Footsteps

Footsteps is a community whose shoulder you can cry on, the family who will take you in, and the people who will lift you up, all in one. The organization supports and a rms individuals and families who have left—or are contemplating leaving—insular, ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities in their quest to lead self-determined lives. Footsteps is a place of acceptance that empowers individuals to create that new life. The organization is increasingly member-led, providing members with resources, peer support, and a community with which to celebrate holidays and milestones together. This hybrid model combines a social services and community center approach, so members aren’t reduced simply to service recipients and are empowered to exercise their freedom of choice (some for the first time) as they define their identities and pursue economic independence. Footsteps has been a bridge to the larger Jewish community since 2003. Started by a woman who left an ultra-Orthodox community herself, the organization has provided more than 1,300 people with resources to redefine their identities and build new communities, and it’s saving lives every day. 

Footsteps staff, intentionally hired from ultra-Orthodox backgrounds, provide emotional, social, and practical support to members in everything from career coaching and family law services to dating and sexuality workshops. Footsteps invests in members’ advocacy work with microgrant funding for personal growth or social change. It also incorporates programming run by members: members run basketball and soccer teams, Schmooze and Food nights, camping trips, and art shows. Footsteps educates the public by sharing stories of member accomplishments with the media, speaking at conferences, and organizing panel conversations. Last year, three  films (Menashe, Disobedience, and One of Us) and a feature in the New York Times amplified Footsteps’ voice to an unprecedented volume. The press will have a lot more to cover with all that Footsteps has in store: a new, first-of-its-kind Footsteps - Moishe House in Brooklyn and upcoming programs focused on families and housing. Footsteps’ holistic model ensures the people it serves are not merely surviving but thriving in the secular world, and its small steps have proven to result in giant leaps for the people who need them most.