Life in a cocoon ... the story of a 27-year-old woman who has never seen a smart phone or heard a radio

Today, Aruth Borowski searches on Google the word "phosphate" on her smartphone while doing homework, which was not possible 19 months ago, when she was 27 and had never heard of phosphates, not even smartphones.

She used to live in one of the extremist Orthodox Jewish denominations, before contacting a Jerusalem-based non-profit organization called Hillel, to help her leave her family and community, to join the increasing numbers of "departing" utesems who had withdrawn from closed societies to a normal life who were not eligible to enter into it. According to the American newspaper, Washington Post.

Arroth says she never saw a library, and that every day, every second, she learns something new, as knowledge unfolds her at an amazing pace after she went out to the wider world in 2018.

The departures
In his version of the story, the newspaper's correspondent, Steve Hendricks, says that Aruth has left behind the ultra-Orthodox known in Israel as the Haredim, and has never opened a bank account in her life, got on a bus, did a job, and spoke to a stranger.

But she did all of that now, in what she described as a race to make up for the contracts she had spent in a cultural cocoon that did not allow her to stay more than 500 yards from the house.

Arroth says that she was not only deprived of television, radio and the Internet, but was not aware of her existence at all, and that she and her 12 brothers and sisters did not learn anything from science, mathematics and history outside the religious texts.

During a break after studying the program of curative studies offered by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem to students who had missed basic education, Aroth says, "I am trying to catch everything now. I don't think I have enough time."

Arrow's arrangement is close to her new apartment and her job in a hospital nursery, with the help of Hillel who acts as a landing platform for those making this jump, offering everything from a sleeping place to strolling to the mall.

The Hillel Group has been operating for more than 25 years, with an annual budget of about $ 3 million, a large portion of which has been raised from US donors for scholarships, mentorship, housing, and employment.

Response to freedom
Aruth and a group of friends formed a club of explorers to watch the wonders of a new life, as she swam with them for the first time in a public swimming pool and sat on the beach for the first time, and put on her wrist a tattoo of Batman's little black slogan, saying, "The world is much more than I knew."

Like many people fleeing their societies, this girl enjoys being freed from all restrictions, while Danny Shomron, a Hillel volunteer, calls it "a kind of natural response to freedom." Leaving her hair exposed and wearing a "T-shirt", she first tried a café serving mocha.

The reporter says that many of the ultra-Orthodox - who represent more than 10% of the Israeli population - isolate themselves with their neighborhoods, are exempt from military service and spend their days in schools that give up regular basic education in favor of religious studies.

I have no place
Now Aruth is almost completely cut off from her previous life, the reporter says, noting that when she was a child, she and her eight sisters stayed at home with their mother, while her father taught the Torah for 12 hours a day at the religious school, and her four brothers followed him when they reached adulthood.

Arroth remembers that when she was 23 years old, she was invited to the rabbi, and soon found herself sitting silently next to an embarrassing young man while their parents were talking, then they parted after half an hour, to see that young man two months later at their wedding, saying "Nobody asked me whether I loved him".

Although Arrow does not want to talk about her four years of marriage, she indicates that she was miserable and that the community was not allowed in any way to get out of it, and although she was not eager to give up the only life she knew, she suddenly felt trapped, "I did not want to leave But there was no place for me. "

Everything was strange for her, Aroth says. The first time she saw Jaffa Street, a major shopping street, it was very exciting, and the scene of a football match on TV was baffling for her.

Life on another planet
“It was like life on another planet,” says Aruth, who no longer tends to stay in touch with her parents, who pressured her to apologize and return to her husband, “I am happy with my life. I don’t think of them much.”

After she was speaking only in the historical Yiddish language, Aruth became fluent in both Hebrew and English, spending time studying like her father did, including two or three hours in the library.

"She doesn't know the basics, but she works hard," said teacher Dvora Daminsky, who is seeking a scholarship to study nursing.

In the end, Aruth wants to work in a Boston hospital, as one of her coaches who lived in that city has been transported, and although she has not heard of Boston, she has no problem with "something new to discover", she told the reporter.