Two brothers, aged 19 and 25, ended their lives Nov. 24 in a tiny apartment they had rented through Airbnb. The young men were part of a prominent family in Jerusalem’s ultra-Orthodox community and were in the process of leaving the religious world. Their names have yet to be released, apparently due to pressure from the family, and the double suicide has received almost no public or media scrutiny. Nevertheless, a quick Google search finds that tragedies like this are not as uncommon as one might think.

In the winter of 2014, two more young men leapt to their death after leaving the ultra-Orthodox community. They left behind a note saying they could no longer cope with life. The suicide of Esti Weinstein shocked many more in 2016. This former member of the Ger Hasidic community was not allowed to see her children once she abandoned religious observance. She left behind a book, describing the terrible difficulties she faced and the steep price she paid for her emancipation.

It’s not easy to break away from the ultra-Orthodox world. It’s hard for people to leave the community where they grew up, especially when its ideology was the basis of their existence. Not only does the move involve alienating oneself from old friends and extended family — simply adapting to the secular world poses enormous challenges. In many cases, the ensuing loneliness and helplessness are too much to bear, and people reach a breaking point. A study released in January 2014 by the BiShvil HaChaim (Path of Life) organization, which helps families who have lost loved ones to suicide, found that some 40% of people who left Orthodoxy showed suicidal tendencies.

“People who leave [the religious world] must get used to strange new social norms in order to find friends and build a social network for themselves," reads the website of Hillel: The Right to Choose. "The modern world does not embrace them with warmth and understanding. It does not support them in the same ways that they are familiar with from back home. The sense of loneliness and alienation builds up. They feel bad already, and this is only intensified by feelings of guilt over the suffering they caused their families and the ways they ruined their siblings’ chances of finding a good partner to marry.”