![]() After giving birth to a son just over two years later, Feldman musters the courage to take the steps that will ultimately sever her ties to this community. ![]() At 17, she is completely unprepared for the intimacy and strictures of her own arranged marriage. ![]() She finds solace and inspiration in the pages of forbidden novels like Little Women that she keeps hidden beneath her mattress. ![]() Feldman bravely lays her soul bare, unflinchingly sharing intimate thoughts and ideas unthinkable within the deeply religious existence of the Satmars. Compulsively readable, Unorthodox relates a unique coming-of-age story that manages to speak personally to anyone who has ever felt like an outsider in her own life. She yearns to take control of her future even as she knows the restrictive path her religion dictates. Her mother flees her untenable arranged marriage, leaving young Devoiri to be raised by her strict paternal grandparents. Her father’s childlike behavior and lack of personal hygiene leave him all but unemployable. Feldman carries a stigma of shame in the Satmar community of Brooklyn, NY. ![]() Her oldest aunt, controlling, take-charge Chaya, constantly reminds her to obey, as do her teachers and her Yiddish textbooks. From an early age, this adage is repeated to intellectually curious, always questioning Devoiri Feldman. Adult/High School–“An empty vessel clangs the loudest.” Outspoken, insolent women in the Satmar Hasidic sect of Judaism are likely to be spiritually hollow. ![]()
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