Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots

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Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots

by Deborah Feldman (Goodreads Author)

3.61 of 5 stars 3.61 · rating details · 8,306 ratings · 1,218 reviews

As a member of the strictly religious Satmar sect of Hasidic Judaism, Deborah Feldman grew up under a code of relentlessly enforced customs governing everything from what she could wear and to whom she could speak to what she was allowed to read. It was stolen moments spent with the empowered literary characters of Jane Austen and Louisa May Alcott that helped her to imagi...more

ebook, 272 pages

Published February 14th 2012 by Simon & Schuster

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Apr 07, 2013 Sue rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: judaica, nonfiction

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

I have decided to pull my rather scathing first attempt at a review because it is about the author not the book, which is a violation of Goodreads' TOS. (I had not been notified, I just realized this when I was reading the help section.)

OK so I thought the writing was mostly good and I believed the story to be true until I googled the author's name--which anyone who can read reviews on Goodreads can do. I found the first half of the book to be tedious and was a bit put off by the constant use o...more

I have decided to pull my rather scathing first attempt at a review because it is about the author not the book, which is a violation of Goodreads' TOS. (I had not been notified, I just realized this when I was reading the help section.)

OK so I thought the writing was mostly good and I believed the story to be true until I googled the author's name--which anyone who can read reviews on Goodreads can do. I found the first half of the book to be tedious and was a bit put off by the constant use of present tense. She described a dull, disappointing childhood in a rather dull, disappointing way but I kept going because I was curious about what precipitated her departure from her community.

It became interesting when she described her engagement, wedding and first year of marriage. It then became tedious again when it degenerated into what felt like repetitive whining, although I admit I was completely biased by the googling I did which led to strong evidence that she manufactured much of the story and at the very least, changed major timeline facts to press her POV.

I was particularly incensed when, after making her husband sound sexually like a selfish oaf whose only desire was personal pleasure (she actually compared him to a dog at one point) she said of her own behavior, "So we kiss before. But not for long. I take to biting, for some reason I can't understand, and he tries to teach me to kiss slowly, but I don't like the sloppy, wet kissing, with the scruff on his face burning my chin and the skin above my lip. After a few moments of biting, he gives up and moves on."

The lowest point, in my opinion, is when she conjectured about a murder-for-masturbation, an unfounded conclusion that, for sake of the family, should NOT be in the book. Shame on the publisher for not doing more fact checking! She does not even have the age of the person right (she said 13, he was actually 20) and she is accusing real people of an unproven and horrendous crime.

In the end, Feldman did acknowledge she used this "memoir" as a way to make the money she needed to get out of the community. When she applied for Sarah Lawrence's continuing education, she said she submitted two autobiographical essays, "I think to myself, This is my shtick. I gotta use whatever I got." Sadly, she apparently used her "shtick" for profit, at the expense of many real and living people.

One of the more disturbing comments she made about her departure from her community (after some passing reflection early on in the memoir on the effect of the Holocaust on her grandparents): "My two identities have finally split apart, and I've killed the other one, I've murdered her brutally but justly. This book will be her last words." Edit April 2013: I have since learned that she most likely meant this ironically. In other memoirs, I have learned the rejection of orthodox tradition is often met with the accusation that by assimilating, younger generations of Jews are participating in the ongoing genocide of the Jews. What a burden to carry!

I am going to read Unchosen: The Hidden Lives of Hasidic Rebels now so I can get my perceptions of ex-Chasadim back in balance. As a converted and very liberal Jew I have a personal investment in learning as much as I can about my adopted tribe, in ALL its diversity, as long as our stories are told with integrity.

(less)

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Aug 03, 2012 Osho rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012

I didn't grow up in a Hasidic community, though I've worked with a mixed range of Orthodox/Hasidic groups, so I'm not unfamiliar with these cultures, nor do I exoticize them. I've had experiences that accord with Feldman's depictions of some practices (such as keeping information about sexually transmitted diseases from adolescents) and the way stories spreads through the teen girl rumor mill, which is often more concerned with shocked and disapproving titillation than with accuracy. I've experi...more I didn't grow up in a Hasidic community, though I've worked with a mixed range of Orthodox/Hasidic groups, so I'm not unfamiliar with these cultures, nor do I exoticize them. I've had experiences that accord with Feldman's depictions of some practices (such as keeping information about sexually transmitted diseases from adolescents) and the way stories spreads through the teen girl rumor mill, which is often more concerned with shocked and disapproving titillation than with accuracy. I've experienced questioning of my living arrangements, devaluing of my own expression of Judaism, intrusions on my personal life, and work requirements that posed moral dilemmas for me. I did hand-expurgate copies of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich when I was directed to do so. And I did make the decision to risk my job in order to tell teenagers how they could and could not get AIDS, because some of their beliefs were wildly inaccurate, hurtfully homophobic, and based on the assumption that the larger community worked actively to harm Jews. (For example, I was told earnestly and more than once that gay gentile waiters hate Jews because they recognize that the Haredim are better than the goyim, so they spit on their salads in restaurants in order to give them AIDS.) I also experienced more welcome, solidarity, and kindness than Feldman describes receiving, despite my being worse than an outsider--from their perspective, I was an apostate Jew, one who had lived in Israel, who spoke Hebrew, who was an enticement for good children to slide into the world of assimilationist Judaism, an unmarried woman who could have been a bridge to sin and chaos. And that's without them even knowing about the lesbianism, Patti Smith albums, and shrimp.

The way I read Feldman is different from many reviewers, who are focused on the questions of veracity and how the author represents the Satmar community. Being familiar with and not entranced by it, my interest and attention is drawn elsewhere. Stripped of what I might think of as the distractions of evaluating family timeline and cultural truths, instead reading this simply as a personal narrative, I see a person with pervasive distress, suspicion of others' motives, a deep lack of trust, extreme sensitivity to disapproval, and the gnawing fear that she is inadequate. Feldman describes a no-win world, where others fail to value or cherish her so she preemptively denigrates them. She consistently compares herself to other people and finds them wanting, while secretly worrying that she is the odd one out. She can't attach with them emotionally and frequently describes herself as empty, hollow, alienated, or otherwise disconnected. When one desire is fulfilled, another takes its place, perpetuating the grinding failure to hold onto happiness.

I agree with some of Feldman's cultural critiques and her sense of being constrained, but the problem this memoir describes goes far beyond that. For the first third of the book, her descriptions of herself and others so aggrandized her and belittled others that I assumed that the structural twist, the book's emotional hinge, would be the story of how she learned to balance a brash and self-centered adolescence with the maturity of adulthood, how she rejected or made peace with aspects of her upbringing and religion, and how she recognized her own and others' humanity. However, this is not that story.

This is the story of someone who depicts herself as judgmental and cruel as if this were justified, clever, or a way to join with the reader, and as a person who attracts (or automatically ascribes to others) judgment and cruelty directed toward her. From her perspective, she is simply surrounded by mean people. She describes herself as lying, deceiving, hiding, manipulating, and then feeling contempt for others when they take her at her word. This is a lonely position and puts me in mind of Laing's The Divided Self. From the reader's perspective, Feldman is harshly insulting and critical of others, unable to describe them empathically or to see them as people who might ever have good intentions or altruistic motives, or who might even care for her. I don't know what may have happened in her life to put her in this state, but at the end of the book, despite a vaguely described flight from Brooklyn and the Judaism of her upbringing, she doesn't appear to have gained liberation from her own more pervasive demons. This is a memoir of despair that may not know its own causes, or comprehend how it depicts Feldman to the reader. In this regard it's painful and embarrassing to read. I feel great compassion and concern for her, though she might see this as a reviewer's ploy rather than as a real feeling. (less)

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Mar 02, 2012 Lisa Donadio rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The minute I started this book I was engrossed and I finished it within 2 days. I found as a woman, it was almost infuriating to read. I also think it is disgusting and awful that so many from her former "community" are stalking her and posting fake reviews calling the book false. This book is HER memoir and HER truth and she is completely and utterly entitled to it. This is a rare look into this strange community. It is an interesting read for me personally since I live in an area where there i...more

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Mar 27, 2012 Sharon rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: first-reads, nonfiction, womens, religion

A brave woman wrote this book and her spirit shines throughout. It takes exceptional courage to break out of the only life you've ever known, especially one as repressive to women as Hasidic Judaism seems to be. The story is a fascinating look inside this closed community where, like all communities, there is both good and bad. The author knew instinctively that she couldn't thrive where she was planted, and she knew this at a young age.

The book is her journey from childhood to adulthood and ho...more

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Mar 20, 2012 Carol rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011, memoirs-bio, non-fiction

Would you like being brought up to never go into a public library? If you did manage to sneak in and get a library card which you have to hide, you would also have to hide your books under the mattress. You even have to hide 'Little Women'! If Deborah Feldman had not had the courage to wonder and then seek out knowledge about the outside world, this book never would have been written. I believe that her desire to know more her desire to read. That desire was a fountain of information for her and...more

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Oct 04, 2012 Jamie rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I have been fascinated by Hasidim since a) I read Chaim Potok's novels, which led to b) my senior thesis on the relationship between Hasidic Jews and blacks in Brooklyn Heights, New York. As a result, I had high hopes for this book, and it did not disappoint. A fascinating, heart-breaking, beautifully written memoir.

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Jun 01, 2012 Laura rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: anthropological, bildungsroman, jewish-ish, memoirs, non-fiction, somehow-usc-related, tigard-library, women

Many of the details this book are apparently inaccurate, exaggerated, or even fabricated. I learned only after reading the book, for example, that the author has a much younger sister--so she couldn't have actually been abandoned by her mother as a toddler. She apparently also only attended a Satmar school for a few years after being expelled from one or two more liberal Jewish schools.

I was suspicious, additionally, about the author's silence on how exactly she gained custody of her son (when,...more

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Mar 06, 2012 Melanie Linn rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012

While "Unorthodox" is a fascinating and enthralling book, I feel as though it was written several years too early. The book left me with many questions, questions that perhaps could not be addressed by the author because her escape from Hasidism is still too fresh. Did she ever get to the bottom of her husband's infidelity? How was she able to take her son with her when she mentions in the book that 'it's never been done'? Did she lose all contact with her grandparents after she left? Did she be...more

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Feb 15, 2012 Gaylinn rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I won this book through Goodreads, and it just arrived today. I plan to start reading it immediately. I will post my review as soon as I finish reading.

When I started reading this book I knew very little about the Sitmar sect of Hasidic Judaism. Fortunately the author did explain the terminalogy and fundamentals of the religion in an articulate and easy to understand way.

The author was raised in this insular, oppressive world where women are taught that they are incapable of independent thought....more

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Oct 13, 2012 Sunny morris rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A story of a girl brought up in a religion and culture that feels foreign to her from the start and her experience trying to separate from it. I gravitate towards stories like these because I think many people have similar experiences and can relate to the struggles of discovering who you truly are, and what you believe in. Then, how you deal with the negative impact that has on your future with your family and community who can't and aren't willing to understand. I gave this book two stars for...more

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Nov 05, 2011 Ana rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Deborah Feldman's "Unorthodox” is heartbreaking, inspiring & brimming with chutzpah.
She slowly and skillfully reveals the secrets of the fanatical Satmar Chassidic community. She pulled me into the daily life of her family as I met her bubby cooking chicken soup and her grandfather reciting biblical litanies. Her family members are deeply enshrouded in the old world belief systems.
Deborah secretly struggles to reclaim her voice and break free from her family traditions. She is a feisty, fas...more

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Sep 04, 2012 Dana rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I had higher hopes for this much anticipated memoir than were met, but It was still interesting and educational. Deborah Feldman was raised in Brooklyn, NY in a very strict Orthodox Hasidic Family. The world of the Hasidim is as foreign to most Jews as it is to non-Jews! I knew some of the traditions but others astounded me, and I could understand why Feldman longed to escape. She was married, by arranged marriage, at the age of 17, having been introduced to her husband only one time, for a shor...more

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Jan 04, 2013 Michael Doyle rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: judaica, set-aside

I'm almost halfway through this book, but it's my last-resort book when I'm tired of the other books I'm reading at the same time. It's not that it isn't a good read. It mostly is, though it's written in a pretty basic, I-wrote-this-in-college-English-class kind of style. The real problem is if you've read one I-escaped-ultra-Orthodox-Judaism book, you've kind of read them all. Unchosen (Hella Winston) was this book about a male Satmar Hasid done much better. And it's kind of a shame the message...more

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Dec 08, 2012 Nicki rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Nicki by: CJLLS Book club selection for January 2013!

It was amazing to realize that this woman was born in 1987 and is only one year older than my daughter! One would not think of this going on in the U.S., in this day and age. One more reason that I don't believe in organized religion, although there is no reason an individual family could not have equally antiquated beliefs and make their own rigid rules of conduct. She showed us that there are zealots in all faiths.
That being said, I also felt that her doubts have been shared by teenagers of al...more

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Mar 28, 2012 Donna Silber rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I really enjoyed this little glimpse into Hasidic life, I must admit that I was a little shocked by some of the goings on, I mean, this is the US!! I'm not a believer in any type of organized religion and this book helps me realize that even more! I do hope that there is a follow up book as I would love to have more details on her life growing up and then her life after leaving her family.

Was a great interesting read but lacked a lot of detail.

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Apr 25, 2012 Emma Cunningham added it · review of another edition

For those of us who are atheists, or were at least raised non-religious or as non-believers, it can be hard to understand the difficulty behind giving up everything you’ve known to break free of a life you don’t want. It’s also hard for anyone to picture a life this different from our own. I love to read books about unfamiliar lifestyles—and discussed this in my review of Leah’s Choice—and since this book is a memoir and not a novel, it’s an especially interesting inside look....more For those of us who are atheists, or were at least raised non-religious or as non-believers, it can be hard to understand the difficulty behind giving up everything you’ve known to break free of a life you don’t want. It’s also hard for anyone to picture a life this different from our own. I love to read books about unfamiliar lifestyles — and discussed this in my review of Leah’s Choice — and since this book is a memoir and not a novel, it’s an especially interesting inside look.

Devoireh grows up as a Hasidic Jew in Williamsburg, NY. Her mother left the faith when she was a baby and her father is mentally handicapped, so she lives with her bubby and zeidy (Yiddish words for grandmother and grandfather). Hasidic Jews are perhaps THE most religious sect of Judaism, and Devoireh has little freedoms. She has to sneak out to the library and hide books under her mattress, even if they are religious texts, because they are not allowed. The crowning part of her childhood rebellion was the purchase of an English translation of the Talmud, the book upon which her entire faith is based and which she would, as a woman, never be permitted to read.

When she is seventeen, she is engaged to a man named Eli whom she has known for perhaps all of thirty minutes. She starts to dream that by moving out and becoming a married woman, she will have more freedom than she did as a child.

Then she learns of the rules of niddah (how at certain times of the month she is considered impure) and the harsh immersions in the ritual mikvah baths that are required to return her to a “pure” state.

And then she and her husband have extreme difficulties consummating the marriage, and any chance of true intimacy between them seems less and less likely.

When Devoireh becomes pregnant, she realises she wants more for herself and her son. But without even a high school diploma, how will she get them out when she knows nobody on the outside?

For me, this was an especially powerful read because my mother left her Orthodox Jewish family behind when she married my dad. She was raised religious but not overly orthodox, but her parents and siblings grew more and more extreme while she became less so. And when she made the decision to marry my dad, her parents and sister cut all ties.

Although Orthodox Jews are not quite as fanatical as Hasidics (I laughed to see them constantly referred to as “modern”), it is still rare for someone to leave the fold.

I am impressed with Devoireh’s story for showing the world how hard it can really be to leave your religious roots behind, and embrace secular culture. It is never an easy decision and she should be commended for making tough choices to give herself and her son the life she dreamed they could have. I do wish she could have spent a little more time focusing on the difficulties of severing ties with the people she did love, instead of only focusing on how she distanced herself from everyone.

Highly recommended.(less)

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Apr 05, 2013 Lianne added it · review of another edition

This surprisingly revealing memoir is the story of a young woman who crashes out life in a restrictive Hasidic community on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. It is the author's love of learning and curiosity that lead her out of her bondage. She reads novels at the public library and eventually acquires books that she hides under her mattress. Characters created by Jane Austen and Louisa May Alcott give her courage to express her spirit. Gradually she becomes a teacher, and experiences the confi...more

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Mar 28, 2013 steph rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: books-read-in-2013, library-torrance, nonfiction, nonfiction-biography

Was not impressed with this one. Initially wanted to read it because I have heard of this book for awhile and I am the type of person who in interested in the conservative, tightly controlled sub cultures of religion. Add to the fact that this author grew up in a Hasidic community in Brooklyn New York and we are about the same age, I was very much intrigued and wanted to try this book. However, by the end I became much disappointed by it.

I did not like the author. I think that is where 90% of my...more

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Mar 25, 2013 Jennifer rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is a memoir in the genre of "I grew up in a cult"--you can find similar stories by people who've left the Amish, or a polygamous sect, or any insular religious community. The book grew out of a blog Deborah Feldman kept as she was breaking away from the Satmar Hasidic community in Brooklyn and in some ways it feels raw and unfinished, not too surprising when you consider she's still in her 20s and only a few years out. Feldman's family problems probably probably gave her more reasons than m...more

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Feb 21, 2013 Michele Young-stone rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I don't usually like memoir: not because there isn't extraordinary memoir out there, but because it terrifies me. The idea of being so open and putting ugly truths on the page. I'm always perplexed by dialogue in memoir because no one remembers the "truth," only his or her interpretation of what happened and what was said.

After reading this well-written, beautiful and as Jeanette Walls stated, "harrowing" novel, I can only imagine and cringe at the criticism that Deborah Feldman has faced becau...more

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Feb 15, 2013 Judie rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

UNORTHODOX
Deborah Feldman

The subtitle of UNORTHODOX, THE SCANDALOUS REJECTION OF MY HASIDIC ROOTS, sums up the rest of the book.
Following the divorce of her parents, author Deborah Feldman was raised by her grandparents in the Orthodox Satmar community in New York City. Her father was mentally disabled. Her mother, originally from England, left the while Deborah was a small child partly because of the way she was treated by her husband’s family. Her grandfather was very strict and her grandmot...more UNORTHODOX
Deborah Feldman

The subtitle of UNORTHODOX, THE SCANDALOUS REJECTION OF MY HASIDIC ROOTS, sums up the rest of the book.
Following the divorce of her parents, author Deborah Feldman was raised by her grandparents in the Orthodox Satmar community in New York City. Her father was mentally disabled. Her mother, originally from England, left the while Deborah was a small child partly because of the way she was treated by her husband’s family. Her grandfather was very strict and her grandmother, though she seemed to be a little more liberal, deferred to him. One of her aunts by marriage played a strong role in Deborah’s life.
The insular Satmar sect is called extreme Orthodox by many, Jews and non-Jews. The men wear high fur hats, the women wear wigs and many shave their hair (to prove they are even more pious to please G-d and prevent another Holocaust), the girls do not finish high school, and Yiddish is the common language. Many cannot speak English very well even though they were born here. They are anti-Israel because they believe only G-d can provide the state, not the Zionists.
From early childhood, Deborah had a strong yearning to learn, something that was not encouraged for Satmar girls. There was a fear that if they were well-educated, they would not be content to be traditional mothers and wives. She was considered rebellious and used to buy English language books, starting with THE CHOSEN and sneak them home, hiding them under her mattress. She fiercely longs for education and independence but is compelled to marry at age 17.
In one very funny episode, she remembers helping her grandmother make kreplach. She looked at the picture of a woman on the bottle of olive oil and the words extra virgin. She asked her grandmother, “What’s a virgin?” Her grandmother is shocked, asks her where she heard the word (Deborah, noticing the reaction said she didn’t know) and tells her little girls shouldn’t know that word. Deborah turns the bottle around so the offending word is hidden. If her grandmother had answered the question, Deborah would likely have been even more confused.
Observant Jews do not carry things outside their homes during Shabbat. In order to allow them to carry keys or push a baby carriage, many communities developed eivuvs, a system of wires enclosing a large area to make it qualify as the residential area. Some in the Satmar community wouldn’t accept the variance. Showing some liberalism, her grandfather tells her “A good rabbi is one who can find the loophole in the law that allows for flexibility. A rabbi who lacks sufficient knowledge of the Talmud will always lean toward the stricter side because he is unsure of his own ability to find the loopholes.” But, he adds, we don’t use it because others may think we are sinning.
I found contradictions as well as unanswered questions in the book. A week before her arranged marriage at age 17, she learns about sexual intercourse. She said she has no hole in her body that resembles what she is told. She has menstruated, has seen pregnant women, and new babies. Didn’t she ever wonder where they came from?
After her marriage, she goes to Sarah Lawrence. She has said they couldn’t afford maternity clothes for her and, later on, needed tires for their car. How could they afford collage expenses and day care for their son?
She eventually leaves the community and takes her son with her. One of her first acts is smoking a cigarette. Is she trying to emulate the Orthodox men?
She leaves a lot of unanswered questions about her mother and her father’s relationship with her as she grows up. What about her relationship with her ex-husband and his family.
She presents a couple paragraphs about an honor killing but I couldn’t find any information to back it up.
The book did provide some interesting information but I found it to be more of a collection of gripes.
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Feb 15, 2013 Sarah rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I completely disagree with the reviewer who said that Feldman was "whiny" and "immature" I felt like she was a kindred spirit. A young woman with independent ideas and an indomitable spirit who refused to be caged by repressive society. I have read a number of books by people who left insular religious communities – two about people who left the Amish, and one about a boy who left the polygamist sect, and I have to say that a wall of them, I was able to relate most to Feldman. I found the author...more I completely disagree with the reviewer who said that Feldman was "whiny" and "immature" I felt like she was a kindred spirit. A young woman with independent ideas and an indomitable spirit who refused to be caged by repressive society. I have read a number of books by people who left insular religious communities – two about people who left the Amish, and one about a boy who left the polygamist sect, and I have to say that a wall of them, I was able to relate most to Feldman. I found the author to be very likable. She was honest and thorough in in her depictions of life in the Hasidic community, even though her depiction of it was mostly negative. She does express that she loved her family, but she made it clear that society was very repressive and that women had very few options and choices. I'm glad she found her freedom – I do wish she'd gotten into a little more detail about how she got custody of her son. It seems like her husband just basically abandoned her and agreed to divorce, and apparently didn't fight too hard to get custody – although the author believes that part out. That is anyway when I felt the story implied. I felt sorry for the author about how she had to smuggle books into the house and hide them when she was a teenager. I love to read, and when I was a teenager I eagerly devoured as many books as I could get my hands on. It was strange to read about a girl who was denied the freedoms that I had. I think if I lived in that society would've turned out much the same as the author.

The details of the Hasidic community were very informative. Most shocking were the revelation that a pedophile had molested a child and the child himself was kicked out of school for being a "bad influence" will nothing happened to the molester. Thinking that a young boy would have his whole life ruined by something that was not his fault, (because there was little chance of success, marriage, or having a normal life without learning religion, as taught in the city community) was very upsetting. He really captured how the community treated individual people. While I'm sure some young women do feel happy and fulfilled in that society, it seems inevitable that a number of women want to rebel against the systeam. I found the author struggles for realistic and compelling. (less)

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Feb 13, 2013 Barbikat60 rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I really enjoyed reading this book. I would've liked it if she took the time to describe her family life more. I think the average person wouldn't understand the sacredness of the Sabbath and how families prepares for it. I think that and also describing other holy days like Passover, Rosh Hashanah, etcetera.

There are those who say that she is lying. It's memoir, not biography, she doesn't have to put everything in exactly truth and detail. She had her reasons for embellishing and as far as not...more

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Feb 07, 2013 Red rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2013, memoir, nonfiction, religion

I was hoping for more from Unorthodox. Feldman begins at the beginning and walked us through her childhood up through the time she leaves her religion (totally not a spoiler since it's in the title), a total of about 22 years. It goes chronologically, through childhood memories of her own rebellion to getting her period to the Hasidic marriage rituals to leaving her Hasidic life behind.

That was part of the problem for me, I think. I wanted more reflection, more connections between then and now....more

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Feb 01, 2013 Rachel rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Overall, I did enjoy this book and found it to be an interesting snapshot of one woman's life inside an insular, often unexplored community. Deborah Feldman's story exposed some very real problems within the restrictive Hasidic community, most explicitly the intellectual and sexual repression (and sometimes abuse) of women. Her escape from this life was daring and so is her willingness to share her story, since doing so has unleashed a lot of criticism from within the Hasidic ranks.

That said, e...more

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Jan 25, 2013 Anna Penner rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This may be the lowest rating I've given a book. Not because I'm not discerning, but because I usually abandon books when they sink below a three star rating.

I continued to read this book even when I was bored or the writing grated only because the experiences of life in a deeply religious community were unfamiliar enough to be interesting—at least at points. The first chapters had almost no redeeming features. Though the childhood described seemed strictly regimented, it wasn’t extraordinary a...more

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Jan 18, 2013 Michael rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: books-i-have-reviewed

Mark Twain once said twenty years from now we’ll be more disappointed by the things we didn’t do than the things we did do. Mr. Twain might have changed that around some had he read Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots by Deborah Feldman.

I was excited when I first heard about this book and excited when I finally got it. I was interested in learning about Hasidic Judaism from an insider’s perspective and what happened in the author's life to make her leave the faith. I wasn’t...more Mark Twain once said twenty years from now we’ll be more disappointed by the things we didn’t do than the things we did do. Mr. Twain might have changed that around some had he read Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots by Deborah Feldman.

I was excited when I first heard about this book and excited when I finally got it. I was interested in learning about Hasidic Judaism from an insider’s perspective and what happened in the author's life to make her leave the faith. I wasn’t expecting a fairy story filled with tales of a wonderful life but I was certainly expecting more than what I got which was little more than a poorly written and poorly edited fierce and bitter temper tantrum. Granted, this is a memoir and not a biography and I accept that I’m reading Ms. Feldman’s subjective account of her life and the lives of the people around her, but even taking that into account, I believe that much of the information she shared with us was inaccurate and exaggerated and coming more from a sense of revenge and anger than anything else.

If Ms. Feldman’s thoughts and beliefs about Hasidic Judaism weren’t bothersome enough, they were made worse by her passing off secondhand information and hearsay as factual. And what was factual was incomplete and left us with questions: How did she just leave? What happened to her husband? Where did she suddenly get all her money? Worse, and this is probably my biggest complaint about the book, was that she had no compunctions against dragging everyone around her, family and friends included, through the mud. Sure, she changed the names of everyone in the story, but she didn’t change her name and are we really supposed to believe that in the insular society of Satmar Jews living in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York she’s writing about that people don’t know who her family is and who her friends are? I feel sad for those people who were caricatured and shamed in the book.

There was very little I liked about this book. Insights into some of the rituals around marriage and cleanliness were interesting, but that was it for me. Unfortunately, I took nothing away from this book. Worse, I learned nothing.(less)

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Jan 14, 2013 Michelle Breier rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

"Unorthodox" is definitely worth reading. (Check it out of the library or borrow it from a friend, though.) The book was fine, I wouldn't call it good and definitely not great. I felt like it could have been so much more. I did find it interesting and learned much. But as far as a deep, insightful memoir, this book barely touched the surface. It's not that it needed to be longer -- it needed to be better. Deborah Feldman is brave, and certainly seems genuine in her feeling of disconnection to he...more

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Jan 12, 2013 Amy rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: biography-memoir, nyc

Here's the detail that gets me: on 9/11, in Williamsburg Brooklyn, the author went to her high school, had no idea why the students were dismissed in early afternoon, and didn't hear what had happened until 2:30 or so. Her community was so close, but so far away. They value a different kind of knowledge, and most of the author's story is about what it cost her to be forbidden to know things that her community devalues.

Her writing is very candid. She isn't coy about the details. She writes about...more

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Jan 04, 2013 Nicole Introvert rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, memoir

I'd probably rate this a bit above a 3. It was a very quick and easy read, and very engaging. I just wish the last couple chapters were a bit more in depth about her process of physically leaving. The other recommendation I have is that I would have liked to see a small glossary. Most of the Yiddish words were able to be understood through context but at times I would forget and be a little puzzled if they came up again. Same goes for some of the traditions and activities they participated in. Y...more

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About Deborah Feldman

Deborah Feldman was born and raised in the Hasidic community of Williamsburg in Brooklyn, New York.

She is the author of the New York Times Bestselling memoir, UNORTHODOX: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots (Simon and Schuster.)

Currently, she is working on a follow-up memoir, which finds her embarking on independence as a single woman and mother, finding a new kind of Jewish life for hers...more

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“If my mind cannot be tied down, if my dreams cannot be diminished, then no amount of restraints can really guarantee my quiet submission.” — 4 people liked it

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