Hasidic Mother of 10 Becomes Doctor

EstyEF

Fri, Jun 25 2021, 12:14 pm

Mazal Tov to her! Sure the article could have phrased it better than "the rabbi said it was ok" but I'm not going to let that distract from her achievement. Also so sweet to read about husband and children's support.

emma07

Fri, Jun 25 2021, 4:10 pm

Amarante wrote:

I am exhausted just reading about her life. Smile

Why does she needs permission for her rabbi???
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/0.....ion=2

‘The Rabbi Said It Was OK’: Hasidic Mother of 10 Becomes Doctor

An ultra-Orthodox mother navigated strict cultural norms to become one of the few Hasidic female doctors in the country.

Alexandra Friedman, who graduated from medical school last month, with nine of her 10 children. She did not want their faces shown online for privacy reasons.Sara Naomi Lewkowicz for The New York Times

Years ago, Alexandra Friedman saw a T-shirt bearing a message she never forgot: “Become the doctor your mother always wanted you to marry.”

It seemed like an impossible goal for a Hasidic woman in Monsey, N.Y., a predominantly Orthodox Jewish enclave some 30 minutes north of the city that is home to some of the strictest Orthodox communities.

Many women marry young, and their lives revolve around caring for children, speaking Yiddish and abiding by inflexible lifestyle and dress guidelines to adhere to Hasidic traditions.

She and her husband, Yosef, have 10 children, ranging in age from an 8-month-old son to a 21-year-old daughter.

But last month, she became an anomaly in Monsey by graduating from medical school and obtaining a residency in pediatrics. Dr. Friedman’s graduation makes her one of the few female Hasidic doctors in the country, said Dr. Miriam A. Knoll, president of the Jewish Orthodox Women’s Medical Association.

“It’s unusual for medical students to have any children, let alone 10 children,” Dr. Knoll said. “So to come from a conservative background and have that many children, you’re fighting an uphill battle, one that just takes extraordinary drive and commitment.”

When Dr. Friedman began thinking about medical school five years ago, even her best friends had doubts. One of them, a mother of 14 children, thought Dr. Friedman’s already busy schedule as a wife and mother would never allow her to handle the rigors of medical school. Another urged her to become a store cashier instead.

Dr. Friedman believed that pursuing medicine would augment her spirituality, not detract from it.

“In Judaism, there’s a belief that if you don’t use the gifts given to you by God, you’re not really honoring God,” she said in a recent interview.

Even while struggling with the arduous academic demands over the past four years, she met the domestic responsibilities expected of an ultra-Orthodox mother. She continued tending to her children and refrained from studying on Jewish holidays and on the Sabbath, each Friday evening through Saturday evening.

None of her obligations seemed to hurt her grades or keep her from graduating on time within four years, and she even gave birth during her studies to three children: her 8-month-old, Aharon; and her 3-year-old twin girls, Mimi and Layla.

She graduated first academically of the 135 students in her class at Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine in Middletown, N.Y.

Dr. Friedman was not always Hasidic. As the daughter of a U.S. Army general, she was part of a secular Jewish family that moved around the country a lot.

She considered herself a feminist — and still does — and earned a bachelor’s degree in biology. In her 20s, she began medical school but dropped out and developed an interest in Orthodox Judaism, following its strict guidelines and avoiding many distractions of the outside world.

She studied Yiddish and began wearing a wig and modest, full-length clothing. She stopped driving and having casual conversations with men or even looking them in the eye. Smartphones and the internet were off-limits.

In 2008, after she had moved to a Hasidic section of Crown Heights, Brooklyn, to study at a Hasidic seminary, she met Yosef Friedman, a widower with two daughters from his previous marriage. They married and eventually settled in Monsey.

After she had had several children, her mind turned back to her medical education.

“Being religious was kind of a full-time job, but once I got the hang of motherhood and Orthodox life, that yearning sort of came back,” said Dr. Friedman, who approached her religious mentor, Rabbi Aharon Kohn, and asked him in her still-imperfect Yiddish for guidance.

Dr. Friedman’s children adorned her anatomy and surgery textbooks with brightly colored stickers.
Dr. Friedman’s children adorned her anatomy and surgery textbooks with brightly colored stickers.Sara Naomi Lewkowicz for The New York Times
Both realized that medical school would be doubly challenging for a mother from Monsey. The Hasidim in Monsey largely handle judicial issues among themselves, shop at Jewish stores and send their children to religious schools.

Also, there would inevitably be clashes between academic requirements and Hasidic guidelines. Dr. Friedman would need to use the internet and interact with male students, teachers and doctors. What if emergency medical treatment lasted into Shabbos? And since Hasidic women are discouraged from driving, how would she even get there?

Touro’s sensitivity to Orthodox students, she said, made it “an easier sale” to the rabbi, who recounted a story about how his grandfather, also a rabbi, once urged a woman in Israel to become a midwife to help other Hasidic women.

He ultimately agreed, even after Dr. Friedman wondered if her friend was right about her becoming a cashier instead.

“He said absolutely not — he wanted me to be of service to my community,” said Dr. Friedman, who interviewed for admission to medical school four days after giving birth to the couple’s seventh child.

Dr. Friedman’s new path raised eyebrows in her tightly knit Hasidic Jewish community.

“People would say, ‘What? You’re going to medical school?’ and I’d say, ‘The rabbi said it was OK,’” she recalled while sitting recently in her neat two-story home in a leafy section of Monsey.

She sat near shelves bearing a shofar and a menorah. Scattered on the floor were children’s toys. The family was packing for their upcoming move to Boca Raton, Fla., to begin her residency.

As a medical student, Dr. Friedman began assuming a sorely needed role advising Hasidic female acquaintances who had limited information on medical issues but many questions — ranging from menstrual and infertility issues to how gynecological treatment comported with Jewish law and cultural guidelines regarding modesty.

“People became excited to have a woman who understands the community and understands medicine,” said Dr. Friedman. When Monsey became a coronavirus hot spot last year, she began fielding calls from friends seeking more updated information than Yiddish weekly newspapers provided.

“They felt comfortable asking me, ‘Is it getting better, getting worse?’” she said.

She urged friends early on to wear masks, and in recent months, as more calls have come in regarding vaccination for the virus, she has recommended getting the shots.

She and her husband both contracted the virus last year but experienced no serious symptoms, she said.

Mr. Friedman, 50, who makes minimum wage as an aide for patients with disabilities, said the family has lived paycheck to paycheck to afford medical school and relied on various scholarships. Student loan money sometimes helped pay the rent.

“Every obstacle seems to get blown out of the way,” said Mr. Friedman, who received a dean’s award from Touro for being a supportive spouse. “It makes me realize that this was just meant to be. This is what she’s meant to do.”

He began working nights in order to tend the children during the day.

Far from being a distraction, Dr. Friedman said her busy family life provided balance and stress relief from the tense demands of studying for boards and exams.

Instead of hitting the library with her fellow students, she studied at home with her children around her. They quizzed her with flash cards and adorned her anatomy and surgery textbooks with brightly colored stickers. They watched her practice her sutures before bedtime.

While in labor for 12 hours with her twin girls, she studied for the microbiology part of the board exam.

“It kept my mind off the contractions,” she said.

While the internet is often discouraged among the Hasidim as overexposure to the secular world, Dr. Friedman secured the rabbi’s permission to buy a laptop and get internet service installed to access medical information and study guides that fellow students shared on social media. She got a smartphone for college-required apps on surgical procedures.

She also obtained rabbinical approval to drive the family car herself, but her husband continued to drive her out of their immediate neighborhood, then hop out and walk home, to avoid upsetting her Orthodox neighbors.

She continued to wear her wig during surgeries, but Rabbi Kohn agreed she could replace the traditional Hasidic head scarf with a surgical cap and wear scrub pants covered with a disposable surgical gown.

Shaking hands with male colleagues was still discouraged, but the rabbi agreed that accidental and necessary contact with male doctors during surgery was permissible, as was looking them in the eye during medical discussions.

When students began practicing osteopathic manipulations on one another in large classes, Dr. Friedman secured a female partner and wore full clothing instead of shorts and a sports bra like other female students.

Rabbi Moshe Krupka, executive vice president of the Touro College and University System, called Dr. Friedman a “poster child” for Touro’s emphasis on supporting particular needs of students from diverse backgrounds.

But Dr. Friedman’s biggest supporter was Rabbi Kohn.

Last June, he died from Covid-19 at age 69.

In September when her youngest child was born, Dr. Friedman honored the rabbi who encouraged her medical school dream by naming her son after him: Aharon.

“The last thing he told me,” she said, “was, ‘Don’t quit.’”

Amarante

Fri, Jun 25 2021, 4:14 pm

EstyEF wrote:

That was a direct quote she said. It is nit the writer of the article who phrased it. I am nit even understanding what the issue is with the phrase since it accurately reflected the need to get approval since she would have to do things that were outside the standard procedures and needed dispensation.

From the article

“People would say, ‘What? You’re going to medical school?’ and I’d say, ‘The rabbi said it was OK,’” she recalled while sitting recently in her neat two-story home in a leafy section of Monsey.

Mevater

Sat, Jun 26 2021, 9:41 pm

Thanks OP for posting.

I love these articles.

I have one niggling question.

Will her daughters follow in her or similar footsteps?

Dolly1

Sun, Jun 27 2021, 5:09 pm

Wow! Amazing! These kids must b really flexible and easygoing! It’s not easy for teenagers to relocate and start from fresh.

Sun, Jun 27 2021, 5:20 pm

Mevater wrote:

Thanks OP for posting.

I love these articles.

I have one niggling question.

Will her daughters follow in her or similar footsteps?

They’re not exactly getting her level of education…

Btw I know the family personally. She also has a babies at home while her kids are home, then gets like right back up to life. So idk what the acronym above was but she’s definitely got superpowers…

In terms of running the household her husband has a very low key night job and takes care. They seem really happy this way but that’s also something most men in our community wouldnt be game for…

monkeymamma

Sun, Jun 27 2021, 5:33 pm

I dont really understand the fuss that people are making. She grew up secular, got a good education, then became religious and went to a Jewish school where she was presumably competing with students who didnt have her high academic or even cultural background (army brat that traveled the world). The fact that she had ten kids (well, seems more like 8 plus two stepkids) may be a big thing but it looks like her two older stepdaughters were able to help out which is very common with big families. Her husband also helped out as well. So good for her for being able to get her medical degree but I doubt she would be in the same place if she would have really graduated a mainstream (by that I mean not chabad or Tomer devora) chasidishe school. Its disingenuous to claim that she comes from a conservative background when that is far from the case.
The story would have been more compelling had she really graduated from say Satmar (where she would have needed a GED to even attend college) or Pupa, etc.

pause

Sun, Jun 27 2021, 5:49 pm

monkeymamma wrote:

She actually began med school before becoming frum.

trixx

Sun, Jun 27 2021, 5:49 pm

She also began medical school in her 20s but dropped out... So she had already accumulated credits while single ie had a head start

PinkFridge

Sun, Jun 27 2021, 5:53 pm

monkeymamma wrote:

This is reminding me of an Oprah article about a Catholic mother of 9. Bear with me. This was in the May issue some time IIRC within the last 10 years for anyone who wants to find it. She's a lawyer and lives a pretty privileged wife. (My house might fit into her mudroom, or close to it.) And you know what, I still think it was a great article. She's still the ringleader of a multi-ring circus, but has a great head start on many of the rest of us.

And I think that there are a lot of kal v'chomers re Dr. Friedman. What if the article would have been about a woman with 10 kids and a blended family went back to medical school, oh and some of those kids were born while she was in school? Wouldn't that have been amazing enough? Not just kal v'chomers but dayeinus. Every step of her life was article-worthy.

avrahamama

Sun, Jun 27 2021, 6:00 pm

PinkFridge wrote:

There are people born into their community who are afraid to take the steps this woman took. For fear of their kids not fitting in or whatnot. So she managed to change her lifestyle and then stay part of a community while still going against the grain of that community. All while raising a family and maintaining a marriage. Good for her. I can barely get down my front steps.

We all have things going for us and against us. She had her undergrad and some credits. Awesome. It doesn't discount the obstacles she also had.

LittleMissMama

Sun, Jun 27 2021, 6:05 pm

It's a feel good article, not top news and no one's claiming it's top news. To the nit pickers pointing out every weakness...eh pick on the non jews. When a fellow yid is praised in the news (as opposed to the alternative!), try to just be happy for them. Life is too short to whine so much.

trixx

Sun, Jun 27 2021, 6:11 pm

LittleMissMama wrote:

I'm not nitpicking, I'm trying to make sense of it. It's a big difference to start off with college credits.

mommy3b2c

Sun, Jun 27 2021, 6:18 pm

flowerpower wrote:

Typical the NYT- “The rabbi said it was ok”. They hd to write something stupid...

Their lives revolve around speaking yiddish, inflexible schedules, etc

I noticed this too. Even when writing something so positive, they managed to make chassidim sound backwards and like idiots. It really bothered me. But this woman is a hero. I am so impressed!

dancingqueen

Sun, Jun 27 2021, 7:14 pm

mommy3b2c wrote:

I noticed this too. Even when writing something so positive, they managed to make chassidim sound backwards and like idiots. It really bothered me. But this woman is a hero. I am so impressed!

I don’t understand why so many felt triggered by that quote from the subject of the article herself. Don’t most chassidim (and many other Jews) ask their rabbi before embarking on something like med school?

Purple2

Sun, Jun 27 2021, 7:25 pm

monkeymamma wrote:

Exactly. I’m impressed with her brains and work ethic. But the cahssidish part is a little disingenuous.
She did not get a Chassidish education.
She’s a BT
I also don’t think her family is the typical mainstream Chassidish either.
I think she’s amazing and blessed with a good head. But blowing up the Chassidish part is a little iffy for me

Sprinkles1

Sun, Jun 27 2021, 7:49 pm

Wow, impressive!

Purple2 wrote:

I also don’t think her family is the typical mainstream Chassidish either.
I think she’s amazing and blessed with a good head. But blowing up the Chassidish part is a little iffy for me

They definitely look mainstream chassidish. I wonder which school her kids go to? Looks like Bais shifra Miriam type.

sushilover

Sun, Jun 27 2021, 8:29 pm

monkeymamma wrote:

We read the same article, right?
I just can't believe that someone could read about a woman who became religious, raised nine children, lives a sheltered and G-d fearing life, and still manages to become a doctor at her age... and yet you dismiss her accomplishments because the story would have been "more compelling" if she went to went to Pupa.

I guess I kind of knew people would react this way, but it is sad.

chestnut

Sun, Jun 27 2021, 8:32 pm

monkeymamma wrote:

Absolutely this. She and her husband most definitely get lots of credit for doing it while raising a big family, however, one simply can't compare a BT who already had her bachelor's, started medical school before marriage or becoming frum and continuing now to a chassidishe woman with 10 kids who first got her bachelor's and then went thru medical school. And by chassidishe, I do not mean Lubavitch because chabad just isn't like other chassidusim in this (and many other regards).

Mama Bear

Sun, Jun 27 2021, 8:33 pm

I am taking back everything I said and deleting it, bc there's a very slight chance that this is a case of mistaken identity. This family's story is 100% identical to someone I know, but when I asked around I was told that they don't have 10 children, and that person did not recognize Mrs. Friedman. It makes very little sense that 2 families can have the exact same story, but just for the small chance that I am mistaken I deleted everything I wrote. If someone quoted me, I apologize for being unable to edit it, please ignore. The last thing I want to do is hurt people - esp if it's the wrong people!!!

Last edited by Mama Bear on Mon, Jun 28 2021, 2:45 pm; edited 3 times in total