Deborah Feldman grew up in a strict sect of Hasidic Jews in the New York City household of her grandparents. Like most fundamentalist religions there were very restrictive rules, especially for women. It was her grandfather who made all of the decisions and the women were to submit and spend their time cleaning house, cooking, and having babies.
I always find the rules of strict fundamentalist religions interesting, they usually include something about female hair and keeping it hidden from view. In this Hasidic sect it was decreed that husbands should make their wives shave their heads, although for some reason they could wear wigs over their shaved heads.
As Deborah began to reach puberty she began to privately question the things she had always been told, and she had enough spirit to secretly read classic novels and other books that her religion banned. Even an English version of the Torah, was off limits, both because it was in English, not Yiddish, and that religious texts were only the domain of men, but Deborah secretly bought a copy and read it. The novels she got at the public library, where she is forbidden by her religion to enter.
Her life was so insulated from the outside world, that even though she lived in New York City, she wasn't aware of the 911 attacks until after her school was let out early on that afternoon and she went home. Her grandfather told her about it when he got home. She was mostly insulated from normal North American culture particularly sex education.
At 17 she became a bride in an arranged marriage. Her total lack of sexual knowledge, and the fact that she was starting to question her expected role as a Hasidic woman got the marriage off to a rocky start. I found the Hasidic pre-marriage customs both extremely strange and interesting.
Both she and her husband sought to distance themselves somewhat from their parents and the tight-knit confines of Williamsburg, a Hasidic section of New York City and moved to another area where the sect was a bit looser, but it was still not enough for Deborah who began a secret life during her marriage and the birth of her son. When her husband was absent from their house, she ventured out to explore the world of modern society. She even enrolled in Sarah Lawrence University, unbeknownst to her husband, to take classes in literature.
An automobile accident finally caused her to "out" herself, leaving her husband and the restrictive religion. She and her son finally began living the life of freedom she sought.
I knew that Unorthodox was about a woman questioning and leaving the religion she grew up in and for me that was what made me choose the book to read, but despite all the interesting facts disclosed about this secretive sect, I was disappointed in Deborah's reason for leaving it.
I assumed it would be for intellectual reasons, like seeing that the beliefs they held were a lot of ancient malarkey, but instead Deborah left because she wanted more personal "freedom" which is understandable, but she seemed more interested in the material things leaving could allow her--she could wear jeans and modern fashions, smoke cigarettes, and eat all the types of food she was previously denied.
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