Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots

This is a very intriguing book because it gives an insight into growing up in the Orthodox Jewish Hasidic community of Satmar. Although I was familiar with other Hasidic sects, the Satmar were new to me. She explains it mostly through the eyes of a child so I had to do a bit of on-line research to learn more about them. The biggest surprise is their complete opposition to Israel - they believe they must wait for the coming of the Messiah to return to their homeland - but much of the daily life seems similar (to me) to other Hasidic communities. From childhood, she longed for more in both learning and reading. She had to sneak to read English language books as they were forbidden but her hunger drove her to take the risk and she became fluent in English. This would help her professionally but also cause her to keep questioning what she saw around her. (Perhaps her elders were right - English leads to trouble, particularly for women!) I know there will be criticism from some in the Jewish community who consider Ms. Feldman an apostate for leaving Orthodoxy, but leaving aside those ideological issues, there is a lot to learn from this book. I think she is careful to write very kindly of her grandparents (who raised her) even though her leaving must have been a great blow to them (she does not write about that) but she is frankly critical of the rigid rules and some of the hypocrisy she saw. I admire her honesty. And in her defense, this kind of expose could be written about many other closed groups - Amish, Morman, Christian fundamentalist, Muslims, Catholic monasteries, etc. In such an insular environment anyone who rebels against the group must appear to be a traitor to those who remain. It takes great courage to break out of such an intensely closed group and it often means being completely cutoff from family and friends. I hope in her case she will eventually get some closure with her family members but sometimes that doesn't happen. But whatever happens I hope she finds the peace and happiness she is searching for - experience says that the adjustment to her new life will take a long time but I think in the end she made the right choice because she would always feel enslaved had she stayed. No matter how good the community was, it was not the right life for her. Good luck to her. And a personal note: I have some experience with such things. When I was much younger I was a cloistered Catholic nun for 10 years and the culture shock of leaving that life was immense. I think only someone who has been through that can truly appreciate it. And to Deborah Feldman I say: Hang in there - it is definitely worth it.

The writer prepares a memoir with a distinct and personal voice. It improved my understanding of a religious community whose culture and traditions are not easily accessible to the average American. We learn about marriage customs, religious life, clothing, holidays, relations with Israel, the role of male and females, scholars and merchants, educational approaches, and the personality of Satmar neighborhoods and communities etc. from one individual's perspective. The spare chronological structure and content of the narrative is raw, unfiltered and powerful, but lacks insight and maturity. Abandoned by her parents, the author was raised by elderly grandparents who while loving set up a double bind of traditional expectations and neglect. Zeidy her grandfather showed love with the spiritual upkeep of his grand-daughter's soul; and Bubby, her grandmother, showed care by preparing abundant food and daily upkeep. But the feeling of pride "nachas" of raising a child, the commitment to protect and to shape them into devout servants of the "Hashem," seemed a distant bell to Zeidy and Bubby (and the rest of the extended family of aunts and uncles). The writer seems to have had little supervision and sporadic guidance through most of her life. She describes sneaking off to bookstores to learn more about Jewish religious, social and cultural life, and dramatic playacting and minor rebellions during school hours against strict social mores. She became an avid reader of forbidden literature hiding books in her room and subsequently developed a sense of self from the study of characters like Anne in Green Gables, Jo in Little Women, and a sense of love and marriage from Elizabeth in Pride and Prejudice - rather than from her family. And then, primarily when social norms of the Satmar community demanded such attention, such as when the writer became of marriageable age, the aunt and grandparents take up their responsibilities full-on with ill effects to all. When the writer struggles with adult responsibilities of marriage, sex, childbirth, male/female communication, and most significantly to this story to be good Jew, the situation is ripe for failure and rejection. She does not go to her grandparents of extended family for guidance with problems. Why would she? By the end of the book, she flees with her son from them and the community. I found this very sad when you remember the statement attributed to Zeidy in the book about his survival in WWII Europe, "So many times, I wondered why I was allowed to live,".... But with time it became clear to me that all of my children and grandchildren had to be born and it is my responsibility to make sure they grew up to be a good Jew, "erliche Yidden" ...to give meaning to my survival. I can't possibly imagine wasting this precious gift I was given not when so many others were deprived of it?" The end of the book left me feeling that the writer may with age and experience come to have a more balanced perspective on her life as a Satmar Jew. I read many of the posts and reviews for this book. I am a non-Jew, but I am thoughtful reader. I understand completely this book is neither a scholarly nor particularly thoughtful examination of the Satmar community in terms of its origin, roots in Europe, post-Holocaust evolution, social and religious traditions or modern American identity. I feel disappointed that you believe the gentile reader would not have sufficient perspective to appreciate that this book is a single memoir that is not reflective of the richness of an entire culture.

Memories of an abandoned girl raised in a male dominated cult uneasily residing in a rejected society = ingredients for an identity crisis. This is a memoir of the dark side of Fiddler on the Roof although it doesn't take place in a shtetl (village) in Russia a century ago with a husband & wife worrying re: getting their daughters married off. Deborah Feldman's memories are set among one particular sect of Hassidic Jewry in America in one neighborhood of New York City & is drama at its purest, saddest & most insidious: entrapment, neglect & brainwashing in the guise of religiosity. Be warned: not for faint of heart. Because this community of religious adherents live bound by their long-deceased rabbi's interpretations of their Holy Book & the world around them taboos are myriad: no music or laughter, no grandmotherly hugs nor words of love. While males are exhorted to immerse themselves in the study of Torah, females must exist on superstitions & rabbinic say-sos, some so silly they take your breath away; dread of contamination from outsiders, sin & satan; guilt = who knew for what!; guile = learning to keep yourself safe, & gossiping like wildfires, life as this youngster knew it was an unpredictable mix of despair of ever getting it right & giddy fervor of personal spiritual experiences, always deflated by some withering comment from her elders... yet every so often not only did she think for herself, she actually attained some profound "Ahha!" moments. Cut off from everything American yet having to navigate along its streets & on its buses & subways, this girl is raised by her father's Yiddish-speaking parents whose many sons & daughters already have kids of their own. She gleans from the women that the odd-looking, unkempt man wandering about talking to himself is her father = therein lies her first shame. She also overhears about how her mother was brought over from England to marry him & left him & her girl baby to go out into the world = therein brews more shame. So she has no other children at home nor any youthful female companions = therein are the seeds of her particular horror story. No one speaks English (a filthy language) of everyday feminine things, except in Yiddish to remind her of how unclean & worthless she & her gender are, even her grandmother: everyone speaks in proverbs & aphorisms all carefully controlled by masculine minds = ergo: a cult, & we all know what happens in those = male family members invade everyone's personal space hunting for sin & filth, girls have no future of their own & are married off early to boys raised like emotionally-arrested messiahs. As far as I was concerned everyone should've been seeing a shrink since 5 years old already! How we love who we love bears little relation to who they "really" are & Deborah's devotion to her other-worldly Zeidy & her beloved Bubby even as she wonders at her paleness, her washed-out-ness, is forgiving & remarkable. Upon reaching puberty she suffers & survives some of the worst our elders (particularly males) can inflict on us = being irredeemably unclean, wrong & evil: "What did I do to deserve this?" Mix into that boys being boys no matter their age, & you've got a recipe for an alarming teenhood, engagement, the physical preparations for her wedding, in-laws & marriage. How can you expect young men to suddenly turn into lovers when all their lives they've been taught to abhor the Body Female? So they do what all pubescent boys do... together. Ergo: the insanity of her wedding night, which presages the years of her marriage until... she finally brings her newborn son home & realizes she's got some decisions to make. Just as her mother had done all those years before... she escapes, goes to college & then writes it out: external & internal: all that was making her ill & dis-eased. Well done, after all the editing & rewriting I sure hope it refreshed her, set her free. I know it brought up a lot of memories I'd stuffed down from my time as the only daughter among brothers living among the English & the American Jews with all those rules that were an eternal obstacle course distracting me from having one single original thought! Now, before you jump all over me for calling religious men women-haters, let me aver that I get why men started protecting their women way back in the Wild Generations when without women men would have had no future. Nowadays, that protection all too often has devolved into rejection, tyranny & entrapment. Unorthodox is a REREADER, & reminds me of Ayaan Hirsi Ali's Infidel : text books to learn how the emotional & mental enslavement & abuse will come out sideways in a woman's body thus fulfilling men's dread prophecies & supports their unfettered abhorrence. Certainly for Reading Groups except it won't get to where it's most needed = among the women of those segregated sects where they're disrespected & stifled by the very men who have an invested interest in keeping them in their place by fear of doing something wrong & those "somethings" start with being born not male...

One look on Amazon.com at the plethora of hysterical denunciations of this extraordinary account by Deborah Feldman of her departure from the mind control system of misogyny known as Orthodox Judaism, and you can sense that there is more than a kernel of truth to her eyewitness testimony. There are few books in print that expose the degree of suffocating oppression and neurosis which the halachos of Niddah ("Family Purity Laws") impose on Judaic women. For this achievement alone "Unorthodox" deserves our attention and admiration. After decades of self-righteous Americans pointing their fingers at Islam as the most noxious form of male chauvinism, Feldman lifts the curtain on a virulent homegrown form of misogyny which has escaped the notice -- and outrage -- of those who have made a crusade out of liberating Muslim women. Feldman stands for the liberation of the Judaic woman and in that objective her book surpasses even Eveyln Kay'e pathbreaking classic, "The Hole in the Sheet." There is so much to praise and so much that is astonishing in these pages. Her statement that "We learn in school that God sent Hitler to punish Jews for enlightening themselves." Her testimony concerning the ugly wigs that Orthodox women are compelled to wear and the looney rabbinic condemnations of "Satanic" wigs purchased from India (!); her depiction of the Williamsburg (Brooklyn) shetl where gossip and snoops follow a married woman just as if she were still a little girl; the lewd remarks and dirty jokes addressed to her by Orthodox Judaic males; the political corruption which leads her to make a remarkably bold and candid comment: "I don't blame the goyim for hating us" (p. 228). Feldman was saved from rabbinic tyranny in part by her indomitable yearning for freedom and partly from her reading of western gentile authors like Jane Austen and William Wordsworth. This is a woman who should be on every talk show in America. But will she be afforded the opportunity, or boycotted and blacklisted? "Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots" is a textbook for next year's feminist studies curricula. Let's see how many American academics have the guts to include it in their classrooms. Or will they play the American media game of viewing Hasidic Judaism through the schmaltz of Martin Buber, Eli Wiesel and Joseph Berger? Feldman has written a pro-Judaic book. Anyone who truly loves Judaic women will work for the freedom of Judaic women, similar to the extent that Arab women are helped out of the extremes of Islam. Arabs who leave Islam are seldom termed traitors to their people by American academia or media. No similar opprobrium should be heaped on Deborah Feldman, a heroic woman of breathtaking courage who obviously believes that women's rights don't stop at the synagogue door.

Fantastic look at the Satmar cult from a remarkable woman whose intelligence, love of learning, and joy of life do not permit her to swallow the religion Kool-Aid and remain ignorant. The author is a truly extraordinary, not just for her qualities, but for the fact that she was able to overcome all the indoctrination, pettiness, and attempts to stamp out all joy by the cult. Creativity, independent thought, English and non-conformity is not allowed. Whenever the author asks a question, she is stonewalled with the reply, “Why do you need to know?” After all she is only a girl and her sole function is to serve as a breeder. Girls only stay in school for 3 years of high school, the minimum demanded by the State. Even the word “college” (and anything else deemed unfit) is censored out of textbooks. However, they are taught almost entirely religious subjects. The English subjects that must be taught, are taught by Satmar women, recent high school graduates who are just as ignorant as the girls. They learn in school that God sent Hitler to punish the Jews “for enlightening themselves.” This is really an anti-intellectual religious cult. Women are not allowed to read, but the author does so anyway. She starts off slowly, by going to Boro Park and getting a translation of the Talmud. She slowly graduates to real books. The author is sexually assaulted by a cousin. She succeeds in fighting him off, but she is afraid to tell her Zaidy because she thinks he will blame her. She is not taught to protect herself from other Satmar, but rather from goyim as they “don’t have a soul.” In a perfect example of warped values and thinking she learns that a boy was kicked out of yeshiva for getting molested. The rabbis feel that allowing him to stay would corrupt the other boys! There is an even a horrifying incident where a father cuts off his son’s penis, and slits his neck to boot, because he found him masturbating. The murder is covered up. Talk of sex is forbidden and people are unfamiliar with even their own anatomy (let alone their partners). The author doesn’t know that the vagina has any role in sex; she thinks that it’s just used to urinate. She and her husband are unable to consummate their marriage. He explains that in yeshiva, the boys would jerk each other off. Since there were only around men, only the sight of a man could get him aroused. He explains, “I don’t even know if I should be attracted to you. I didn’t even have an idea of what a girl looked like before I saw you.” The final impetus for leaving the cult occurs when she has a child. She feels that she just cannot condemn him to a life of “smallness and imitation.” I cannot imagine living in such a repressed, backwards, and anti-intellectual society, where not knowing about the world is a virtue. The only thing I found disappointing about the book, is that the author did not spend sufficient time addressing how she actually left and how she ended up with custody of her son. I’m sure it would make for fascinating reading.

I read this book in less than two days. I was fascinated to find out intimate details on the Satmar community, whom despite being a Jewish woman in NYC, I knew little about. Her story was frightening for a myriad of reasons. 1. Education, unless religion is limited and at times, even banned. In 2012, this is just insane and downright fascist. Which is ironic, as the Satmar community grew into their own after the Holocaust and vowed to procreate as much as possible to make Hitler turn in his grave. Denying education of any kind is so anti-Jewish and anti-human that it simply disgusts me. Also, on a practical level, by not adhering to NY State requirements for a High School diploma, her community denied her the opportunity for independence. Nowadays, you can rarely make more than minimum wage even with a H.S. diploma, and she was not even able to have that. 2. She was not really loved. Obviously, I am taking her at face-value, for this book is a memoir. Perhaps members of her family really did love her, but if that was the case, they had a funny way of showing it. I grew up in very close family and I have always known how loved I was and am. There has never been any question. For her to never feel loved just goes to show you how screwed up this community is- hypothetically, if her family really did love her, how could they not realize that she felt so unloved? And while communication is a two-way street, she was the CHILD. A child without love is child abuse. 3. She was married off at 17 years old to a complete stranger. While I think this practice is antiquated, the fact that the Satmars still have arranged marriages is not what angered me. Rather, it was the fact that her husband was not attracted to her physically because he had never really been around women! This is what happens when you separate the sexes. I saw it several times when I've been to the Middle East (particularly Morocco and Egypt). Even fully covered, I would get hassled and even touched by random men on the street. One disgusting man even started fondling a teenage girl's hair in front of her mother (we were on a tour). This was mainly because Egyptian women were rarely out on the streets. Getting back to her husband, he then proceeds to tell their entire family their sexual issues and she ends up getting blamed. Another factor that led to their sexual problems that could have easily been avoided was the fact that she had no idea what her vagina actually looked like! There is absolutely nothing wrong or unnatural about the human body- to not be prepared for her wedding night (the demonstration at the kitchen table by a complete stranger does not count) is just pitiful. This comes back to the main idea that education is VITAL. Additionally, her husband gave her an STD- can you imagine if she had tried to get him tested? 4. I know for a fact that the Satmars put the Torah and Talmud above all else, even human life- which by the way, is anti-Jewish and again, anti-human and anti-simple common sense. The stories she tells to this effect ring true. 5. I own the documentary "Trembling before G-d". Whether or not her mother was in that film, it is a very disturbing film to watch. Even when suicidal, the rabbis in the film always tell the gay Jew that they cannot "sin", end of story. It's a shame that so many of these people are too afraid to leave the community, but they should know that if they were born this way, why would G-d want them to suffer? Would G-d really want his child to think about suicide on a daily basis because they are denied a chance at love like anyone else? 6. Women account for 50% of your population. They are your mothers, sisters, daughters and nieces. If you want to be separated in synagogue, fine. But to make them shave their hair or to sit in the back of the bus is INSANE. It's right out of Jim Crow. The bus the author was describing has been in the news lately because a reporter (female) tried to sit in the front and was screamed at. The Satmars need to realize that they are part of the United States of America that does not tolerate such open discrimination on a PUBLIC bus. Is this book perfect? No. Is it the best book I've ever read? No. However, it is an uplifting tome that made me smile. Highly recommended.

First, I actually read the book. Secondly, I am a Roman Catholic, but I do have Jewish ancestry, which is what inspired me to read this book. The author is very young and sometimes her writing seems amateur and immature. Other times, she seems to contradict herself, almost as if she is still having trouble parting with her faith; she probably is. Her upbringing, culture, and faith are her foundation and questions, parting with, and being highly critical of that foundation would make most wobble a bit and appear to make contradictions, especially at the age of 24. That being said, she does a good job introducing the reader to a world and culture usually closed to outsiders; the world of the Satmar. Some of her claims seem unbelievable and far-fetched, such as a story about a man that kills his boy when he catches him masturbating. What makes this story even more unbelievable is her claim that the Jewish emergency service helped him cover-up the killing of his child and dispose of the body. This story is obviously not true. The author doesn't claim to have witnessed this event, but instead, she claims that her husband was told about this, from another source. I can see how someone raised in a culture that shuns televisions, the English language, newspapers, and just about any form of media, could easily be led to believe such a story. It is possible that the author made up this story to embellish the book, but it is more likely that she was told this story, by someone she trusted, and she was gullible enough to believe it. This story is about a culture that turned insular, in an effort to survive and became repressive and oppressive. I was surprised to learn that orthodox Jewry in the Old World, in Europe, prior to the Holocaust, was not as strict as that which is practiced by the Satmar, or others that are referred to as Ultra-Orthodox. The Holocaust caused, for some, a reflex reaction, a desire to be a perfect Jew, in the hopes that God would reward by ensuring that another Holocaust never occurs. The author's family is also very dysfunctional and would probably be so if they were Christian, Muslim, or any other faith. The more repressive aspects of the Satmar culture, especially with regards to women, probably worsened the author's upbringing, but these cultural aspects were being interpreted by damaged people. As long as one keeps these facts in mind, you can read this book and learn quite a bit about Satmar culture. Don't condemn an entire culture because of one family. Don't forget that most Americans are not very many generations removed from a time when women were not equal in the eyes of the law and African Americans could be beaten for using the wrong drinking fountain. Every culture has its fair share of issues.

This memoir portrays the Hasidic sect of Satmar Jews as a cult. The Satmars and Hasidic Jews are angry and aghast over this book and the realities it brings to light. Many of the negative reviews have been filed by Hasidic Jews who are angry with Feldman's portrayal of Hasidism as a cult. Because Jews have been persecuted over the centuries by non-Jews many Jews feel it is a betrayal to critisize other Jews and their observances. Unfortunately Jews must and should be critical of their fundamentalist co-relgionists just as Muslims and Mormons should be of theirs. Deborah Feldman was a constructive if not an actual orphan being raised by her grandparents. Because of her orphan status the community members looked down upon her. Her parentage was questionable. Her father was mentallly ill or retarded. He wanders the neighborhood in inappropriate dress making inappropriate announcements. He was probably schizophrenic. His parents never sought proper treatment for him because it did not comport with their fundametalist religious beliefs. Because the Hasids do not believe in birth control, there is a high percentage of down syndrome and retardation in their community. Women have children well into their forties when birth defects increase as a percentage of all births. It is not unusual for a 49 year old woman to become a mother. Yet these children are cared for and schooled by the community. This does not prevent the community from requesting and receiving extra funds from public coffers to educate their special needs children. Mental Illness in this community is looked upon as something shameful. In order to find Deborah's mentally ill father a wife, the family had to seek out a poor girl from London who had poor prospects and whose family would not be aware of their son's strange behavior.This was Deborah's mother. Of course, this marriage failed. In fact Deborah's mother left the sect to live a secular gay life. In the community Deborah was viewed as not as good as others with a regular family. Further, her stingy granfather who could well afford to feed and cloth Deborah dressed her in her cousins' hand me downs. She never got to go to a store and select her own school clothes. This fact made her feel unworthy among her peers. Deborah is a bright and intellectual girl. These traits are not valued in the Hasidic community. Women are only valued as a support for men and as mothers. To discourage these traits Hasidic women cannot read most secular books and magazines. They are barred from learning about the outside world. Even their New York state required English grammar lessons are censored. There are lines of black out in the English grammar book. To comply with state law, girls are kept in school until age 16, but they do not earn New York City high school diplomas. Their religious observance precludes them from learning subjects like geometry which are required for a New York City high school diploma. AT 17 Deborah is married to a man she has met only once. He is not an intellecctual man. He works as a laborer in a warehouse. Deborah is an English teacher in the Satmar version of a high school. She should have been matched with someone who was an intellectual like her. That notion never occurred to her grandparents who looked only at the level of religious observance and financial support that could be expected of the family. Eli was from a humble albeit reverent and religious family, and that was good enough for their grandaughter. The marriage was doomed from the start. Deborah had a vaginal abnormality that precluded normal completion of sexual intercourse. Of course, she was personally blamed for the failure. A gynecologist identified the abnormality and recommended minor surgery. The family refuses to accept the diagnosis and surgical recommendation. Instead they take her from one talk therapist to another. A biofeedback specialist cannot fix a structural defect. Her husband is not the least bit supportive. He even leaves her temporarily over her failure. Finally Deborah finds a solution on the internet. She orders a manual dilation kit. This kit helps her deal with her double hymen which is rigid and inflexible. She finally completes intercourse and becomes pregnant. Once she becomes pregnant she is treated much better by her husband and his family. She and Eli have now moved out of Williamsburg into or north of Westchester county where they are not subjected to constant observance and critisizm. Deborah and her spouse have a little more freedom here. This freedom means she is not critisized because she doesn't shave her head in addition to wearing a wig. Still she must wear a wig and she must observe sabbath rules and participate in the Mikvah. She regularly attends the mikvah which she detests. She finds it dehumanizing and invasive which it is. When she decides that she must leave the sect for her own personal sanity and for the good of her son, Yitzy, the mikvah is one of the first observances she gives up. When she leaves the apartment ostensibly to attend to the mikvah she takes a magazine and reads in front of the Starbucks. She realizes that the purpose of many of these observances is to oppress women. They are designed to keep women ignorant of the ouside world and incapable of fending for themselves outside the sect. The hasidic education deprives all its students of more than a rudimentary acquaintance with algebra. There is no geometry, advanced algebra, trigonometry, calculus, or physics. Only Jewish subjects are taught. Geometry and other higher mathematics are of Greek origin so they aren't taught. Modern chemistry is not taught though chemical analysis that existed in biblical times is taught. The ancient Hebrews had not mastered modern chemistry or physics. Gallileo is not taught. Children learn history lessons with objectionable material removed. They do not learn about the women's movement for example. Only subjects which comport with their religious views are allowed. Thus, they are ill prepared to attend any college or university. Ultra-orthodox Yeshiva students who want to pursue college degrees in anything other than Judaic studies must participate in some sort of remedial or self taught education. The Hasidic view toward education is probably similar to the tea party regulars who want creationism taught alongside Darwin. Christians who want creationsim taught as an accepted theory of the origin of the species alongside Darwin are just as nuts. Christian fundamentalists who don't want birth control taught in sex education classes are cultish too. Christian fundamentalist may not dress in funny clothes like the Hasids, but they can be just as dangerous and just as regressive. The Duggans in the reality show 21 kids and counting come to mind. Members of cults can be pleasant, charming and nice. The amish are an example of a cult as are other Christian fundamentalists. The Lubuvitcher group of Hassidic Jews are an example too. Even if some of the examples of hasidic excesses are "embroidered" or not totally factually accurate, they do serve to demonstrate the danger of this particular religious cult. Further, they are an accurate account of the author's perception at the time. Her perception may have been inaccurate, but that was her perception. A boy is molested by his elderly bar mitzvah teacher. The community comes to learn that he has molested many boys and has a hoard of children's pornography in his house. Do they report him to the police? No. He is too old to go to jail. He disappears from the community for several weeks and returns. Presumably he participates in tutoring boys once again. Is he again in a position to molest? We are not told. What happens to the boy? He is forced to leave his Yeshiva because his presence will disrupt the class. No other Yeshiva will take him because they know what happened to him. This is a case of a ten year old victim being punished for being a victim and speaking out. How is this different from the Muslims who blame their daughters because they were raped. How is it so different from family members killing a victim of rape, because she was raped. It is accepted as an honor killing. We are horrified when we hear about these Muslim extremists. How are muslim honor killings so different from the fallout of an ultra orthodox Jewish boy being raped by his teacher. Then there is the horrific murder of a ten year old boy caught masterbating by his father. Masterbation is prohibited in the ultra orthodox sect. The community does not report the murder. Instead a specious death certificate is issued by the hassidic ambulence service. A quick burial follows. If you think this is impossible then read Postville where another murder is covered up by a Hasidic community. Deborah was fortunate to have been able to leave this sect on the tails of the publication of her book. She received an advance which gave her the financial suppport she needed to take her son and leave. She cuts his Paises so he will look just like all the other children at the playground, and it gives her great pleasure to do so. She begins teaching him in English instead of the favored Yiddish. Other women who are not as talented as Deborah and who wish to leave the sect are not so fortunate. She was lucky that a professor at Columbia's law school fought for Deborah's right to have custody of her son. She probably fought for and won child support from Eli as well. I do wish the book explained about any sister she may have had and which was referred to in some of the reviews. If she had been in multiple schools and been expelled, I wish she would have explained that in the book too. She has written a memoir so it should be factually correct. Otherwise she must label it as fiction based on fact. I wish I had the opportunity to ask her myself. In any case I loved this book. It sheds light on the danger of cults. Whether a society is a cult or not is really based on a continuum with some groups being more cultish than others. I view some modern Jewish orthodox communities as cultish without going all the way. This Satmar sect is a total cult. The only more cultish act they could have perpetrated would have been to murder Deborah becuase of her Hymen defect. I think some Muslim groups would go that far. Still hasidic groups do perform many charitable acts. They run the volunteer ambulence service in their community. They support free apartments for people who come to major medical centers for treatment. Some of these people including non-Jews could ill afford the cost of traveling to a major medical center for treatment of a serious illness were it not for these free apartments. They provide kosher meals for patients who are kosher in hospitals that cannot do so. They provide kosher meals and passover seders for Jewish inmates in correctionsl institutions. They do perform charitable acts and services for the community. Further, they are nearly single handedly responsible for raising the Jewish birth rate and providing a balance for the diappearance of Judaism in the secular community. If it weren't for these religious Jews, Judaism would probably die out in a few generations. However, Jews that don't believe these are cults should live in NYC for a few years. As a non-observant Jew walking in their communities you will be subjected to insults and even spitting. They may even throw stones. Still unlike the Muslims murdering people because they don't believe as they do is a sin. It is not allowed. In Islam fundamentalists believe that if they cannot force the infidel(non-believer) to believe, they should slay him. This is not the Jewish belief fundamentalist or otherwise which holds all life sacrosanct. In Judaism you cannot kill or maim a non-believer because they don't believe. I have had the opportunity to learn why the author fails to acknowledge the existence of her sister or the fact that she attended more than one secondary school. She knew that by writing about her life, she brought community disapproval on her family for their failure to control a child and a female child as well. Eli, her husband was ostracized for failing to control his wife. He has since left the community and now wears blue jeans though he is still observant. She felt her 11 year old sister was a child who did not decide to leave the sect. She did not feel she had the right to expose her younger sister to the ostracism she knew would occur if she was mentioned in the book. She felt her sister had the right to decide for herself whether or not she wanted to remain in the community. Eli, her husband is an adult and presumably can fend for himself. She did not mention the different secondary schools, because in her mind her educational experience culminated in the last school and mentioning the others did not advance the points she was trying to make about her education or lack there of. These rationales seem reasonable to me and should satisfy all the Hassidic nit pickers and nay sayers who have written negative reviews about her memoir. To them all I say- If this expose reveals destructive traits of these religious practices then maybe it is time to moderate them. It is time to free the slaves or rather the women.

A heartwarming story very well told!

A 10 anni di distanza dalla sua pubblicazione, molti verranno attirati a questo volume dopo aver visto la mini-serie su Netflix (me compreso), la quale è certamente interessante ma che è molto meno profonda dell'originale cartaceo. Deborah (Devoiri) Feldman ci porta per mano nella vita anacronistica, iper-conservatrice ed auto-referenziale della setta di ebrei chassidici di Satmar, stanziati a New York e non lontani dalla vita glamour e liberale della Grande Mela. La vita è strettamente governata da un'interpretazione integralista dell'ebraismo, con una netta separazione fra uomo e donna, repressione sessuale, matrimoni da 10 figli, una vita quotidiana scandita dalla lingua yiddish e con l'inglese relegato a mera necessità. Veramente difficile immaginare che nella patria del capitalismo ci siano ancora gruppi così chiusi ed oscurantisti. Feldman dà prova di grande maestria nel relazionarci i suoi conflitti interiori, che deflagheranno definitivamente dopo il suo matrimonio a 17 anni e la sua maternità a 19. Si renderà infatti conto di essere sposata ad un uomo che non conosce veramente, di non avere alcuna istruzione secolare e quindi nessuna prospettiva nel mondo "di fuori", prendendo la sofferta decisione di lasciare la sua comunità. Un libro bellissimo e coinvolgente, al termine del quale il pensiero va a tutte quelle persone in giro per il mondo che dalla loro prigione di oscurantismo non sono riuscite ad evadere.

I did a fair amount of reading on Judaism and different Jewish cultures, history and practices. I sifted through literature trying to understand what does it mean to be Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Mizrachi, Maghrebi, Haredi or Beta Israel Jew. However, when it comes to the daily life of Haredi or Hasidic Jewish communities, literature is almost silent. Yes, there is some light shed on the general practices of Ultra-orthodox sects but beyond that, nothing much. My curiosity towards ultra-conservative jewish sects is not tainted with judgement. I just wanted to learn about their culture. Who am I to judge anybody anyway? Ms. Feldman paints a vivid picture of what is it like to be a girl in a Yiddish-speaking Satmar Hasidic community in Brooklyn. She brilliantly describes the preparing for and rituals of the sabbath, Yum Kippur and numerous other occasions the Hasidim celebrate zealously. Their lives are dedicated to studying the Torah and Talmud from an early age. The little things that we usually overlook like how to be modest, talk, behave, read, watch, preparing meals, keeping kosher, going to yeshivas, marriage arrangements and many other things from the Hasidim perspective. Ms. Feldman got a lot of criticism from Jews and non-Jews such as Shmarya Rosenberg about the content of the book. You can read both points of view and judge for yourself. The criticism does not undermine the value of the book, however. If you're interested in the costumes and daily life of the Hasidim, this the book is for you. A little background of basic Jewish costumes helps a lot with reading this book. I enjoyed every page and emerged with more info about this overlooked sect. @shakirbahzad

Last year I caught a documentary about Williamsburg in New York City and Ms. Feldman was one of the people interviewed and presented. She grew up in a Hasidic community and left it in her early 20s. Since I am very interested in memoirs and fiction that deal with the process of breaking out of fundamentalist religious communities, I was looking forward to the publication of this memoir. It was worth the wait. The book held me captivated from the first pages. First of all, Feldman tells a very interesting story. While she illustrates all of the restrictions that she had to live with every day of her life - and they are rather incredible for anybody not living in such a community - she never really speaks in a mean or disrespectful manner about the people she grew up with. In fact, she tries to understand where they are coming from and to see the good things her family gave her. Yet she does not shy away from difficult topics. She talks about her mother who left her little daughter behind as she herself flew from the community and about her father who seems to have cognitive problems. She relates how this situation led to her being treated differently from other children and how she always felt like an outsider in her own community. I imagine it can't be easy writing about these things. Yet Feldman digs even deeper into the stuff that nobody in this Hasidic community really wants to talk about: the sexual problems she and her husband encountered, which were mostly caused by the extreme sexual repression and, more precisely, the negative view of feminine sexuality in this community. I find her very open and courageous when she relates these issues. Apart from this gripping coming-of-age story the story telling itself deserves mention: This is high quality writing. It is nothing spectacular - but that is exactly what makes it so good: Both the general outline and the language are absolutely convincing, the language flows well, it is never wordy, and it feels just right all the time. Feldman does not turn her memoirs into too much of a literary experiment. She relies on the power of her story. A good choice.

La lecture de ce livre a été à la fois agréable, énervante, triste, drôle, révoltante et touchante...oui le tout à la fois. Je suis quelqu’un qui lit lentement et qui a aussi tendance à beaucoup prendre les choses à cœur et donc j’ai dû le lire en plusieurs fois, en faisant des pauses de plusieurs jours voire semaines. Beaucoup de passages m’ont révolté car je me disais que c’était inconcevable, qu’il fallait marcher sur la tête pour encore perpétrer certaines pratiques. Cet engouement est sûrement lié au fait que je me suis reconnue. J’ai grandi dans un milieu religieux et eu beaucoup de mal à m’en défaire. Tout comme elle je me suis souvent posée des questions. Des questions qui dérangent car on doit prendre les choses comme elles sont et puis c’est tout. Je suis contente qu’il y ait un « happy ending » malgré toutes ses galères, ça a été le cas pour moi aussi. J’ai du mettre de l’espace entre ce qui me dérangeait pour aller vers ce qui me correspondait le mieux. Je recommande cette lecture.