Unorthodox review. Or, thank g-d for Deborah Feldman’s voice.

Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots by Deborah Feldman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I wish I could give this book more stars. It’s a very unusual memoir, compelling not just because of the subject matter — the lifelong process of losing faith in the closed religious community the author was raised in — but also because the author is so young to have such a voice and be so accomplished at understanding and communicating her life’s experience. This book is important not just because it’s “brave” and “honest” all the other adjectives readers and reviewers ascribe to memoirs – but because it gives insight into how the Hasidic community functions and the reasons for some of their beliefs. This is more than a story of a strong women who freed herself from incredible physical, spiritual, and intellectual constraints through her inner life, her personal history, and the books she read. This is a very relevant book as we try to understand the mentality of extremists of all kinds — the Taliban in the Middle East, other countries where a supposedly holy ancient set of laws is used to systematically repress women and girls, and our own home-grown religious extremists (not just Ultra Orthodox Jews). Especially at this moment in history, when we have just survived an election cycle where nearly half of the electorate was willing to vote for candidates who would scarcely give lip service to protecting women’s health, when several states had Congressional and Senate candidates who claimed that rape was some form of God’s will, we need to read narratives like this to try to understand these cultures and individuals from the inside and understand the human toll of oppression based on religion. Really fantastic read.

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