UNORTHODOX: THE SCANDALOUS REJECTION OF MY HASIDIC ROOTS
by Deborah Feldman
- Used
- Hardcover
- first
- Condition
- See description
- ISBN 10
- 1439187002
- ISBN 13
- 9781439187005
- Seller
-
Pomona, New York, United States
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
Synopsis
In the tradition of Ayaan Hirsi Alis Infidel and Carolyn Jessops Escape, Unorthodox is a captivating story about a young woman determined to live her own life at any cost. The Satmar sect of Hasidic Judaism is as mysterious as it is intriguing to outsiders. In this arresting memoir, Deborah Feldman reveals what life is like trapped within a religious tradition that values silence and suffering over individual freedoms. The child of a mentally disabled father and a mother who abandoned the community while her daughter was still a toddler, Deborah was raised by her strictly religious grandparents, Bubby and Zeidy. Along with a rotating cast of aunts and uncles, they enforced customs with a relentless emphasis on rules that governed everything from what Deborah could wear and to whom she could speak, to what she was allowed to read. As she grew from an inquisitive little girl to an independent-minded young woman, stolen moments reading about the empowered literary characters of Jane Austen and Louisa May Alcott helped her to imagine an alternative way of life. She had no idea how to seize this dream that seemed to beckon to her from the skyscrapers of Manhattan, but she was determined to find a way. The tension between Deborahs desires and her responsibilities as a good Satmar girl grew more explosive until, at the age of seventeen, she found herself trapped in a sexually and emotionally dysfunctional marriage to a man she had met for only thirty minutes before they became engaged. As a result, she experienced debilitating anxiety that was exacerbated by the public shame of having failed to immediately consummate her marriage and thus serve her husband. But it wasnt until she had a child at nineteen that Deborah realized more than just her own future was at stake, and that, regardless of the obstacles, she would have to forge a pathfor herself and her sonto happiness and freedom. *** From UN orthodox : I have secrets too. Maybe Bubby knows about them, but she wont say anything about mine if I dont say anything about hers. Or perhaps I have only imagined her complicity; there is a chance this agreement is only one-sided. Would Bubby tattle on me? I hide my books under the bed, and she hides hers in her lingerie, and once a year when Zeidy inspects the house for Passover, poking through our things, we hover anxiously, terrified of being found out. Zeidy even rifles through my underwear drawer. Only when I tell him that this is my private female stuff does he desist, unwilling to violate a womans privacy, and move on to my grandmothers wardrobe. She is as defensive as I am when he rummages through her lingerie. We both know that our small stash of secular books would shock my grandfather more than a pile of chametz, the forbidden leavening, ever could. Bubby might get away with a scolding, but I would not be spared the full extent of my grandfathers wrath. When my zeide gets angry, his long white beard seems to lift up and spread around his face like a fiery flame. I wither instantly in the heat of his scorn. Der tumeneh shprach! he thunders at me when he overhears me speaking to my cousins in English. An impure language, Zeidy says, acts like a poison to the soul. Reading an English book is even worse; it leaves my soul vulnerable, a welcome mat put out for the devil.
Reviews
(Log in or Create an Account first!)
Details
- Bookseller
- Rare Book Cellar (US)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 313546
- Title
- UNORTHODOX: THE SCANDALOUS REJECTION OF MY HASIDIC ROOTS
- Author
- Deborah Feldman
- Format/Binding
- Hardcover
- Book Condition
- Used
- Edition
- First Edition; Second Printing
- ISBN 10
- 1439187002
- ISBN 13
- 9781439187005
- Publisher
- Simon & Schuster
- Place of Publication
- New York
- Date Published
- 2012
- Keywords
- 1439187002
Terms of Sale
Rare Book Cellar
Payment Methods Accepted Personal Checks, Cashiers Checks, Money Orders, Visa, MasterCard, AMEX and Discover card through PayPal.com Shipping and Refunds All items are shipped though the United States Postal Service. All items are returnable, within 10 days of receipt if not as described. If you have any special requests, questions or comments please feel free to contact us. Via Email: Info@rarebookcellar.com Via Phone: 845-512-8229
About the Seller
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- Jacket
- Sometimes used as another term for dust jacket, a protective and often decorative wrapper, usually made of paper which wraps...
- Spine
- The outer portion of a book which covers the actual binding. The spine usually faces outward when a book is placed on a shelf....
- Good+
- A term used to denote a condition a slight grade better than Good.