Deborah Feldman | |
|---|---|
 Feldman in 2017 | |
| Born | (1986-08-17)August 17, 1986 (age 39) New York City, U.S. |
| Occupation | Author |
| Notable work | Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots |
| Children | 1 |
| Website | deborahfeldman |
Deborah Feldman is an American-German[1] writer living inBerlin. Her 2012 autobiography,Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots, tells the story of her escape from a Hasidic Jewish community inBrooklyn, New York, and was the basis of the 2020Netflix miniseriesUnorthodox.
Feldman grew up as a member of theHasidicSatmar group inWilliamsburg, Brooklyn, New York City.[2] She has written that her father was mentally impaired, and that her paternal family had arranged a marriage for him to her mother, whom Feldman described as an intelligent woman who was an outsider to the community because she was of German Jewish origin. Her mother was born in Manchester to refugees from Germany, and upon researching her mother's family, Feldman discovered that one of her mother's grandfathers was of non-Jewish (Catholic) German ancestry on his father's side and had attempted to integrate fully intoGentile society.[3] She was raised by her grandparents, bothHolocaust survivors,[4] after her mother left the community and came out as lesbian,[5] and her mentally impaired father was unable to raise her on his own. Like all children in the community, Feldman was raised to be pious, spokeYiddish, and was prohibited from going to the public library. Denied a typical American education, she hid books prohibited by the community under her bed. She entered an arranged marriage at the age of 17, and became a mother at 19.[4][6]
Feldman said that the birth of her son was a turning point regarding staying in the Hasidic community: "I saw my future all mapped out... I freaked out at the knowledge that I have the responsibility and guilt of putting everything I saw as my oppression into an innocent person." In 2006, she and her husband moved out of Williamsburg, and, telling her husband she wanted to take business courses to supplement their income, she began to study literature atSarah Lawrence College inBronxville.[4]
Once in school, she "made a beeline" for a college degree to connect with the outside world. She began to speak out and "open my mind". She also began to wear jeans and high heels, breaking the strict Hasidic dress code. In 2006, she departed with her son, leaving her husband and cutting all ties with the Hasidic community.[7] She lived for two months with friends, and consulted with lawyers to make sure she did not lose custody of her son. As of 2012, Feldman had not seen or spoken to any of her family since her departure in 2006.[4]
Despite her differences with the Hasidic community, Feldman has said: "I am proud of being Jewish, because I think that's where my indomitable spirit comes from."[8]
In 2014, Feldman moved to Berlin, settling in theNeukölln district, where she continued to work as a writer.[9] Her first visit to the city had been deeply unsettling, given her family history and Berlin's Nazi past. But on her second visit, the city impressed her with its openness, its welcoming of refugees, and its many bookstores. After her first summer living there, she called the city her "secret paradise", and she resolved to stay. She quickly adapted to speaking and writing in German, due to its similarity with Yiddish, aWest Germanic language.[10] Feldman has said that "one of the biggest draws of being in Germany is the fact that the language is so similar to my mother language [Yiddish] that I feel a sense of familiarity, and that is powerful".[3] After moving to Germany, Feldman became a German citizen in 2017;[1] asked byArnon Grunberg whether she identifies as a German, she affirmed that "yes, I'm German".[3] She lives in Berlin with her German boyfriend, who is not Jewish.[3] Feldman has said that "I see Berlin as the capital of the West; to me, it's a city where everyone can find a home, where everyone can find freedom, it's the last bastion against oppression".[11]
Feldman started blogging, and in 2012, she published her autobiography,Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots,[12] which became abestseller[13] and was translated into 30 languages, into Hebrew in 2013.[14] In 2014, she publishedExodus: A Memoir. Her books have been translated into German and well received by German critics, which led to her appearing on various talk shows on German TV.[7][15]
In 2017, she publishedÜberbitten (roughly translated as "Reconcile"), a German-language expanded version ofExodus, which she wrote in collaboration with publisher Christian Ruzicska. Feldman said that writing in German was freeing because she could use her broader vocabulary of Yiddish terms that a German readership could understand. She characterized her writing style as old-fashioned, owing to the 18th-century version of Yiddish she grew up with.Überbitten was well received. The Swiss-German newspaperNeue Zürcher Zeitung called the book "a report on the long journey to the self, a literary survival guide, and a formidable philosophical-analytic confrontation with one's own history".[10]
Feldman is featured inBarbara Miller's 2018 Swiss-German documentary#Female Pleasure as the critic of jewish patriarchy.[16][17] The 2020Netflix original miniseriesUnorthodox is loosely based on her autobiography.[18] Netflix also produced a documentary,Making Unorthodox, that chronicles the creative process and filming, and discussed the differences between the book and the TV series.[19]
In November 2023, Feldman appeared along with German vice-chancellorRobert Habeck on the talk showMarkus Lanz, where they debated the German response to theGaza war. Feldman said that the only lesson from the Holocaust must be the unconditional defense of human rights for all.[20][21][22] Feldman criticized thepostponed award ceremony for the Palestinian authorAdania Shibli and her novelMinor Detail at theFrankfurt Book Fair 2023 and signed the open letter from 1200 intellectuals against it.[22]
Members of the Hasidic community have criticized Feldman, including in an anonymous blog titled "Deborah Feldman Exposed", which was dedicated to "exposing the lies and fabrications" in her story.[23]Jesse Kornbluth examined this criticism in a pair of articles in theHuffington Post which concluded, "There are claims in this book that Hasids have disputed. I can't tell what's true. But I'm sure of one thing: Men who can't live equally with women aren't worth living with. No doubt girls all over Brooklyn are buying this book, hiding it under their mattresses, reading it after lights out—and contemplating, perhaps for the first time, their own escape."[24][25] Other journalists also investigated some of the incidents described in Feldman's memoir and found a number of exaggerations or discrepancies, including her account of her schooling, her relationships with various family members, and her description of an alleged murder and its supposed coverup by Haredi authorities.[26][27][28] In response to these criticisms, Feldman noted that the book carried a disclaimer stating that certain events had been compressed, consolidated or reordered.[29] Her bookExodus has drawn similar criticisms regarding the veracity of certain events.[30]
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
