Deborah Feldman

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Deborah Feldman at the forum: authors of the Munich Literature Festival 2017

Deborah Feldman (born August 17, 1986 in New York ) is an American - German author . In her autobiographical debut novel Unorthodox , she described her childhood and youth in the ultra-orthodox Jewish community of Satmar in the Williamsburg district of New York . The book was very successful in the USA and sold millions of copies, and in 2016 it was published in German. In 2020, the Netflix adaptation based on Feldman's book was released as a mini-series. Feldman is also the protagonist of the Swiss-German documentary from 2018 #Female Pleasure .

Life

Deborah Feldman grew up in modest circumstances in the strongly Jewish district of Williamsburg in Brooklyn . Her family belongs to the Jewish community of Satmar Hasids . The parents, whose marriage had been arranged by relatives, lived separately because the mother had left the denomination; the father was mentally handicapped and could not look after the daughter.

Deborah Feldman grew up with her grandparents, originally from Hungary Holocaust survivors who lived strictly according to the rules of the Satmarians and raised the child accordingly. The Satmar Hasids, who understand the Holocaust as God's punishment for allegedly lacking piety and excessive assimilation of Jews in Europe, live a secluded life, whose everyday life is marked by many prohibitions in order to prevent a feared second Holocaust. “We learn in school that God sent Hitler to punish the Jews for having enlightened themselves. He came to purify us, to exterminate all assimilated Jews, all freen Jidden who thought they could free themselves from the yoke of being the chosen ones, ”Feldman wrote in Unorthodox . The Satmar Hasids reject Zionism and the existence of the State of Israel because they believe that the Jews are thereby violating God's will, which determines them to have to live in the diaspora until the appearance of the Messiah .

Deborah Feldman's mother tongue is Yiddish , the English language was considered too "secular". In Unorthodox , Feldman describes how as a young girl she suffered from strict dress codes; she always had to completely cover her body and hair and wear impractical and old-fashioned clothing. The color red was forbidden because it was considered the color of the devil. Contacts with non-Jews were frowned upon, initially there wasn't even a radio in the house to shield oneself from American pop culture and news. The diet was strictly kosher and no electrical appliances were allowed on the Sabbath . For girls and women, especially during menstruation, strict rules regarding the ritual impurity of the female body ( nidda ) applied.

Feldman attended a private religious school for girls where the students were treated in a very authoritative manner, received mainly religious instruction and were prepared for a life as wives and mothers. As a girl, Feldman did not question religion, but found excuses from the isolated world of the Satmar Hasids by secretly reading English-language novels or illegally going to the cinema with a friend. After graduating from high school, Feldman worked as a teacher at her former school, although she had no qualifications. An apprenticeship or study was not planned for her as a woman, as her grandparents and other relatives were already looking for a suitable husband for her during this time.

At the age of 17 Feldman was forcibly married to the Satmar Hasid Eli, who was six years his senior . She had only met him a few times before. The couple moved to Airmont, New York after the wedding . Since Feldman was barely sexually informed and the subject of sexuality was associated with strong fears and taboos, she developed a pronounced form of vaginismus , sexual intercourse could not be carried out at first. Relatives put Feldman under pressure and embarrassed him because she was expected to become pregnant. When she was 19 years old, she had a son. As a mother and wife, Feldman lived a very humble and isolated life. Like all married women in the community, she had to shave her real hair and wear a wig (Yiddish: parting ). The relationship with her husband cooled off because they had little in common. Unbeknownst to her husband, Feldman enrolled at Sarah Lawrence College to study English literature. She secretly wore jeans and let her hair grow out. In this phase she made the decision to leave the Satmares as soon as her son turned three, since at this age he would have had to attend a religious school ( cheder ).

According to the autobiography , Feldman had her first success as a writer with a widely read and commented anonymous blog in which she described her problems with subordination as a Hasidic woman and very openly presented her sexual difficulties. After a car accident, Feldman decided to break with her family and religious group for good and moved away with her son. In 2012 she published the critically acclaimed autobiographical novel Unorthodox , which immediately appeared on the New York Times bestseller list and has since been out of print. In her book Exodus: A Memoir , published in 2015, she describes how she lived on as a single mother in a non-Jewish world that was still strange to her. Today Deborah Feldman lives with her son in Berlin. She no longer has any contact with her family or the religious community; by her own admission, she is considered a traitor there who deserves to be cast out and declared dead. For her, Berlin is “the place in the world where all the homeless are at home,” Feldman said in an interview, but she had experience there with different variants of anti-Semitism.

reception

Unorthodox was discussed very positively in the USA and Germany. Florian Felix Weyh said on Deutschlandfunk : “The question of where religious tolerance has to end remains open in the text, but Deborah Feldman's Unorthodox would be a good occasion not to debate it on the basis of radical Islam, but rather the universality of the Enlightenment towards all religions to renew: The individual has a right to growth beyond sectarian tutelage. A courageous and important book by the author, who now lives in Berlin - and a great reading experience on top of that. "

Ijoma Mangold wrote in Die Zeit : “This is an unbelievable story that one reads breathlessly because the foreign, completely fallen from time, lives right next door - namely in the middle of the hipster district of Brooklyn, in Williamsburg. (...) And yet Deborah Feldman also has delicate tones for her world of origin, then something of the spiritual power and Talmudic learning of her grandparents shines through . "

Julia Haak wrote in the Berliner Zeitung : “The Satmarers failed because of Deborah Feldman. You already know that while reading. Otherwise there would be no book in which she calmly and reflectively describes her awakening. She speaks as determined as she writes, not a helpless, uprooted person sitting in the café in Kreuzberg, but a young woman who had plenty of time to think and learned to lead a self-determined life. "

On March 26, 2020 published Netflix with Unorthodox a four-part series with Shira Haas in the lead role. Jeff Wilbusch and Amit Rahav played other roles , directed by Maria Schrader .

Publications

Web links

Commons : Deborah Feldman  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Florian Felix Weyh: Search for a new identity. In: www.deutschlandfunk.de. July 30, 2017. Retrieved August 3, 2017 .
  2. ↑ Deborah Feldman: What I Appreciate About This Society. In: plus.faz.net . September 6, 2017. Retrieved September 11, 2017 .
  3. ↑ Life Among Fundamentalists. In: Stern. March 8, 2016, accessed August 1, 2016.
  4. ↑ Johanna Ardorjan The Liberation in Süddeutsche Zeitung No. 80 4th / 5th. April 2020, p. 49
  5. ^ "Unorthodox" by Deborah Feldman. ( Memento of the original from May 5, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. On: rbb -online.de. March 10, 2016, accessed August 1, 2016. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.rbb-online.de
  6. ↑ Welcome to the city of freedom. In: time online. June 26, 2016, accessed August 1, 2016.
  7. ↑ “Everything is possible in Berlin.” Deborah Feldman was brought up in an ultra-orthodox manner and now leads a secular life. In: Jüdische Allgemeine . March 26, 2015, accessed August 2, 2016.
  8. ↑ "I like Jewish troublemakers" . In: Jüdische Allgemeine. June 22, 2017. Retrieved June 25, 2017
  9. ↑ Hanna Voß: "We have to understand the suffering of others" . In: The daily newspaper: taz . May 28, 2018, ISSN  0931-9085 , p. 13 ( taz.de [accessed on May 27, 2018]).
  10. ↑ Florian Felix Weyh: Ultra-Orthodox dropout. Escape from religious fanaticism. In: Deutschlandfunk. April 25, 2016, accessed August 1, 2016.
  11. ↑ Literature tips: off to the reading summer! In: time online. July 7, 2016, accessed August 1, 2016.
  12. ↑ New life in Berlin. Deborah Feldman escapes from an ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect. In: Berliner Zeitung. May 29, 2016. Retrieved August 1, 2016.
  13. ↑ Netflix filmed Deborah Feldman's life. In: Jüdische Allgemeine. May 22, 2019, accessed May 22, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Feldman, Deborah
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American-German writer
DATE OF BIRTH 17th August 1986
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City