There is something about Esty’s journey that is close to home.” The prospect of freedom has suddenly become different for all of us. Her story also seems particularly relevant now, as Feldman explains: “We are facing an uncertain future. She believes that part of the reason the Netflix series attracted such a wide audience is because of the universal nature of the story: Esty might belong to a little-known and highly private, insular community, but she is simply a young woman who is searching for freedom and a new way of living. I speak to Feldman on Zoom from her Berlin apartment. The show follows a young Hasidic woman called Esty who flees her husband and the pressures of her Hasidic Jewish community in Brooklyn to start a new life among musicians in Berlin. She is working on a novel in German, enjoys going to the theatre and has friends from different backgrounds who have become like family.įeldman’s story might sound familiar if you have spent lockdown bingeing on Netflix: its hit four-part drama Unorthodox, the streaming service’s first Yiddish-language series, is based on her best-selling 2012 memoir Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots. Now 33, she is a writer living in an apartment in Berlin with her teenage son. Through sheer force of character and determination, she left the community at the age of 23 and carved out a successful, independent, life for herself. She was not supposed to question, or doubt, or yearn for something more.īut she always felt different. Feldman’s future had already been mapped out for her: she was to enter into an arranged marriage and have children. She was born in Brooklyn, New York, but her community spoke Yiddish as its first language. Every aspect of her life was governed by complex laws, from how she dressed to what she was allowed to eat. Deborah Feldman grew up in a strictly conservative religious community.

Deborah feldman memoir