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A review by rbruehlman
Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots by Deborah Feldman
5.0
Unorthodox is, at heart, a psychologically exhausting read. Deborah Feldman grows up in a broken home, unwanted and knows it, and chafes against the strict religiosity of her Satmar upbringing. She doesn't really believe; she wants more from life; she feels hemmed in by the arbitrary rules and crushing societal expectations; she feels distinctly second-class as a woman in a strictly sex-segregated society. Hasidic society fits her poorly, and she resents it. But it's all she knows, and everyone else around her makes it work. So she feels ashamed she isn't more devout, more religious, more able to just get on with the rules. She tries to fit herself into the box Hasidic society has set aside for her, and, in a sense, she makes it work. She follows the prescribed steps, does the things she's supposed to. But a docile, pious Hasidic woman she is not. The box doesn't fit, and she suffocates inside.
I could relate to Deborah a lot in many ways. In another world, I could have been her. My comparison sounds trite and immature by comparison, but nonetheless, I remember so well throughout my childhood opting out of the trappings I was expected to participate in because I just didn't see the point. I went to prom, for instance, but it felt stupid and overwrought; I brought a book. Then I felt bad because, wasn't I supposed to like it? Everyone else likes it. What's wrong with me? I wish I liked it. But I think the thing is stupid, so I don't really want to like it. I want to enjoy what everyone else is enjoying and just not overthink it ... but I also wish we weren't doing the thing at all. That was me for so many social conventions. So ... you go through the emotions, putting on a fake smile and pretending you're interested in a thing you're not, feeling empty and broken inside ... when you can muster it, when you want to fit in and try. The rest of the time, you don't bother. You just do your own thing, relieved but ashamed. It's lonely, tiresome, a paradox of wanting to fit in with others, but not wanting to fit in with that.
I suspect that same empty twisted innards of trying to fit in to a box you were not designed for is what Deborah Feldman felt, just far, far more intensely. If I felt that way, I cannot imagine how she felt.
I can see why the metaphorical dam broke with her marriage. Deborah is unhappy, but she follows along the track of marriage because: 1) it's all she knows (and, theoretically, if you keep working the program, it gets better), and 2) she thinks naively that it'll give her freedom, because adults have autonomy in a way children do not. It gets her away from her family. Her marriage was not better. It was more of the same, plus worse. In a male-dominated society, her miserable husband could lord over her like a vessel for his sexual desires to fill, and he could justify himself accordingly. She was the wife. He was the husband. Those two are not equal. Presumably, most Hasidic men treat their wives far more kindly than Eli did, but that fact wouldn't matter: Eli was the husband, and Deborah would have to make do. A terrible husband was her lot. Life would not get better. There was no end game. Some women fall in line, accepting it as their fate; Deborah did not. The facade Deborah kept up her entire life finally cracked when she saw how small and miserable her world was and forever would be.
Aside from Deborah's own story as a person marching to her own drum, I enjoyed learning about the inside of Hasidism. What is especially powerful about Deborah's memoir is that she is a woman. Hasidic society is insular, yes, but the world that is visible to gentiles is male. A woman's photograph cannot be shown; a woman cannot be videotaped; a woman's home is with children. A woman should be modest, and their modesty is viciously patrolled not just by men, but by other women. While society has strict rules for everyone, men, by comparison, have far more freedom. That is the side secular society sees. Deborah's vantage point is one the rest of the world rarely has access to.
I don't think Hasidic society is unique in how it treats women even today; many cultures are similarly binarized by sex. Echoes of it permeated even secular American society in decades past. It serves as a startling reminder, at least for me, of how life could have been for me in a different time, different place. I chafe at gender norms, and I have the freedom to do that with little consequence. What would it have been like to not have that privilege? I am lucky.
I say this not to criticize Hasidic culture. I view it fairly dispassionately, as I do all cultures; some cultures I would want to be part of, and others I wouldn't be. Different personalities thrive in different cultures.
Despite Deborah's relatability and powerful retelling, I can't help but struggle with some feeling of disappointment. The book covered some incredibly deep things, make no mistake, but it also felt somehow unfinished, parts left unexplored that I wish had been. The characters in her book were assigned personalities, but felt otherwise hard to know, somehow flat and unmemorable. I felt like she told readers what Zaidy or Bubbe and others were like, without showing. Deborah Feldman herself felt somewhat hard to connect to for me; I can't place why. I don't think I liked her (which is very different from disliking her; I did not dislike her). She did nothing wrong. But I didn't bond with her. I can't put my finger on why. I guess she felt somehow emotionally distant to me.
Additionally, I found it puzzling how she opened the book talking about her scandalous mother who became a goy, and her father who was mentally retarded and an embarrassment to the family. I kept waiting for her to talk about how it must have felt, growing up effectively parentless, or how society's view of her must have shaped her. There has to be a lot of powerful, deep emotions there--what elementary school aged child with a missing-in-action mother is spared a psychic scar? But she never really talks about it, beyond the opening pages. The omission felt odd, like she had set the reader up and then never delivered the punchline. I waited for it to come up the entire book, but it never came.
The book ends a bit abruptly, quickly noting she managed to finagle a divorce and custody of her child against all odds. I'd have liked that to have been explored, but no dice. I suspect this is because she had the sequel queued up to write, maybe? I'm not sure if I'll read the sequel or not.
There are things I didn't like about the book, and those feel salient currently. However, I suspect it's one of those books I'll think about more beyond my initial reading and appreciate increasingly deeply as time passes. One of those slow burns.
I could relate to Deborah a lot in many ways. In another world, I could have been her. My comparison sounds trite and immature by comparison, but nonetheless, I remember so well throughout my childhood opting out of the trappings I was expected to participate in because I just didn't see the point. I went to prom, for instance, but it felt stupid and overwrought; I brought a book. Then I felt bad because, wasn't I supposed to like it? Everyone else likes it. What's wrong with me? I wish I liked it. But I think the thing is stupid, so I don't really want to like it. I want to enjoy what everyone else is enjoying and just not overthink it ... but I also wish we weren't doing the thing at all. That was me for so many social conventions. So ... you go through the emotions, putting on a fake smile and pretending you're interested in a thing you're not, feeling empty and broken inside ... when you can muster it, when you want to fit in and try. The rest of the time, you don't bother. You just do your own thing, relieved but ashamed. It's lonely, tiresome, a paradox of wanting to fit in with others, but not wanting to fit in with that.
I suspect that same empty twisted innards of trying to fit in to a box you were not designed for is what Deborah Feldman felt, just far, far more intensely. If I felt that way, I cannot imagine how she felt.
I can see why the metaphorical dam broke with her marriage. Deborah is unhappy, but she follows along the track of marriage because: 1) it's all she knows (and, theoretically, if you keep working the program, it gets better), and 2) she thinks naively that it'll give her freedom, because adults have autonomy in a way children do not. It gets her away from her family. Her marriage was not better. It was more of the same, plus worse. In a male-dominated society, her miserable husband could lord over her like a vessel for his sexual desires to fill, and he could justify himself accordingly. She was the wife. He was the husband. Those two are not equal. Presumably, most Hasidic men treat their wives far more kindly than Eli did, but that fact wouldn't matter: Eli was the husband, and Deborah would have to make do. A terrible husband was her lot. Life would not get better. There was no end game. Some women fall in line, accepting it as their fate; Deborah did not. The facade Deborah kept up her entire life finally cracked when she saw how small and miserable her world was and forever would be.
Aside from Deborah's own story as a person marching to her own drum, I enjoyed learning about the inside of Hasidism. What is especially powerful about Deborah's memoir is that she is a woman. Hasidic society is insular, yes, but the world that is visible to gentiles is male. A woman's photograph cannot be shown; a woman cannot be videotaped; a woman's home is with children. A woman should be modest, and their modesty is viciously patrolled not just by men, but by other women. While society has strict rules for everyone, men, by comparison, have far more freedom. That is the side secular society sees. Deborah's vantage point is one the rest of the world rarely has access to.
I don't think Hasidic society is unique in how it treats women even today; many cultures are similarly binarized by sex. Echoes of it permeated even secular American society in decades past. It serves as a startling reminder, at least for me, of how life could have been for me in a different time, different place. I chafe at gender norms, and I have the freedom to do that with little consequence. What would it have been like to not have that privilege? I am lucky.
I say this not to criticize Hasidic culture. I view it fairly dispassionately, as I do all cultures; some cultures I would want to be part of, and others I wouldn't be. Different personalities thrive in different cultures.
Despite Deborah's relatability and powerful retelling, I can't help but struggle with some feeling of disappointment. The book covered some incredibly deep things, make no mistake, but it also felt somehow unfinished, parts left unexplored that I wish had been. The characters in her book were assigned personalities, but felt otherwise hard to know, somehow flat and unmemorable. I felt like she told readers what Zaidy or Bubbe and others were like, without showing. Deborah Feldman herself felt somewhat hard to connect to for me; I can't place why. I don't think I liked her (which is very different from disliking her; I did not dislike her). She did nothing wrong. But I didn't bond with her. I can't put my finger on why. I guess she felt somehow emotionally distant to me.
Additionally, I found it puzzling how she opened the book talking about her scandalous mother who became a goy, and her father who was mentally retarded and an embarrassment to the family. I kept waiting for her to talk about how it must have felt, growing up effectively parentless, or how society's view of her must have shaped her. There has to be a lot of powerful, deep emotions there--what elementary school aged child with a missing-in-action mother is spared a psychic scar? But she never really talks about it, beyond the opening pages. The omission felt odd, like she had set the reader up and then never delivered the punchline. I waited for it to come up the entire book, but it never came.
The book ends a bit abruptly, quickly noting she managed to finagle a divorce and custody of her child against all odds. I'd have liked that to have been explored, but no dice. I suspect this is because she had the sequel queued up to write, maybe? I'm not sure if I'll read the sequel or not.
There are things I didn't like about the book, and those feel salient currently. However, I suspect it's one of those books I'll think about more beyond my initial reading and appreciate increasingly deeply as time passes. One of those slow burns.