If you haven’t left an oppressive religious community, peeking inside one may seem novel, a curious poking of your nose into a weird upside-down world where everything mainstream culture takes for granted is swapped out for some alternate reality.If you have left such a community, though, stories of others who’ve also found their way out induce a mix of panic and relief. Critics try to stay neutral, but I can’t pretend One of Usdidn’t sock me in the solar plexus; the documentary about three young people trying to make their way outside of Hasidic Judaism is laden with a familiar sadness and longing.
My own background is much closer to an earlier film from One of Us co-directors Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady: the 2006 documentary Jesus Camp, which looked inside a charismatic Christian summer camp for young people that trained them in spiritual warfare (and to an extent, conservative political warfare). That film is hard to watch too.
Whereas Jesus Camp focused on the faithful, though, One of Us takes a different tack in its examination of an insular religious community (and one that’s more impenetrable to outsiders). Instead of talking to the true believers, Ewing and Grady follow the questioners. The film’s revelations are two-pronged: They uncover much about the Hasidic community, while also more broadly exposing how insular groups keep people in and everyone else out. It’s hard to leave, even when staying is impossible too. Excerpt from : In the moving Netflix documentary One of Us, 3 ex-Hasidic Jews struggle with secular life
Freedom to be, is the greatest blessing and the price one pays to leave the flock.