OTD: Leaving Religion

In order to understand why some people leave religion, we need to understand why people join and stay in the first place. Religion provides different things for different people, including community, moral, and intellectual guidance. The broad stereotyping of OTD people that sometimes happens isn’t helpful or accurate. It is a complex phenomenon with no surefire solutions, and so the first step is understanding.

OTD: Our Central Questions

1. Leaving, Entering, and the Religious Journey: What can religious people learn from why people leave religion?

2. Understanding OTD: Why do people choose to leave religious life?

3. OTD and the Family: How can we best engage with those that left?

EPISODES

OTD: Leaving Religion Intro

June 1, 2020
11 min listening

David introduces the next series of the 18Forty Podcast: why people join and leave religion and what we can learn from their decisions.

Shulem Deen: Faith, Without Faith

June 8, 2020
60 min listening

In this episode of the 18Forty Podcast, David discusses with special guest and former member of the Ultra-Orthodox community, Shulem Deen, the struggle and importance of balancing one’s individual needs with those of the community.

Philo Judaeus: Is There a Room for Dialogue

June 15, 2020
78 min listening

In this episode of the 18Forty podcast, David invites a man who goes by the pseudonym Philo Judaeus – former member of the Orthodox Jewish community and moderator of the ambitious Frum/OTD Dialogue Facebook group – to discuss the intersection of philosophy and religiosity.

Kelsey Osgood: A Conversion Narrative of Sorts

June 22, 2020
40 min listening

In this episode of the 18Forty podcast, David sits down with Kelsey Osgood, author of How to Disappear Completely: On Modern Anorexia, contributor to the New Yorker’s Culture Desk blog, and perpetuator of Jewish thought. From a self-proclaimed young tyrant of atheism to a Jewish convert from Christianity, Kelsey shares her valuable perspective on the attraction and limitations of being “twice-born.”

OTD: Leaving Religion Conclusion

June 22, 2020
6 min listening

As we challenge the stereotype of those who leave religion, we can begin to understand on a deeper level why some choose to leave, why some choose to stay, and how a third option of existing in the moment with doubts and uncertainty is also okay.

OTD Highlights

January 25, 2021
56 min listening

In this episode of the 18Forty Podcast, we sit down for a special session with our host, David Bashevkin, to discuss one of the podcast’s first topics: going off the derech.

Moshe Krakowski: Why Jews Leave Faith Behind

May 20, 2025
94 min listening

In this episode of the 18Forty Podcast, talk to Moshe Krakowski, a professor at Yeshiva University, about his work on Attrition and Connection in American Orthodox Judaism, the OU’s study on what we crassly call “OTD.”

Daniel Hagler and Aryeh Englander: Can Jews Who Stay Talk With Jews Who Left?

May 27, 2025
128 min listening

In this episode of the 18Forty Podcast, David Bashevkin moderates a dialogue between Aryeh Englander—the ex-Orthodox Jew known as “Philo Judeas,” who is a moderator of the ambitious Frum/OTD Dialogue Facebook group—and Daniel Hagler, a frum surgeon and a moderator of the Facebook group Respectfully Debating Judaism.

ARTICLES

‘The Derech’: Of Entrances and Exits

By David Bashevkin
5 min reading
June 1, 2020

What Leaving Religion Means to Me

By David Bashevkin
3 min reading
June 1, 2020

Leaving Religion: A Changing Conversation

By Yehuda Fogel
7 min reading
June 4, 2020

Faith, Without Faith: The Story of Shulem Deen

By David Bashevkin
4 min reading
June 8, 2020

Shulem Deen on Preserving Jewishness for Those Who Left

By Yehuda Fogel
7 min reading
June 10, 2020

On and Off the ‘Derech’: Is There Room for Dialogue?

By David Bashevkin
3 min reading
June 15, 2020

The Decision to Leave: Philo Judaeus in Conversation

By Yehuda Fogel
6 min reading
June 18, 2020

A Conversion Narrative of Sorts

By David Bashevkin
5 min reading
June 22, 2020

Alienation Redeemed: Kelsey Osgood on Religious Change

By Yehuda Fogel
6 min reading
June 25, 2020

LISTEN ON APPLE

OFF THE DERECH: HOW TO RESPOND TO THE CHALLENGE

FARANAK MARGOLESE

This was one of the first books written about the phenomenon of people leaving the Jewish community. It’s a bit dated and spends too much time on the emotional component and not enough on the intellectual issue that causes many to leave. It is still an important read, if anything as a presentation of many communal perceptions and some of the important enduring sensitivities.

HIDDEN HERETICS: JEWISH DOUBT IN THE DIGITAL AGE

AYALA FADER

This is a window into a world previously under examined–Hasidic Jews wearing double lives. The internet has created a more porous society in a world that once had stronger boundaries. It is a modern story of sorts, how the internet and online engagement has reshaped what affiliation looks like for many. It’s an important read that reimagines how faith and commitment have been challenged and reshaped in the modern world.

FORGIVE US, FATHER-IN-LAW, FOR WE KNOW NOT WHAT TO THINK: LETTER TO A PHILOSOPHICAL DROPOUT FROM ORTHODOXY

SHALOM CARMY

Hardly anyone has heard of this essay, even fewer have read it. And it’s a shame. Rabbi Carmy is one of the most profound writers of our generation, though he can sometimes be a bit difficult to understand. In this brief compendium written for the now defunct organization ATID, he writes to a philosophical dropout from orthodoxy. Too many other texts focus on those who leave because they weren’t loved or appreciated. Here, Rabbi Carmy masterfully addresses those dissatisfied with the philosophical tenets of Jewish life. It is presented as a real letter to a student and I have no reason not to think it is. It is a rationalistic explanation of the limits of rationalism. And, as he concludes, “the most surprising discovery you make may be yourself.”