle over her seven children with her former husband, whom she describes as abusive. A woman who was featured in a hit Netflix documentary about former Orthodox Jews says the fact that she was openly lesbian was cut from the film.Įtty Ausch, 33, is one of three people who tell their stories of leaving the Brooklyn Hasidic community in “One of Us,” which was released in September.