Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots

by Deborah Feldman

I look over at Bubby. I can see she feels the same way I do now. She’s covered the side of her face that’s facing Zeidy with a calloused hand, and although she’s looking down at the table, I can see her shaking her head in exasperation. She’s heard this story many more times than I have. It’s Bubby’s story that rarely gets heard. Bubby, who lost everyone in the war, whose every relation was brutally murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz while she labored in the factories of Bergen-Belsen. Bubby, who was near death from typhus by the time liberation came. It’s Bubby who lights a yahrzeit candle for every one of them, from little baby Mindel to fourteen-year-old Chaim. But she almost never talks about it. Zeidy knows he was lucky to get away with army service, even if he got his beard and payos cut off.