Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots

“If I had a wish, it would be to always be traveling, from one airport to another. To be freed from the prison of staying still.”

In the first chapter, Deborah exemplifies a difference from her community: the desire to travel and move away. Additionally, there is some foreshadowing in this quote, as she shows she is unhappy with her current life.

“In this family, we do not hug and kiss. We do not compliment each other. Instead, we watch each other closely, ever ready to point out someone’s spiritual or physical failing. This, says Chaya, is compassion—compassion for someone’s spiritual welfare.”

Deborah provides insight into the strict rules of the Satmar community, specifically regarding the lack of physical and emotional affection displayed by family members. It is also a juxtaposition between how she was raised and the type of affection she would like to provide for her son.

“An empty vessel clangs the loudest. That’s the adage I hear continuously, from Chaya, from the teachers at school, from the Yiddish textbooks. The louder a woman, the more likely she is to be spiritually bereft, like the empty bowl that vibrates with a resonant echo. A full container makes no sound; she is packed too densely to ring. There are many proverbs repeated to me throughout my childhood, but this one stings the most.”

In the Satmar community, women are expected to conform to a gender role. Upon hearing these comments, Deborah is continuously reminded of how she does not feel like she belongs, as her instinct is to challenge, as opposed to accept, such proverbs.

“One day I will look back and understand that just as there was a moment in my life when I realized where my power lay, there was also a specific moment when I stopped believing in authority just for its own sake and started coming to my own conclusions about the world I lived in.”

A significant turning point in Deborah’s account is when she begins to secretly read the Talmud in English. Here, she is reflecting on how she learned from her community about the honesty and virtuousness of the Talmudic figure David, whereas the text relates several sins that he committed with women in his life. Now, she is even more skeptical and distrustful of what her community states.

“Still, I understood why Zeidy had acted the way he did; in our community it was unheard of to place a mentally ill person in an institution. How could we trust an asylum run by gentiles to care for a Hasidic Jew and meet his needs? Even the insane are not exempt from the laws and customs of Judaism. In a way, Zeidy was brave to undertake the care of Baruch’s soul, even though he was ill equipped to deal with the effects of his psychosis.”

Deborah reflects upon the treatment of her uncle Baruch, whom Zeidy locked in the house when he had a mental breakdown. Although she acknowledges how horrific the treatment was, she also empathizes with Zeidy’s rationale: placing the desire to please God and the community over his son’s mental health.

“I resolve to leave Brooklyn one day. I cannot be one of those girls who fritters away her entire life in this small, stifling square of tenements, when there is an entire world out there waiting to be explored. I don’t know how, but maybe my escape will be accomplished in small, steady steps, like Francie’s. Maybe it will take years. But I know, with great certainty, that it will be.”

In closing Chapter 3, Deborah determines that she must leave her community in Williamsburg and explore the world. This is also the chapter in which she describes her sexual assault. The lack of sympathy and response from her community gives her further reason to leave.

“I never want to be a rabbi’s wife. Not if it means being like my bubby and always having to submit to my husband’s will. I am hungry for power, but not to lord over others; only to own myself.”

After the annual rabbi’s dance at the beginning of Chapter 4, Deborah reflects on the hypocrisy of rabbis in her community: although they are supposed to be humble and modest, they are treated like celebrities. She relates this thought to marriage, determining that she would rather be independent than submit to a husband.

“I too want to be such a woman, who works her own miracles instead of waiting for God to perform them.”

Deborah is inspired by her great-grandmother, who chose to save her child by taking the matter into her own hands, as opposed to waiting for God to heal her child’s sickness. She resolves to be a similar type of woman.

“I resolve to venture into the city on my own. I look at maps in the library—subway maps, bus maps, and regular maps—and try to memorize them. I’m afraid of getting lost; no, I’m afraid of sinking into the city as in a quicksand, afraid of getting sucked into something I can never escape.”

As Deborah grows up, Manhattan and Brooklyn feel less fearful and more excited. Although she is scared, she is eager to explore the world outside her insular Satmar community.

“The most miraculous happenings are possible when things are still unknown. It is only when all has been decided that the excitement fades.”

Unlike her community, which stresses that the outside world is different and should be feared, Deborah realizes that the unknown is not always scary. Uncertainly allows new things to emerge and new experiences to be discovered.

“No one can hurt me. No matter what they do, they can never hurt me. I am iron.”

At the mikvah before her wedding, Deborah feels confused because the attendant gives her different instructions for bathing than her teacher did. Although she is embarrassed and ashamed, she decides she doesn’t want the attendant to know her feelings, using the metaphor of iron to exemplify her strength.

“My feelings are such fragile, scared creatures; they must be coaxed out slowly, and by the time they get comfortable, they are sent into hiding again. Soon I cannot bring myself to reach out to my husband at all, because I dread the day when he will once again reject me. I find that I’ve become very cold; each day that passes, people recede further and further away from me until they feel like specks in the distance. My own body becomes detached from me as well, and I can make it do things without feeling as if I am present.”

Deborah uses figurative language to describe her decreasing mental and physical health during the early days of her marriage. In the same vein as the previous quote, Deborah struggles with her emotions, oscillating between feeling strong and feeling fragile.

“Justice is a celestial concern in this community’s view; our job is only to live as harmoniously with each other as we can. Do unto your neighbor as you would have him do unto you, and when he doesn’t fulfill his part of the deal, let God take care of the rest.”

Deborah makes this remark in the context of the report of a molester at the yeshiva in Airmont. Deborah is frustrated by the lack of action to prosecute the assailant, ultimately determining that keeping the peace in the community, particularly when it maintains traditions, is more important than seeking justice.

“I always thought that when I became a mother, I would finally feel what it was like to love something wholly and intensely. Yet now, although I perform the part of the doting mother, I am painfully aware of my own emptiness.”

This quote juxtaposes Deborah’s expectations and the reality of motherhood. She is still learning about her true self and identity, and the reality of her ability to express love is different than what she expected.

“I check out a documentary from the library about gay Orthodox Jews struggling to reconcile their faith with their sexuality. The people interviewed talk about wanting to be Jewish and gay at the same time and their struggle with the conflict inherent in that identity, and I wonder at their desire to be a part of a religious community that’s so intolerant and oppressive. At the end of the movie as I watch the credits roll, I recognize my mother’s name in the list of contributing voices. Rachel Levy. And sure enough, as I rewind the film, there she is, seen for a brief moment stepping off a curb, saying, ‘I left Williamsburg because I was gay.’”

Deborah learns the reason her mother left the Satmar community. The truth is different from what she was told as a child, and it makes her question the validity of other information that she learned growing up.

“The difference between living in Airmont and living in Williamsburg is that as long as you don’t talk about it, you can break the rules. You can have the privacy to live the life you choose as long as you don’t draw attention to yourself.”

Deborah realizes that because Airmont is less insular, she can explore many of the interests secretly that she had to forgo in Williamsburg. It is during this time in Airmont that she enrolls at Sarah Lawrence College, stops attending mikvah, and begins to try a non-kosher way of life.

“‘I don’t want to be a Hasid anymore,’ I announce suddenly, after we leave the shop. ‘Well, then,’ she says, ‘you don’t have to be.’”

This is the moment in which Deborah renounces her Hasidic life to her new non-Jewish friend Polly. Polly is supportive of her renunciation. This is a climax in her pursuit of self-awareness of identity, and she increasingly hides her new life from Eli and her community.

“I don’t know how, and I don’t know when, but one day I will be free, and so will Yitzy. He will be able to go to a real school and read books without fear of being found out. Subconsciously I have started to say good-bye to the people and objects in my life as if preparing to die, even though I have no real plan. I just feel strongly, in my gut, that I’m not meant to stay here.”

After Deborah starts her “Hasidic Feminist” blog, she begins to meet more like-minded people on the internet. During this time, she follows her intuition and begins to detach from her Hasidic way of life.

“The house I grew up in is falling apart. I don’t know if it’s because Bubby and Zeidy don’t have the money anymore, or if they simply lack the energy to keep up with the maintenance this sort of building requires. It saddens me that such a beautiful brownstone building with so much history should be left to rot. How appropriate that just as the very foundations of my faith are nearing total collapse, the foundations of my childhood home disintegrate as well. I take it as another sign that I am on the path I was set on long ago by a force greater than my own. God wants me to leave. He knows I was never meant for this.”

On her last visit to Bubby and Zeidy, Deborah sees a metaphor between the crumbling house to the crumbling foundations of her faith. Secretly planning her escape, she realizes her family does not appreciate her, as they do not recognize her differences or dreams.

“I’m so happy to be a part of this place! I want to shout to the towering oak trees lining the entrance to campus. I want to twirl around and around with my hands in the air and skip around the lawn. I’m never going to be that awkward girl again, the girl with the wig and the skirt and painfully self-conscious manner. I’m going to be normal, so normal no one will ever know. I’m going to forget I was ever different.”

Deborah experiences an important realization at Sarah Lawrence College: she is happy where she is in life because she has shed her outsider status. She feels confident about the future because she finally finds a community in which she feels that she belongs.

“The next day I sign a contract to write a memoir about a person who no longer exists, someone I will be sure to honor with a last remembrance. My two identities have finally split apart, and I’ve killed the other one, I’ve murdered her brutally but justly. This book will be her last words.”

After her car accident, Deborah feels like her old life has split from her new life and that everything is different; she is finally ready to leave because she has become a different person. She can leave because she is no longer the same person who struggled to leave.

“I had spent my childhood longing for the suburban backdrop of a stereotypical American upbringing because nothing could have seemed more foreign at the time, and later I discovered that those American girls searched vigorously throughout their formative years for unique experiences that would define them as different, a struggle they found endlessly frustrating. They view me with a somewhat jealous eye, because despite its difficulties, my life has marked me indelibly with the tattoo of distinctiveness.”

Deborah longed for a way of life different from the one she lived. She wanted a context in which she could feel “normal” and fit in. She juxtaposes this desire with the irony that many girls living the life she dreamed of longed for the unique experiences that Deborah had. From this perspective, Deborah appreciates her background, as she has learned many lessons from it.

“I have claimed my place in the world, and against all odds, the skyline I once gazed at so longingly has become my true home. People want to know if I’ve found happiness, but what I’ve found is better: authenticity. I’m finally free to be myself, and that feels good. If anyone ever tries to tell you to be something you’re not, I hope you too can find the courage to speak up in protest.”

Even though she received backlash from the Satmar community, Deborah is pleased she found her authentic self in this journey. Similarly, she wants other people to chart their own paths too. She believes that fulfillment comes from self-awareness and the courage to make unpopular choices even in the face of great social pressure.