So in November of 1999, I was standing on the corner of Park Heights Avenue and Strathmore talking to five teens when a person pulled his car over, opened his window and shouted out, “is everything all right?”
The question was not directed at the teens, it was directed at me. It was an early evening time, and the sun was still out.
These teens were pretty much rejected from the Jewish community. They all came from Orthodox homes. Some had body piercings. They were ingesting a pretty regular flow of alcohol and drugs.
They were medicating themselves. And they saw in themselves an “us vs. them” dynamic.
Some were estranged from their parents and siblings, or already had been arrested.
I remember during one interview, the kids had just returned from the beach and were significantly sunburned. One had a piercing in his tongue.
That same teen came home one evening to find his belongings stuffed into garbage bags on his parents’ front porch. They had left already for an out-of-town Pesach.
Over the years, I’ve become reacquainted and have befriended some of the teens from back then.
Many are now clean and working recovery plans successfully. Some have good jobs and surprisingly are connected to Judaism, davening and spirituality.
I wonder, though.
Since the molestation stories have come out over the years. I wonder about those teens on the corner, those rejected kids.
Maybe the reason for self-medication was to hide a pain that nobody was able to discuss in 1999.
Let’s hope it can not only be discussed now, but it can be treated now.
Oh, and next time someone sees me talking to so-called “rejected” teens on a corner in the middle of the Jewish community, don’t bother pulling over and asking if everything is all right.
If you see a stigma with these teens, your fellow Jews, your children, your brothers and sisters, then you need to ask yourself “if you are all right.”

A bit late in commenting, obviously; I see a danger in assigning one source to explain a complex relationship of problems. Early on in my engagements with Judaism, OTD kids were dimissed as a handful, resulting from “the way those Modern Orthodox live their lives”; once it becomes clear that EVERYONE has kids at risk, that couldn’t be said! So then it’s “the problem begins with the family” - and then you find kids leaving from families that, from the get-go, were committed to loving their child and not coercing them, and clearing up whatever alleged “family problems” they could be accused of…and once THAT didn’t explain every case, another solution is presented. Why not refrain from dismissing ANY source to the problem of adults and kids who are OTD? There are also many intellectual difficulties with living a religious life in this day and age (many particular to Judaism) - and the tendency on the part of the Right Wing of the Orthodox community has been to explain intellectual difficulties as deriving from the person; either their own temptations to drop observance, from family problems, some abuse in their past, etc. Sometimes, the issue really is the issue.

Also, I’m thinking of kids who were not to be found hanging out on a street corner; many who leave Orthodoxy live quite normal, stable lives, and rebellion for them was college and a career. What indications of abuse would one look for in those scenarios? A survey of the MANY blogs by OTD people indicates a real antipathy towards Orthodox people claiming their decisions were driven by abuse, bad families, etc.