Deborah Feldman, the woman who inspired Little Orthodox, speaks: “What happens in this series is a conflict that everyone can understand”

Deborah Feldman (33) clearly remembers the first reactions generated in 2012 by the book where she narrated her whole life, the one with the core of an experience as unique as it was unknown: her flight from the Hasidic Jewish community where she was born and raised in New York.

“When I published the book, nobody believed that it could be a success. People told me that the subject was too specific, too strange, “recalls the writer from Berlin, in conversation with Cult and in reference to Unorthodox: the scandalous rejection of my Hasidic roots. The same text that later jumped on the screen, which made his story definitively stop being a phenomenon viewed from a distance or limited to a few: the Netflix series of the same name – translated in Latin America as Unorthodox– he freely adapted his memoirs and has become the most talked about fiction of the year.

There, the leading role falls on the character of Esty Shapiro (Israeli actress Shira Haas), a 19-year-old girl who belongs to the Satmar community, the same one that Feldman integrated. It is an ultra-Orthodox group founded in Hungary by survivors of World War II who believed that the Holocaust was a “punishment from God”. To avoid another divine anger, they moved to Brooklyn and established a lifestyle under a strict interpretation of Jewish law, which includes agreed marriages, sex only to procreate, families with an average of eight children, women who must shave as a sign of respect for their husbands, a daily devoted to religious study and a rejection of almost all the habits of modernity.

For the same reason, Esty flees to Berlin, where she embraces a secular and renewed life.

What do you think is the great reason for the impact of the series, especially in people who perhaps knew little and nothing about Hasidic Judaism?

I have to assume that some of this has to do with the current crisis. Otherwise, I really can’t explain it! I never expected it either. The same thing happened with my book: nobody expected that there would be so many interested parties. And yet, when it became successful, readers said it was because the story felt universal; that although the circumstances were strange, they could identify with the character and the journey he undertook. So I guess the same must be happening with the series. It seems strange, but what happens to Esty is somehow a conflict that everyone can understand.

Her story may also be representative of what happens to women in many cultures or religions, such as in the Muslim world. Or even in countries like Chile, where many suffer domestic violence and, for various reasons, are prevented from leaving that life. Do you think Poco Orthodox connected with the great issues related to women of recent years?

Yes. I think that’s Unorthodox: The series has connected with the current mood and is definitely part of a vast tapestry of voices that are finally heard in chorus.

That yes, in great part of his life Feldman was a solitary voice. Born in 1986 in the New York neighborhood of Williamsburg, where the majority of the Satmar community resides, from her childhood she had to undergo a dress code that in the case of women establishes long skirts, flat shoes and blouses that must cover the entire arm. No t-shirts: it is a garment that may suggest too much.

Her mother was expelled from the community for being a lesbian and her father suffered from a progressive mental illness, so she was raised by her grandparents, Bubbi and Zeidy, both survivors of the Holocaust. At the age of 17, she faced the moment that destiny has prepared for every Hasidic woman: a wedding arranged by her family with a man she hardly knew. In his case it was Eli, a scholar of the Talmud – one of the main books of Judaism – with whom he had only dialogued twice before, for a total of 30 minutes.

When you were at the wedding, which portrays the series in quite detail, did you feel happy?

I never thought it was a strange thing, because everyone I knew did it that way. Just like I never thought it was weird to shave my head, because all married women did it. And yes, I was happy, I was happy to finally start my own life, my own family. I imagined that I would have more freedom and be more accepted at the same time. But I didn’t realize that marriage could imprison me even more.

What was it like to embark on something as intimate as sex not only with someone you had not chosen, but also something you had no notion of?

Frightening. Devastating. You feel that your body is abruptly out of your jurisdiction.

Do you remember the exact moment when you felt you should leave the Satmar community?

Yes, it was the moment when I held my son in my arms for the first time after giving birth.

I guess I didn’t want him to go through the same thing as you.

Exactly, I wanted him to have a different life. But it took three years to plan and prepare to leave. After I left, it was the experience of being a mother that kept me oriented towards the future, which motivated me to fight to build a life for ourselves.

In 2006, at the age of 19, Feldman had his first child. There she told her husband to leave Williamsburg and renounce the only way of life they had ever known.

They moved to another area of ​​New York, where she entered to study literature at the Sarah Lawrence College, as a way to demonstrate that her existence was now in her hands, although it was a decision incubated in her past: when in her adolescence she began to Having an almost clandestine interest in different secular expressions, he obtained through his grandmother a pocket edition of Little women, to which he took off his original covers to camouflage it within a Hebrew text. Something similar happened to him Harry Potter.

In part, it was literature that allowed him to start opening his mind to a different future. “Where I lived, we hardly ever crossed the invisible boundary that separates the community from the outside world. I got my ideas mainly from books, that’s why they were also banned. In those literary representations of other worlds or other lifestyles there was a great temptation, “he says.

In 2010, she abandoned her husband, but continued to live in the Big Apple. It was only four years later that he moved to Berlin, in order to investigate the footsteps of his grandparents, the key people in his history.

Thus far, the real life of Deborah Feldman and the fictional life of Esty Shapiro advance almost in parallel; But in the German capital, where the television character enters a conservatory and quickly mixes up in the amphetamine Berlin night, the Netflix series takes the most creative licenses and starts a plot of its own.

Is your escape story common in Hasidic communities?

Well, I think it is obvious that my case is quite unique, in the sense that I was raised by my grandparents and that my mother fled the community before me. All of this was not common when I was young. But today it has become much more common.

Did you ever regret it?

No, I never regretted it. Also, when I left permanently, I received a hate and rejection email from my family, which confirmed that I had made the right decision. A family that says to commit suicide is the type of family that everyone should abandon.

In Unorthodox, there is a representation of the Satmar as a closed group, that even forms of communication like the internet are unknown. Is that vision realistic or are there nuances?

It is realistic in the sense that it is representative of how I grew up. Certainly within the community there are stricter families and others a little more tolerant. And of course, other Hasidic sects are different than Satmar. And you can’t compare Orthodox Jews to Hassidics at all.

Why do you think the lifestyle of communities like the Satmar still survives?

They will survive, because, despite the fact that the percentage of fugitives has increased to 10%, as they say, for each person who leaves there are many who remain. And they have so many children that, even if many leave, they still have enough members. And those that remain have become increasingly extreme. In both your world and our world, there is less and less middle ground. Our Zeitgeist is marked by polarization.

Have you heard of the reaction to the series in Israel? In that nation, the ultra-Orthodox have begun to have political participation, although they are strongly criticized for not working and for living on government subsidies.

The ultra-Orthodox are a very large demographic in Israel and they are getting bigger and bigger. Because they reproduce at a much higher rate than secular Jews, they will soon be the majority and wield all political power. Then we will have the equivalent of Sharia (Islamic law) in Israel. Halacha (Jewish religious rules) will rule over all if we are not careful. That is why I feel so restless when I am in Israel, because I feel the power of my ancient community everywhere, while secular Israelis stick their heads in the sand and pretend that nothing is happening.

Despite her reflections, in recent weeks the author has seen her empathy for the religious community she left reborn. Because ultra-orthodox Judaism has not only escalated in the public eye thanks to Netflix; Precisely in New York, the neighborhoods hardest hit by the coronavirus are those inhabited by Hasidic groups, because, to pray or celebrate marriages, they have not respected the recommendations for social distancing. Or his life apart from the rest of the citizenry has caused many to ignore the outbreak of a global pandemic.

“It is sad, because I know how they think and I know that they don’t understand what is happening, as we do. They see everything as a punishment from God, they think that the only way to save themselves is to continue praying together and performing their community rituals. That seems very tragic to me, ”he says.

Of course, Feldman prefers to continue speaking for the globalized planet of which perhaps he always felt a part. Therefore, stressing that her journey from oppression to freedom has a universal stature, she dares with a final message for women subjected to a life they do not want: “Never let anyone silence you, regardless of their methods. They will try to embarrass you, scare you, manipulate you, but it is not worth betraying yourself by remaining silent. Human dignity can only be taken from you when they take away your voice. They can take everything else. But that, no ”.