New York Times Skips Suicide of Orthodox Woman

The July 20 suicide of 30-year-old Faigy Mayer, who was alienated from her ultra-Orthodox Jewish family, has been a major story in the New York and Jewish press except the New York Times. She jumped off a Manhattan roof bar.

The Forward asked in a headline, “Is the Orthodox World Really to Blame for Faigy Mayer’s Suicide?”

The essay, by Allison Kaplan Sommer of Haaretz, said that “While Faigy may have taken her life, the will to live was taken away from her by a community that is sadly complacent and perhaps a tad distracted. All of us in the Orthodox world are somewhat complicit in her death.”

Mayer was a member of what Sommer describes as “the ultra-Orthodox Belz community.” She decided as a young adult to abandon this community in search of an alternative, wrote Sommer.

A headline in the New York Post said, “Hasidic family threw her out for breaking from the faith: pals.”

Mayer jumped 20 stories to her death from the 230 Fifth Ave. bar after asking the bartender “Where is the east deck?”

NYP noted that “Jewish people pray in that direction, toward Jerusalem.”

Mayer appeared in a National Geographic documentary called “Inside Hasidism,” in which she told of her loss of faith. She said that "charismatic rabbis are saying no to the internet." A NYP story July 23 headlined, "Last blast at Hasids," quoted her as writing, "If people were allowed to think, they would not be religious."

Eileen Murphy, VP-corporate communications, NYT, and Danielle Rhoads-Ha, executive director, corporate communications, have been asked via emails and phone calls to explain why the paper has not covered this story.

No response or acknowledgement of the emails had been received as of Saturday, July 25.

NYT did not do any reporting of its own when Garrett Wittels, perhaps the most famous college athlete of 2011 since he had a 56-game hitting streak, was accused of rape. He had emphasized his Jewish faith.

Numerous other media covered the rape charges against three students of Florida International University. The charges were dismissed by a Bahamian judge before any trial could take place. NYT had extensively covered three Duke students who were accused of rape in 2007.

NYT has not covered since Feb. 4, 2013 the multi-million-dollar battle over eruvim Jewish boundaries in Westhampton Beach, Quogue and Southampton.

Eruv proponents sued the three towns when their governments refused to allow “strings” to be put on utility poles. The battle is now in its fifth year and shows no signs of abating. NYT reporter Nicholas Confessore is the son of Quogue library president Lynda Confessore. The library refuses to stock any of the eruv stories, court cases, and blogs that have been sent to it.