The Gold Dress

What I didn’t expect as I was making new friends was the alarming rate at which my old friends would slip away. For instance, after a mutual friend’s wedding in the dark desert night of Arizona, a friend from graduate school drove us on a long and winding road through dark, dusty mountains under a canopy of stars back to our hotel.

Somehow, the topic of Israel came up. (Curiously, this topic was now coming up with people who hadn’t mentioned it before I became frum.) My friend was clearly surprised and strangely outraged by my frank support of the state. Instead of discussing books we’d read, music we liked, or joking around, as we once had, this once-close pal argued with me about Israel the whole car ride back. Before we said goodbye for the night — a parting that turned out to be for good — this friend said that she didn’t like how “political” I’d become.

Inexplicably, the brilliant and kind woman whose wedding we attended, once a close friend with whom I was in frequent contact, also never spoke to me again.

These weren’t the only friendships that disintegrated after I became frum. My once easy and fun relationship with my best friend and roommate in college also become strained. As I started keeping kosher, we’d begun seeing each other less and less. As roommates and friends, we’d prepared and shared many meals together, but now eating together had become complicated. I was pleased a few years later when she asked me to be a bridesmaid at her outdoor summer wedding.