Alla Chavarga

Religious disaffiliation from Orthodox Judaism is becoming more prevalent and of interest to researchers. In Orthodox Judaism, though gender norms dictate everyday life, research on the role of gender in disaffiliation is scarce. This study analyzed data from a parent study describing the personal experiences of men and women raised as Orthodox Jews who either disaffiliated from the practice (N women = 153, N men = 153) or continued practicing (N women = 168, N men = 146), examined through the lens of gender. Gender differences had a divergent pattern: disaffiliated women reported adverse social/emotional experiences at a significantly higher rate than disaffiliated men and all affiliates, while all men reported adverse education experiences at a significantly higher rate than women. These patterns may, in part, be due to community norms and differential willingness to report outcomes by disaffiliated and affiliated individuals. Our findings highlight the influence of gender on the experiences within the religious community and the complex process of disaffiliation.

Religious disaffiliation has been found to occur at higher rates in LGBTQ+ individuals than in heterosexual individuals and in the general population. In this brief report, we explore whether LGBTQ+ people who disaffiliated from Orthodox Judaism attributed sexual identity and/or Orthodox Judaism’s lack of acceptance of homosexuality to their disaffiliation. This analysis focuses on 117 individuals who identified as LGBTQ+ who were drawn from a larger study that included 387 participants across all sexual orientations who disaffiliated from Orthodox Judaism. Unexpectedly, only 18 of the respondents reported that their sexual identity and/or religious views on homosexuality were causes for their disaffiliation. A lack of education and language around LGBTQ+ concepts in ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities may have contributed to this finding. We suggest that additional research be conducted to explore the complex relationship between LGBTQ+ identity and disaffiliation from Orthodox Judaism.