How to kick the gossip habit for 2025 - The Jewish Chronicle

There is a scene in Netflix’s Nobody Wants This (aka the trope-filled show about the hot rabbi) in which a group of Jewish women are conspiratorially chatting in a bar, the implication being that they are deep in what can most realistically be described as “a bitch fest”.

The series’ catty portrayal of Jewish women did us a harsh disservice, but how many of us have found ourselves, and how often, in a situation like that: sitting across a table or beside a friend, at a wedding or bar mitzvah, over brunch, at Friday night dinner or even (especially) in shul, embroiled not in prayer or festivities but in gossip?

“What is she wearing?” “I wouldn’t have done that menu.” “Have you heard about their marriage/ their business/ her kids/ his mother?” Of course, gossip is not a singularly Jewish temptation: it is a flaw of human nature positively encouraged, you could say, by a society that capitalises on our appetite for salacious morsels through celebrity sidebars and social media.

But there is a Jewish prohibition against it, and one that I wager is greater than you might realise. Rabinically speaking, the sin of lashon hara – or evil speech – holds the moral equivalence of murder. You can apologise, but the damage to another’s reputation cannot be undone. In other words, it is a sin that merits great disapproval.

So, when a friend stopped herself from speaking lash (to use its colloquialism) last week, announcing she’d joined a WhatsApp chat to reverse the tendency to allow hurtful words to tumble out of our mouths, my interest was piqued.

I asked to be added wondering, in the most reductive terms, if I and other women in my Manchester community could learn how not to bitch inside ten weeks.

What I found was an uplifting group containing almost 150 women, aged in a range from their twenties to their seventies, unobservant and frum, from Manchester but also London and New York, who had signed up to learn about “the power of words”.

It was set up by health coach Suzy Glaskie, 53, who came up with the idea during the High Holy Days. And as we kick off 2025, kicking our lashon hara habit seems an excellent new year’s resolution.

“I hate gossip but I was still totally contravening the laws,” admits the mum-of-three, who has spent the past year learning about lashon hara.

“I’d never seen anything like it so I had no idea how it was going to land and I had some trepidation around launching the group,” she says. “I worried people might be offended, but they both wanted and needed it.” People added daughters, nieces, sisters-in-law and friends.

“I think lashon hara has been a blind spot for us. Everyone does it, it seems so normal but, at their core, I think people feel uncomfortable about it. They feel sullied and grubby when they’re involved in those conversations.”

Professionally, Glaskie is a behaviour-change expert who more usually helps people cut out sugar or adjust diets through her health-coaching business, Peppermint Wellness. “At the end of the day gossip is just another habit,” she says. “We even use the same adjectives as we do to describe junk food – a “juicy” piece of gossip. It feels good in the moment, but then you feel a bit dirty.”

Every Sunday night, she uploads 15-minute voice memos that combine coaching strategies – deft subject changing, for example, or minimising time with gossipy friends – with her own learnings and musings from the week in popular culture. She is the only contributor and acknowledgement from members is via thumbs-up and heart emojis, which keeps traffic down, but they contact her privately and she shares occasional feedback.

“I am not coming at this as some revered rebbetzin and my voice memos are not preachy.

“I’m not someone who has worked it all out but I’m learning and sharing.” Just as in the Nobody Wants This scene, trading gossip has long been a bonding activity; this group turns that on its head, bonding through choosing to guard their words with greater kindness. “It’s not judgmental,” says Glaskie. “We’ve all done it and we all want to change, together.”

In more strictly Orthodox circles, group learning is far more common and guarding against lashon hara is an established theme that is framed as a female mitzvah. (Interestingly, men weren’t excluded from Glaskie’s WhatsApp group but none joined.)

Meanwhile, a frum friend warns me that while the women in my group feel elevated by its resolutions, in her social circles there are instances where Jewish teachings have been used to silence women who need to speak out against harm; the rules around loshan hara teach that denigrating someone’s reputation is a sin even if what is being said is true.

Overall, it makes me consider how little attention I have paid to the phenomenon all my life, despite having one friend who has often dismissed me as “boring” for refusing to entertain her gossip. In reality, I am as guilty as anyone but, since joining the group, find myself more mindful about what I am saying where others are concerned.

Other members of the WhatsApp group have noticed change too. Michelle, 52, says: “In terms of day-to-day gossip, I definitely now think so much more before I speak. Last month, I mentioned something to my daughter about someone. It was nothing major but I phoned back and said, ‘I actually feel bad about saying that so forgive me.’ The group is a good reset button.”

Debbie, 52, adds: “I‘ve always noticed that when I got involved in gossipy conversation I came away feeling terrible.

“Something, quite naturally, felt totally wrong. I love the group because it’s something that you have to keep practising, like the gym: you can’t go once, get fit and never go again, you have to keep working on it.”

Glaskie asks those who take up her weekly teachings to do so with the hostages in mind and I wonder whether we have been so besmirched, as a people, by the wildfire impact of falsehoods over the past year, that guarding our own words is just one thing we can do to “be the light”.

“We can all change,” says Glaskie who recently launched an audio course based on Jewish teachings on her website.

“We can transform relationships and what is socially acceptable.”

peppermintwellness.co.uk

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