For 13 years, Sara Glass lived with constant fear of losing custody of her children.
Born into a Gur Hassidic family, she had a son and a daughter with her husband Yossi, who was devoted to his religious studies and, Glass says, oblivious of her needs. One of those needs, which she concealed and fought, was for the love of a woman.
At 19, Glass was teaching at an Orthodox school. One day, vivacious Dassa, 20, arrived as a speaker.
“As soon as she walked into my classroom, I knew she was not conventional,” Glass says. “This was not the first time I had looked into someone’s eyes and felt a thousand vibrations echo through my body.”
Glass and Dassa met outside school, and “love hit us when we expected it least.” A secret physical relationship blossomed.
But “I was taught that God found my natural desires repugnant,” Glass says. She prayed, “trying to understand: Why would God create me this way,” to be condemned for “loving someone of your own sex.”
But “the only path forward was marriage, to a man, and lots of babies...the single mold created for adolescent hassidic girls.”
A frank memoir of a woman's journey
Glass’s book, Kissing Girls on Shabbat, is a ruthlessly frank memoir of her inner turmoil, trying to live the expected married life with a self-absorbed Gur Hassid, then later adhering to Orthodox requirements with a second husband who was wealthy and adoring.
Glass now lives in Manhattan – a therapist and licensed clinical social worker with a PhD, helping gays and people who have survived trauma.
Kissing Girls on Shabbat begins with a “trigger warning” about its themes. At the end is a note to her clients. Both enhance a story so beautifully told and engrossing that it’s hard to put down.
“What Gur Hassidim lacked in numbers in our Brooklyn neighborhood, we made up for in the weight of our dread,” Glass says.
Gur women marry young. A few months before Glass and Dassa took a trip together, her older sisters decided it was time to seek the services of a matchmaker.
That led to “six awkward dates” with Yossi, marriage, a home in the Lakewood, New Jersey, Gur community, two children, and Yossi’s agreeing that she could pursue higher education. When her first child was eight weeks old, Glass entered Rutgers graduate school in her wig and long skirt, seeing conventionally dressed classmates talking and laughing with one another and even touching.
Eventually, in a loveless marriage of inconsiderate sex, unproductive counseling, a miscarriage in her third pregnancy, and nightmares about a girl in danger, Glass had had it.
“I was done being a vessel,” she says. “I was done being owned.”
Yossi and his family refused to grant a divorce, until Glass threatened a reputation-damaging revelation. Then they agreed to a get – a Jewish divorce – that contained this paragraph:
“It is agreed by both parties that the children will be raised according to Halacha as stated in the Shulchan Aruch and the Mishna Berura. If it is determined by Rabbi Turkel of Lakewood, N.J., and Rabbi Levi of Jerusalem, Israel, that one party is not raising the children according to Halacha, custody will be transferred to the other biological parent.”
Three days after signing, Glass placed her two children with a sister and flew to Aruba, left her wig in her hotel room, donned a skimpy red bikini, and went to the beach.
Back home, single and so poor she couldn’t pay all the bills and went hungry in order to feed her children, she “discovered I was a fantastic mother – way better than I had ever been” for her son, age three, and daughter, 16 months.
She also led a double life: kosher and observant at home, but dating men who took her far from prying eyes into a world of forbidden entertainment and trysts.
She applied to doctoral programs and accepted a fix-up date with Eli, finding him to be the kind of man she’d want if she wanted men.
Wealthy, attentive Eli wanted her. They married and moved with Eli’s young son into a beautiful home.
Suddenly, her favorite sister died. Glass withdrew into herself. Despite their efforts, she and Eli could not restore whatever emotional intimacy they’d enjoyed. Another divorce. Glass moved to Manhattan, expanded her practice and, despite Yossi’s objections, sought better schools for the children she was determined to keep.
What happened? Be surprised.■
Neal Gendler is a Minneapolis writer and editor.
- Kissing Girls on Shabbat
- By Sara Glass
- One Signal, 2024
- 293 pages; $27