Divorce Hurts; Two Jewish Dads in Israel Have a Podcast That Can Help
It is often considered unmanly to vent, complain, or express sadness after a divorce.
“I was crying when handing my ex the get,” Israel-based Reuters journalist Steven Scheer said, in reference to the Jewish certificate of divorce.
He made the comment on the third episode of “Too Dad To Quit,” a podcast that was started by friends Yoel Farka and Ben Stern. Farkas is from Toronto and Stern is from New Jersey. Both made aliyah and re-connected in Israel, where they realized they were both divorced dads with children.
They thought a podcast would be helpful for men going through similar situations.
“I think there’s this perception that if a guy’s divorced, he must have done something wrong to deserve it,” Farkas told me in an interview.
Farkas, who was married for 18 years, said the aftermath of his divorce was “extremely lonely and painful.”
He said he was excited to start the podcast, to offer help to those who are going through similar circumstances.
“The point is to show that while there is pain, there is a lot left to do in your life,” Farkas said, adding that a number of friends had good intentions but had given him unhelpful advice.“The religious community is built on couples. Some take sides unfortunately, and in other cases, you don’t have anything in common with [old friends] anymore.”
He said people should be honest about what happened, but not be too harsh on themselves.
“I’m growing and I work on myself every day,” Farkas said. “I know there were things I could have done better as a husband. But at the end of the day, it couldn’t have worked out, because it didn’t. … It doesn’t help to beat yourself up, and that can stall your growth.”
Farkas is the author of a book on divorce.
Stern, who was married for 14 years, said growing up, he believed a dangerous fallacy.
“For most of my childhood, I thought I was the reason my parents got divorced,” Stern told me in an interview.
Stern, who lives in Modi’in, said one of the reasons he started the podcast is that he found there were scant resources for men who go through divorce. Asked if living in Israel, a country that has mandatory military service, means that men are more reluctant to discuss their emotions, he said he wasn’t sure.
“I didn’t serve in the Army, but I’ve been through wars where rockets flew over my head and I had to run to the bomb shelter,” Stern said. “I know it’s not the same as combat. I think there’s a shared trauma and a shared PTSD that men and women have. But I think men are opening up more than they ever have.”
Stern is the author of “Do You Have Any Patience?” and other books for children, and is also a YouTuber and a sales engineer.
On one episode, Judge Yosef (Joe) Hochheiser talked about the difficulty of being the only single person at Shabbat meals full of couples.
“Being observant and being divorced, male or female, it sucks,” he said. “You feel like you should be sitting at the kids table on Thanksgiving.”
On a recent episode, Yitzchak Jaffe, who is from Staten Island and made aliyah and got divorced and has four children, then remarried, said divorced is frowned on in the Jewish community.
“They look at you as a broken toy that needs to be fixed,” he said.
The podcast is excellent because the guests reveal important truths and the hosts ask poignant questions without being too intrusive. It also points out how the media sometimes wrongly romanticizes divorce.
“The reality is, it’s very tough and you want to maintain your level at your job, your physical and mental health, and you want your kids to be okay,” Stern said. “People need to do what’s right for them, but shouldn’t be under illusions. The main point here is people should know they are not alone in their feelings. Even Ben Affleck went through this cycle.”
The author is a writer based in New York.
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