Inside A Satmar Women's Mikvah

"…Every month for four years, between two births and getting to know my husband, whom I’d met only once before agreeing to the match…I sat in the bathtub and lifted my legs so that the mikveh lady could inspect my toenails.… I winced as she put a needle through my earring hole to remove chatzitzaot there… I seethed inside when, on one of my last visits, after I covertly let my hair grow out to a stubble, the mikveh lady demanded to know if I had shaved on the day before. If I didn’t, she said, she’d bring a shaver to do it right away.…"

 

Frimet Goldberger, an ex-Satmar from Kiryas Joel who in now Modern Orthodox, writes in the Forward about what women experience when using the Kiryas Joel mikvah. She talks about having to use baking soda and clorine to scrub her body, and about the mikvah lady who looked closely at that naked body each month, inspecting in fine detail its ever so naked creases and folds, and even used a needle to make sure her ear piercing was perfectly clean:

…Every month for four years…I sat in the bathtub and lifted my legs so that the mikveh lady could inspect my toenails, file the rough edges and nip the outgrown cuticles — all of which may be considered a chatzitzah, a “barrier” between the body and the ritual waters, if not properly removed. I winced as she put a needle through my earring hole to remove chatzitzaot there (something I later learned is superfluous according to Halacha, Jewish law). I seethed inside when, on one of my last visits, after I covertly let my hair grow out to a stubble, the mikveh lady demanded to know if I had shaved on the day before. If I didn’t, she said, she’d bring a shaver to do it right away.

Growing my own hair — a violation of Satmar modesty codes — forced me to use an out-of-town mikveh. There I discovered that the invasive and uncomfortable checking was not halachically required. In no other mikveh, Orthodox or liberal, are women expected to sit in the bathtub, exposing themselves completely to the attendant. Women don a robe after they get out of the tub and then call for the attendant to inspect their nails. (In more liberal mikvehs, she doesn’t even do this.) Then women are escorted to the waters, where the attendant holds up the robe to shield the view until they are fully immersed.

Years later, while exchanging mikveh stories on Facebook with fellow Satmar ladies, I learned that some Kiryas Joel women insist on getting out of the bathtub, covering up with a robe (in my days, there were only thin, white bedsheets), and having their nails inspected outside the bathtub. Doing this never occurred to me.

For four years, I did not ask why; this was the only way I knew for women to experience the mikveh. I didn’t question my obligations to adhere to this invasive checking, which is certainly less intrusive and abhorrent than the abuse of power by a male rabbi who was charged with installing hidden cameras in the mikveh. After a while, it ceased to faze me to have a middle-aged woman scrub and inspect me — for habituality has the power to extinguish reasoning.

[Hat Tip: Tania GLOWINSKI GONZALEZ.]

Comments

[Office of the Chief Rabbi]

Because voyeurs come in all sexes.

[S M L]

They do this to themselves. What needs to happen is maybe fifty or a hundred of these mothers to gather their minor children, hire charter buses and get out of town, to a shelter, by prearrangement, quietly while the men are off fawning on Teitelbaum. Satmar would have a collective stroke (a good thing) over something and maybe it would start an avalanche. But of course it won't happen because 99.99% of these women are too cowed to do anything much, or so I imagine.

[S M L]

"… over something like this…" I meant to say.

[ah-pee-chorus]

SML-

If only......or if they pulled an abstinence strike as women have done elsewhere.

[Sarek]

APC - shades of the Lysistrata!

[Bas Melech]

Sounds like the mikvah from hell!

[Alter Kocker]

Among the most abhorrent and repulsive misogynist traits of this pseudo-religion is to make our females feel less than human on a monthly basis. Better to abstain for months instead of submitting to this debasing treatment. What's next? Teitelbaum sniffing their rectums to ensure kashruth?

[Reese]

Absolutely nauseating to read this. I have seen Some of the hard core females of this sect in action, giving hateful stares to even religious girls and women for only they know whatever reasons.

[David]

Is it the Satmar cult where women have teeth pulled rather than filled because the amalgam supposedly acts as a "barrier"? Or am I thinking of a different cult? It was reported on FM a couple of years ago.

This practice has come a long way from simply taking a dip in the sea/river/lake hasn't it?

[jancsibacsi]

What can we expect of freaks besides acting like freaks.

[Notantisemiticjustantihasidic]

Nothing to see here. No little boys to molest.

[Ezra]

WTF? No wonder people ridicule the frum community. They focus so much on fine superfluous detail that they have forgotten the basics. These people need a reality check.

[H]

What it is, is desperately sad.
They are like mindless drones only existing to hear the next ludicrous pronouncement from their Rebbe.
Nowhere in the Torah or even the shulchan aruch does it say that they are supposed to live like this.
Nebuch the poor souls who would rather not think, than to allow someone else to think for them.
What an insult to Hashem and the brain that He blessed them with!

[tucsonjew]

I have no words

[Yehuda]

Humans need to stand up, even eliyahu hanovi said

[Jeff]

What I find very sad is that the website of the Forward, which used to be one of the last bastions of the old Yiddish socialist culture, has been overrun by reactionary frum people. Every time they run a story of this nature, they trip over one another in their eagerness to discredit the author and defend that way of life - even if they themselves aren't as compulsively observant.

[old time brooklyn]

I think I may know her. A lovely woman - I think she is in Queens now.

[WoolSilkCotton; I must be seen to be believed]

It might be best for frumma women to have all their teeth pulled out, since food particles may be stuck between the teeth prior to immersion. Even with a good brushing and flossing, they must not take a chance. Better to have all the teeth pulled as a precaution.

[Heblew]

The meticulous cleaning of the nails almost sounds like a pedicure. This might imply that the Satmar trolls working in the mikvah were getting these women camera ready for viewing entertainment.

[Barry]

I have my doubts as to whether these Satmar mikve ladies are actually women. Deremes may put me right but I seem to recall that Yoellish's second wife may have been a guy. Why hide a camera in a mikve when all you need is a cheap sheitel?

[Alter Kocker]

yes but they are missing the ritual purification of the lungs. Quickly tell Teitelbaum that he must go to the mikvah, immerse his head, and take a deep deep breath. The rest should work itself out.

[YechielMalcha]

Oh hey, where's our proud KJdude defending his sexist little cults disgusting policies?

[WoolSilkCotton; I must be seen to be believed]

The new mikvah lady is Mrs. Doubtfireberg.

[Jeff]

"Oh hey, where's our proud KJdude defending his sexist little cults disgusting policies?"

Shmarya got rid of him for sockpuppeting. He's off trying to convince someone else he doesn't care about what they think.

[Jewish Cynic]

So then the Satmar must make their women shave all over- even "down there".
Guess this is so their wives will resemble the prepubescent girls they lust for.