Page 42 - issue
P. 42
DAVID J. COHEN ©WWW Journey to Bnei Brak
Private Investigator mechalel Shabbos. Still, I thank Hashem every day that my
children turned out how they did.”
DJC Investigative Group
◆◆◆
Licensed And Bonded - NY • Licensed - Maryland
Part of the Friedmans’ methodology in raising their chil-
Specializing in Civil and dren was to keeping everything positive. They emphasized to
Criminal Investigations their children their belief that everyone has a right to decide
what they want to do. They explained that some families want
Cell Phone: 917-301-0430 to be more stringent on certain issues and that those strin-
E-mail: djc@djcinvestigativegroup.com gencies are a positive thing. “We tried not to put them down
at all,” Sheryl explained. “We helped our kids realize that
www.djcinvestigativegroup.com those families might not understand that in America, things
are different. We said, ‘People can be just as frum and have
just as much yirat Shamayim as people in Eretz Yisrael but
still play ball.”
Sheryl says that they did look into other communities
where they would have found more acceptance, but nothing
satisfied them elsewhere. They enjoy the flavor of Yiddishkeit
in Bnei Brak, and the city is large enough that they were
eventually able to find people similar to them and form
friendships. “I was never one to need many friends and was
always happy with a few close friendships,” shares Sheryl.
Alon and Sheryl have actually found that all of the fami-
lies they know who left Bnei Brak to move to cities populat-
ed by more Americans have at least one child who became
irreligious. She believes that is because people expect to live
as Americans with American standards. She gives an exam-
ple: “It is common in those communities to watch ‘kosher’
movies with parental supervision, whereas in Bnei Brak, such
a thing is not allowed. In Bnei Brak, when a child decides
that he will break the rules and watch a movie, it is usually
nothing drastic. In American Israeli communities, kids who
want to break the rules and watch something often wind up
with x-rated movies.” Sheryl believes this is because, with
everything allowed already, they have to go much farther to
break boundaries, a common behavior among teenagers.
Sheryl thinks back to when her older children were
younger and some children in the neighborhood wanted to
watch “Lion King,” which, she tells me, was definitely not a
typical phenomenon in Bnei Brak. When her children, too,
asked to watch “Lion King,” Sheryl and Alon were glad that
their kids had come to them and hadn’t surreptitiously
watched the movie elsewhere. “Although we didn’t offer
movies or approve of them,” says Sheryl, “we encouraged
them to come to us with these things, so they wouldn’t feel
they had to do them behind our back.” She and Alon believe
in carefully weighing what a child asks for instead of being
quick to deny their requests. They have found that when a
child asks for something that they feel might not be 100%
correct, and the parent considers allowing them to do it in
certain cases, this often satisfies the children, and they do
not move on to things that are not permissible. Sheryl
laughs at the incident and is happy that the movie they so
badly wanted to watch was “Lion King.” Indeed, after watch-
34 u www.wherewhatwhen.com u
Private Investigator mechalel Shabbos. Still, I thank Hashem every day that my
children turned out how they did.”
DJC Investigative Group
◆◆◆
Licensed And Bonded - NY • Licensed - Maryland
Part of the Friedmans’ methodology in raising their chil-
Specializing in Civil and dren was to keeping everything positive. They emphasized to
Criminal Investigations their children their belief that everyone has a right to decide
what they want to do. They explained that some families want
Cell Phone: 917-301-0430 to be more stringent on certain issues and that those strin-
E-mail: djc@djcinvestigativegroup.com gencies are a positive thing. “We tried not to put them down
at all,” Sheryl explained. “We helped our kids realize that
www.djcinvestigativegroup.com those families might not understand that in America, things
are different. We said, ‘People can be just as frum and have
just as much yirat Shamayim as people in Eretz Yisrael but
still play ball.”
Sheryl says that they did look into other communities
where they would have found more acceptance, but nothing
satisfied them elsewhere. They enjoy the flavor of Yiddishkeit
in Bnei Brak, and the city is large enough that they were
eventually able to find people similar to them and form
friendships. “I was never one to need many friends and was
always happy with a few close friendships,” shares Sheryl.
Alon and Sheryl have actually found that all of the fami-
lies they know who left Bnei Brak to move to cities populat-
ed by more Americans have at least one child who became
irreligious. She believes that is because people expect to live
as Americans with American standards. She gives an exam-
ple: “It is common in those communities to watch ‘kosher’
movies with parental supervision, whereas in Bnei Brak, such
a thing is not allowed. In Bnei Brak, when a child decides
that he will break the rules and watch a movie, it is usually
nothing drastic. In American Israeli communities, kids who
want to break the rules and watch something often wind up
with x-rated movies.” Sheryl believes this is because, with
everything allowed already, they have to go much farther to
break boundaries, a common behavior among teenagers.
Sheryl thinks back to when her older children were
younger and some children in the neighborhood wanted to
watch “Lion King,” which, she tells me, was definitely not a
typical phenomenon in Bnei Brak. When her children, too,
asked to watch “Lion King,” Sheryl and Alon were glad that
their kids had come to them and hadn’t surreptitiously
watched the movie elsewhere. “Although we didn’t offer
movies or approve of them,” says Sheryl, “we encouraged
them to come to us with these things, so they wouldn’t feel
they had to do them behind our back.” She and Alon believe
in carefully weighing what a child asks for instead of being
quick to deny their requests. They have found that when a
child asks for something that they feel might not be 100%
correct, and the parent considers allowing them to do it in
certain cases, this often satisfies the children, and they do
not move on to things that are not permissible. Sheryl
laughs at the incident and is happy that the movie they so
badly wanted to watch was “Lion King.” Indeed, after watch-
34 u www.wherewhatwhen.com u
