Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots

by Deborah Feldman

This is why I need God on my side; I have no one else to stick up for me.

Modesty is the highest attainment for a young woman. Indeed, the modest girls are the skinniest, hiding their natural bodies from curious view, maintaining the innocence and purity of childhood. How long, I wonder, can girls turn their backs on impending womanhood?

I am hungry for power, but not to lord over others; only to own myself.

But perhaps what he meant by being able to handle me was not love but the power to make me bend to his wishes and conform to his world.

I can’t bear the thought of living an entire lifetime on this planet and not getting to do all the things I dream of doing, simply because they aren’t allowed.

I want to be on this library shelf, alongside these other authors, for whom truth is a birthright.