Life by day and night by night .. Meetings in an underground bar reveal the reality of religious Jews

In an underground bar lit with dim lights, about twenty men and women who met "Facebook" under pseudonyms gathered to move on to dating in the real world, and they all feared that their ranks would become "outsiders" and reveal their affairs.

One of them is Shmuel, who lowers his head trying to hide the features of his face when he passes by the ultra-Orthodox men in long black coats, because he is one of the ultra-Orthodox during the day, but he changes his shape at night to turn into an atheist who lives a secret life.

The thirty, Shmuel, belongs to the ultra-Orthodox "Haredim" religious group, and says, "I have not believed in God for a decade," but he does not speak out for fear of losing his work and children.

The French news agency, Shmuel, met at a bar that Jewish ultra-Orthodox Jews would never visit. In this tavern, he secretly meets other Jewish militants who, like him, are skeptical of their faith but continue to preserve their religious appearance to avoid being ostracized from their community.

"No one knows about my secret life, neither my wife nor my father, no one," Shmuel asserts.

For the evening at the bar, replace the traditional black felt felt hat with a sailor cap. "I put my hat in my bag. I will wear it again before I go home," he says.

In this way, Shmuel belongs to a group known as "Onassim" in Hebrew, the Jews who have internally abandoned their strict religious practice.

Tens of thousands
The Hillel Society works to help people who want to leave their religious communities. Its president, Yair Haas, estimates that there are tens of thousands of people in this situation.

"These people pay a heavy price if they openly reject the strict religious life. They face the possibility of losing contact with their children and being ostracized from the only community they know, so some decide not to leave and live a double life," he says.

Shmuel asserts that the constant fear of revealing his matter accompanies him in the shadows in secret, and bypasses prohibitions that he does not agree to but despise, for example eating pork.

He recounts that one day he started asking questions about "the strict religious teachings and rules that were planted in us at an early age, as things no longer make sense to me."

"It is a good night to go there," said Shmuel, smiling. Some of them have maintained an external appearance indicating their affiliation with the extremist circles who wish to leave, as the men relaxed thick, curly beards, while the women wore long dresses and put a wig. Their faces, after resting inside the bar, were relieved of the double anxiety of life.

"When I come to the bar, I tell my family that I am going to meet my friends. At some point in my life, I had the idea of ​​death because of the difficulty of dual life," explains Avigal, who wore blonde wig. She wonders: Will I spend the rest of my life this way?

Avi Tvilinsky, 43, has been deprived of seeing his six children since he left the "Naturi Karta" group, a sect of ultra-Orthodox Jews who do not recognize the State of Israel, and believe that the Jewish state is held only with the coming of Christ.

He says he lived a double life for 12 years, until his mobile phone rang on a Saturday, causing his expulsion from the family and the group. Hard-core Jews are prohibited from using electronic devices on Saturday.

Avi explains that his father held a family meeting "and announced a mourning ceremony and declared me dead. I did not steal and did not harm anyone. I only chose another life." He was then prevented from seeing his children or contacting them.

"I knew three years after my expulsion that my children would come to a market to buy sweets, so I waited for them aside until they passed the street and spoke to them, after they knew my voice, they hugged me and guaranteed me. Our meeting lasted five minutes, I hope to see them again."