Interview with Lonnie Mann

One of our favorite resources is the comic “Orthodox Judaism is a Cult” from the collection American Cult. The author, Lonnie Mann, who grew up Modern Orthodox and left the community twenty years ago, has a new book coming out in February, called Gaytheist. We are lucky enough to have had the opportunity to chat with him, and happy to share some of that chat with our readers here (some answers are paraphrased):

Who would you say is the target audience for this book? Is it people who are still frum?

I didn’t write it for Orthodox people, but I expect some will read it, especially people who knew me growing up. Queer folks who like comic memoirs are the real target demographic which is maybe a bit niche.

We LOVED the book. The part that touched me in particular the most is the full page comic where your mother is teaching you to say brachos before you eat as a toddler. So moving. Upsetting.

Thank you. I also find it really upsetting, but I think to someone who is still inside, they might find that really beautiful, which is interesting to think about.

What led you to believe OJ is a cult, and when did you start thinking this? 

I don’t remember a specific moment I went from thinking “OJ is a religion I decided to stop practicing” to “OJ is an abusive cult I escaped,” but honestly, I think I saw it as a cult pretty early, probably before I was even able to leave. I think what changed for me was more my comfort in calling it what it is, rather than avoiding the term so as not to offend or alienate people who might think that kind of language is too extreme or divisive or whatever.

In the years since leaving OJ, a lot of things have reinforced my confidence in calling it a cult - I’ve had many realizations over and over again, about how manipulative and coercive the whole system is, how emotionally manipulative all the kinds of psychological scare tactics they use to keep people inside the system are, the threats of shunning, losing all your friends and family and safety nets if you leave...

I think many people stay even though they don’t believe, because the benefits of staying - friends, family, community - outweigh the risks of leaving. Especially if you’re someone like Shulem Deen, who lost his faith after getting married quite young and having many children, only to be shunned and have his children kept away from him after he left. I think most people don’t want to risk that.

More specifically though, learning more about the modern definition of “cult”, learning more about narcissistic dynamics, watching documentaries about other cults, have all cemented my feeling that OJ is a cult. That said, I basically think all religions that have any control or influence over your behavior are cults to some degree, but of course that’s also something most people would strongly disagree with, and that’s fine.

Modern Orthodoxy, its particular issues and internal conflicts 

As a disclaimer, it’s been almost 2 decades since I’ve actually been in the community, so it’s entirely possible that I wouldn’t recognize current MO compared to how it was when I grew up. I’ve heard from friends over the years, for example, that there are groups within MO pushing for more LGBTQ acceptance, but I don’t actually know what that even would mean besides not kicking someone out of a shul for being gay or something. I don’t imagine anyone would approve of an otherwise observant orthodox gay couple, or welcome them in their shul or community, etc. But I could be wrong.

I’m not really sure what to say about its “particular” issues... in comparison to what? Ultra Orthodoxy? Conservative/Reform Judaism? I guess the particular issues I have with it have to do with its extreme, obsessive-compulsive control over members’ bodies and behaviors - obviously the homophobia, but also everything from what to eat, to how you dress, obviously shabbos, teaching creationism over evolution, the list goes on.

What do you wish people understood about MO? 

Hmm.. For people from the stricter sects, e.g. Ultra Orthodoxy/chassidish/etc, they should know that when it comes down to all the big stuff - shabbos, kosher, tznius, yom tovim, etc - MO is really not very different. I’ve had people from stricter backgrounds argue with me online about how strict MO is - sometimes it seems like people think MO is basically the same as reform judaism or something. I don’t know if that’s just a couple random nutjobs, but if that idea is widespread, they’re quite misled. Growing up with tv and movies makes for a different experience for sure, but the halachas are really not very different.

For people from less strict sects, or non-Jews, they should know pretty much the same thing. They should know how controlling MO is over every little aspect of your life, and how you’re treated not just as property of your parents, but of your community more generally. You’re not allowed to think for yourself or veer off a very set path. It’s called going OTD, after all.

One of the weaknesses of our website is our lack of personal experience with Modern Orthodoxy. A common criticism of our ideas is that Modern Orthodoxy is not insular, and is therefore not a cult. What is your perception of that criticism?

I don’t know what people mean when they are saying Modern Orthodox isn’t insular. I had no friends who weren’t Orthodox Jewish until my late teens. I had no life outside of school, home and shul, where everyone was in the community. That’s very insular.

MO vs. ultra Orthodoxy—how different are they really? How much does it matter? 

I think it depends how “modern” the MO is, and how “ultra” the UO is. I think comparing the average of each won’t end up yielding super different results - mostly superficial things, like one group can wear jeans when they’re not in yeshiva, and the other can’t.

I would guess that access to information may be different, but I wonder. I think when I was growing up, it was more common for TV and the internet to be completely forbidden among UO but not MO. But now that most phones are smart phones, they’re basically small internet-connected computers, so I wouldn’t be surprised if access to information has evened out over time, though there’s still the question of knowing what information to look for, being brave enough to peek, and whether there are parental controls on everyone’s devices or something.

I’m not really sure what the most “modern” MO looks like - I know I grew up with access to a computer with internet, we’d go to the movies, and I played video games. But adherence to halacha was super strict, very black-and-white. I don’t know if that’s any different before crossing over into Conservative territory. On the UO side, I believe there are worse issues with basic education, such as yeshivas not even providing the legal minimum amount of secular education. I think that can lead to serious difficulties navigating modern society, but it’s really the worst when you get into communities where Yiddish is the mother tongue, and many people have very poor English skills. That can keep even information about modern American society gated behind a language barrier, which I think is an even bigger issue.

What is the current status of LGBTQ folks in the frum world and how much room do you think there is for flexibility in their communities on acceptance? 

Since it’s been about 20 years since I was living in that world, I can’t really speak with any certainty on this, re: what it’s like today. When I was in high school, there was certainly a ton of casual homophobia, slurs used all the time, boys constantly making homophobic jokes. There was a real fear of coming out for me. I didn’t think I’d be beat up - I couldn’t imagine those boys ever getting into a physical fight - but I did think I’d be shunned, maybe kicked out of school, who knows - and that the taunting and emotional torture would get much worse.

Like I mentioned before, I’ve heard there are e.g. shuls that want to be welcoming to LGBTQ community members, but I have no firsthand insight into anything like that. I would be quite shocked, for example, if some OJ rabbi gave a heter for gay couples to live together or something like that, to try to keep people from going OTD. My assumption is that it will remain something forbidden, and queer folks would just be expected to remain celibate, or else get married and force themselves to have sex to fulfill the mitzvah of having kids, anyway. Certainly, that’s what my parents expected me to do, or at least my mom was explicitly clear that it’s what she expected.

So yeah, I don’t have any insight into how it’s changed/is changing/may change in the near future. But since I find the whole system abusive, the idea of it being slightly less awful for queer folks sounds a lot like saying, “I’m going to be really generous and go from punching you in the face every 10 minutes, to every 15 minutes.” Clearly an improvement, but still not much has changed.

If you could go back in time and speak to yourself as a 10 year old, a 15 year old, a 22 year old, what would you say? 

What an interesting question! I don’t know that I’ve really thought about this before, or at least not for a very long time.

To myself at 10: I’d try to explain at a basic level the idea of narcissistic parents, and that he can’t trust them, and needs to focus on looking out for himself. Also, I’d tell him to stop avoiding a particular boy who I wanted to be friends with, and this boy also wanted to be my friend, but I was way too shy and ended up distancing myself from him.

To myself at 15: I’d tell myself not to come out to my parents, but instead to try harder to hide how much pain I was in, because coming out to parents will lead to nothing good. I’d tell myself which friends at school I could really trust, but mostly to keep up appearances until I could escape.

To myself at 22: I’d let myself know that though I’d end up leaving Japan due to a crappy, draining, low-paying job, that I’d end up back 15 years later, married, and with lots of adventures to show for it, and a much, much better job.

What is the biggest lie, or the lie that most affected you, that your former community told you? 

So interesting. Hmm.. I think just generally giving the impression that the version of Judaism being taught and practiced was a completely consistent, unchanging, timeless, original version of Judaism, and all others were blasphemous, heretical nonsense. Obviously I’ve made it clear I don’t believe in any form of Judaism, but learning more about the different evolutions of Judaism over the millenia, versions that have come and gone, and versions that exist today in other parts of the world that I was never told about, really helped me begin to consider questions like, “How can believers in all these different sects be equally sure of their version?”, “Why has even this version changed so much, and why does it look so little like its past versions?”, etc. 

So you learned that Modern Orthodoxy as you were practicing it was the most pure, timeless Judaism, the real derech? That’s exactly what we learned in yeshivish/Ultra Orthodoxy.

Yes, this is how it’s always been, that’s the sentiment, and that you, your community, was being even more strict and that was something to aspire to and amazing but also a little too much sometimes. And the ones to the left of us, the Conservative Jews, were basically goyim.

That’s exactly the impression we were given of the Chassidim, and of your community! Exactly the same sentiment.

Why do you think it’s important to call our former communities cults? Would our message be more effective if we softened the language? 

Honesty and accuracy are two of my highest-held values. I no longer have the patience to sacrifice accuracy for a “gentler” message. I think it helps show how seriously I feel about it by using language that is equally strong. I’m not exaggerating or anything. Unfortunately, many people will be turned off by such language, but I don’t believe those people would have been receptive to the same message with sugar-coating either, so why waste my energy? I will sometimes use a euphemism like “high-demand religion”, but really only if the particular platform my message is on requires softer language.

What kind of feedback are you getting to the book? 

It comes out next month, so it’s not like it’s been circulated in the public yet, but I’ve gotten some really great advance reviews! I got a starred review from Kirkus, and a very nice review from Publishers Weekly. I also received some very nice blurbs that are printed on the front and back of the book. I’ve also shared it privately with some fellow cartoonists, who have had very flattering responses.

The main critique I’ve gotten so far is that it feels like it ends a bit abruptly, which is completely fair and makes sense. Creating the book took many years and multiple rewrites/iterations. The latest version of the script, which I was using to pitch publishers, and which got me picked up by Street Noise Books, was actually 345 comic pages (i.e. not counting any pages before/after the story, in-between chapters, dedication, etc). That was too big, so we decided to end it at page 200, so compared to the FULL story, this book is just over half.

As a reader, I thought the ending made perfect sense, but I would be eager to see another book as a follow up.

The authors of this website highly recommend Gaytheist as well as American Cult. Thank you Lonnie for a fascinating conversation.