ec7fa8a17afb4ed09668ca3cba134dcd "The woman who challenged the false prophets", the analysis by Stefano Vastano.







Deborah says with a bright smile, "I feel better than ever, I feel great here in Berlin, my novel will be out in three months and I already have another one in my head." Seated in a West Berlin bar, Deborah is very elegant, hers is a handsome German with a slight American sound and she is bursting with energy from all pores. "For everyone here in the neighborhood I am" the lady with the dog "and I feel really at ease in this city that loves books so much," she says, alluding to Paco, her dappled dog, and to Chekhov's story. When she landed in the German capital, Deborah was living in the neighborhood of Neukölln, Istanbul on the Spree. Then her son Isaac was 10 years old and Deborah had already published for two years, for the Simon and Schuster editions, "Unorthodox", her furious memoir that suddenly made her famous all over the world, and hated by all. the Orthodox communities, not just Jewish. “In the beginning, the success of 'Unorthodox' had voyeuristic motives: for the first time a member of the sect revealed what was going on inside the Satmar walls of orthodoxy. And that member was me, a 26-year-old woman who tells everything without restraint, even the reasons for the marriage failure ». The cover (Abendstern ed.) For months "Orthodox" is at the top of the New York Times bestsellers, then it is translated all over the world ("Ex Orthodox", in Italian from the Abendstern editions, the new edition will be released on August 26 for the publisher Solferino). In 2015 then came "Exodus", in which Deborah narrates in detail about her divorce, her studies of English literature at Sarah Lawrence College, her travels in Europe, in the villages of Hungary on the trail of her grandmother (who lost all his family members in Auschwitz), and at the origins of the Satmar, since even the rabbi Teitelbaum miraculously escaped the Nazi trains for Auschwitz. «Teitelbaum was a rabbi with a strong charisma», he says sipping his cappuccino, «but the model that he and founders like my grandfather built in New York is a prison with very high walls, and for us women total repression ». Even today, when she talks about the thousand taboos she was subjected to since she was a child - "we couldn't wear anything red, we couldn't walk down the street next to a man," she remembers - she lights up with indignation. "Within the community, the woman's destiny is to make herself invisible, your body must be covered as much as possible and in the Orthodox communities you immediately recognize the female step because on the street women are in a hurry to disappear from circulation as soon as possible". At school, however, that a young girl awake and thirsty to know how Deborah feels more the oppressive breath of fundamentalism. "The first hour we prayed", he recalls of that crazy training and everything in Yiddish, "then came Jewish history, which in the Satmar ideology is nothing but the history of persecutions that culminate in Holocaust". In this dogmatic "ideology" Hitler is only the last of the signs of divine anger at the disobedience of his people. And Zionism with the founding of the State of Israel the last of the political aberrations. Shira Haas on Unorthodox (Netflix) poster "To those outside the group this may seem crazy," Deborah says distraught, "but every year in Manhattan the Satmar protest against Israel by burning their flags on the street." Orthodoxy is a heavy poison that penetrates slowly and from an early age into the skin and mind. “A little girl from another Jewish community,” she recalls, “offered us some chocolate one day, but my cousin refused it. Since then I have begun to wonder how one can be Jewish, but not kosher. And from that scene I began to understand that fundamentalism is a construction with a thousand variations and contradictions ». In fact, even the habits and customs of a sect like the Satmar can be loose if you are part of the "Lev Tahor" group, "which in Hebrew means" pure heart "", explains Deborah, "So pure that their women go around the burga and are the Taliban of Jewish orthodoxy." For some "fundamentalist feminists" even the decision to wear religious veils, from hijab to burga, can be a sign of emancipation, a theory that sends Deborah Feldman into a rage. “In Islamic or Orthodox societies, women are seen as a threat to be constantly monitored. Her existence is an attack on the purity of man in his relationship with God. "In Islamic or Orthodox societies, woman is seen as a threat. Her existence is an attack on the purity of man in his relationship with God" With these veils the woman submits to the dictates of a theocracy, and I do not see what is liberating in this ». What is certain is that it is precisely the genuflection before strict theological norms that arouses great curiosity in the eyes of us postmodern profane. As can be seen from the huge success on Netflix not only of "Unorthodox" - the series in four episodes signed by the German director Maria Schrader and inspired by the life of Deborah - but also by the three seasons of "Shtisel", the series about a family Orthodox Church of Jerusalem. In the film "Unorthodox" the beautiful Shira Haas, the Israeli actress in the role of Esther Shapiro, cries and despairs when her aunt shaves her for the wedding. Deborah instead confesses "to have admired the shape of my head and to have lived that moment lightly". But there is also another salient difference between reality and fiction. “The haircut scene was the first we shot in Berlin. Shira had cancer as a child and at school she was "the little girl without hair". So he really suffered when he shot that scene for "Unorthodox" ». Even the concept of belonging or identity, two almost magical words in the current ethical-political debate, vary a lot if we talk about it with Deborah. From her point of view as a woman subjected to a chilling group dynamic for over 20 years, those two words generate rejection and anguish. «In German affiliation is said" Zugehörigkeit "which in Yiddish, coincidentally, means" normal ". But today I don't want any belonging, and I don't belong to anyone except myself ». Shira had cancer as a child and at school she was "the little girl without hair". So he really suffered when he shot that scene for "Unorthodox" ». Even the concept of belonging or identity, two almost magical words in the current ethical-political debate, vary a lot if we talk about it with Deborah. From her point of view as a woman subjected to a chilling group dynamic for over 20 years, those two words generate rejection and anguish. «In German affiliation is said" Zugehörigkeit "which in Yiddish, coincidentally, means" normal ". But today I don't want any belonging, and I don't belong to anyone except myself. " Shira had cancer as a child and at school she was "the little girl without hair". So he really suffered when he shot that scene for "Unorthodox" ». Even the concept of belonging or identity, two almost magical words in the current ethical-political debate, vary a lot if we talk about it with Deborah. From her point of view as a woman subjected to a chilling group dynamic for over 20 years, those two words generate rejection and anguish. «In German affiliation is said" Zugehörigkeit "which in Yiddish, coincidentally, means" normal ". But today I don't want any belonging, and I don't belong to anyone except myself ». Even the concept of belonging or identity, two almost magical words in the current ethical-political debate, vary a lot if we talk about it with Deborah. From her point of view as a woman subjected to a chilling group dynamic for over 20 years, those two words generate rejection and anguish. «In German affiliation is said" Zugehörigkeit "which in Yiddish, coincidentally, means" normal ". But today I don't want any belonging, and I don't belong to anyone except myself ». Even the concept of belonging or identity, two almost magical words in the current ethical-political debate, vary a lot if we talk about it with Deborah. From her point of view as a woman subjected to a chilling group dynamic for over 20 years, those two words generate rejection and anguish. «In German affiliation is said" Zugehörigkeit "which in Yiddish, coincidentally, means" normal ". But today I don't want any belonging, and I don't belong to anyone except myself ». which in Yiddish, coincidentally, means "normal". But today I don't want any belonging, and I don't belong to anyone except myself ». which in Yiddish, coincidentally, means "normal". But today I don't want any belonging, and I don't belong to anyone except myself ». This is why Deborah's entire journey (or flight) from New York to Berlin, the meaning of her memoir and the novels she is writing are based on a simple idea: that of personal happiness. Which in summary is the exact opposite of what Tolstoy tells with the story of Anna Karenina. "In the opening words of his masterpiece, Tolstoy tells us that happiness makes equals and unhappiness unique", underlines Deborah: "I instead believe that happiness is a path with high risks and costs, which involves liberation from the dogmas of others and from tradition, but it is always a story of personal development ». Happiness as individualism at all costs, and against all, seems a variation of the American myth of the self-made man or the cowboy who, with bullets, defends the fence of his ego. But for Deborah this is not the case. "The American newspapers would like me to tell my liberation from dogmatism as the perfect form of dreams and life in the United States, but mine is a profoundly European story, born and rooted in Old Europe." It is therefore no coincidence that Deborah Feldman, the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, decided to live with her son Isaac Benjamin in Berlin. In short, for those who have turned their backs on their sect, family and spouse, it is not at all obvious to talk about happiness. "When I told my husband to leave everything because he would never be happy there he replied:" Happy, what does it mean? "", She remembers: "In a religious space there is joy, perhaps ecstasy in God, but not personal happiness ". Deborah Feldman, born in New York on August 17, 1986, and now a German citizen, happiness l ' found in Berlin and especially in literature. "For me, literature is a sounding board that broadens your perceptions of the world and life," she says with conviction. As a good American, she cites "Gamica geniale", the saga of Elena Ferrante perceived in the US, even by authors like Jonathan Franzen, as an exemplary model of "salvation" in literature. "Yes, I too, like the protagonist of Ferrante, live literature as a personal empowerment and liberation from the past," she admits. Unlike the entirely Neapolitan epos of Lila and Lenù, however, Deborah is inspired by Primo Levi when she thinks of the mystery of literature. «Levi for me is one of the most important writers ever, the only one who manages to describe the most brutal situations of man as if he were looking at them from the sky. In the tradition of Judaism there is the idea of ​​angels embodied in some human bodies, and for me in Levi one of the angels of literature is hidden ». A German publishing house has already asked her to write an essay to interpret the work and life of the author of "If this is a man". already written, and will be released in September for the Luchterhand editions. "It's called" Miriam " and it is the story of a modern prophetess who lives in Antwerp, and who bites the finger of the angel who is touching her lips before she comes into the world. This is how Miriam chooses her destiny ». In the traditions and legends of Hasidism, from which the family of Deborah and her former Satmar community comes, not only the figure of the angel is present, but also that of a strong woman, who became the first rabbi. "We live in a world beyond religion", Deborah concludes: "Yet we are desperately looking for new inspired prophetesses, like Greta, the icon of the ecological movement." Or like herself, Deborah Feldman, the woman who brought the crude dogmatism and machismo of false prophets to its knees. This is how Miriam chooses her destiny ». In the traditions and legends of Hasidism, from which the family of Deborah and her former Satmar community comes, not only the figure of the angel is present, but also that of a strong woman, who became the first rabbi. "We live in a world beyond religion", Deborah concludes: "Yet we are desperately looking for new inspired prophetesses, like Greta, the icon of the ecological movement." Or like herself, Deborah Feldman, the woman who brought the crude dogmatism and machismo of false prophets to its knees. This is how Miriam chooses her destiny ». In the traditions and legends of Hasidism, from which the family of Deborah and her former Satmar community comes, not only the figure of the angel is present, but also that of a strong woman, who became the first rabbi. "We live in a world beyond religion", Deborah concludes: "Yet we are desperately looking for new inspired prophetesses, like Greta, the icon of the ecological movement." Or like herself, Deborah Feldman, the woman who brought the crude dogmatism and machismo of false prophets to its knees. "We live in a world beyond religion", Deborah concludes: "Yet we are desperately looking for new inspired prophetesses, like Greta, the icon of the ecological movement." Or like herself, Deborah Feldman, the woman who brought the crude dogmatism and machismo of false prophets to its knees. "We live in a world beyond religion", Deborah concludes: "Yet we are desperately looking for new inspired prophetesses, like Greta, the icon of the ecological movement." Or like herself, Deborah Feldman, the woman who brought the crude dogmatism and machismo of false prophets to its knees.

Let's continue from today 's ARTICLE with the title "The woman who challenged the false prophets", the analysis by Stefano Vastano.




Deborah Feldman



His childhood was unhappy. Parents separated. The father with severe alcohol problems. And her, little Deborah who grew up in her grandparents' house, Holocaust survivors. In the Williamsburg neighborhood, the impregnable fortress in New York of the Satinars, the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community of the Hungarian rabbi Joel Teitelbaum. At 17, Deborah - who grows up speaking only Yiddish - marries Eli, after seeing him a couple of times. But the arranged marriage, after three years of physical and mental suffering, falls apart. And in the end Deborah gives up everything: her husband, family and New York, turning her back on the Satmar and the dogmas of an asphyxiating religion. To take refuge in Berlin since 2014, together with Isaac, her child. We therefore expect to meet a frightened woman, marked by the very hard events of life and by the religious hatred (an uncle openly invited her to commit suicide, and threats from ultra-Orthodox groups are wasted). "But no," Deborah says with a bright smile, "I feel better than ever, I feel great here in Berlin, my novel will be out in three months and I already have another one in my head." Seated in a West Berlin bar, Deborah is very elegant, hers is a handsome German with a slight American sound and she is bursting with energy from all pores. "For everyone here in the neighborhood I am" the lady with the dog "and I feel really at ease in this city that loves books so much," she says, alluding to Paco, her dappled dog, and to Chekhov's story. When she landed in the German capital, Deborah was living in the neighborhood of Neukölln, Istanbul on the Spree. Then her son Isaac was 10 years old and Deborah had already published for two years, for the Simon and Schuster editions, "Unorthodox", her furious memoir that suddenly made her famous all over the world, and hated by all. the Orthodox communities, not just Jewish. “In the beginning, the success of 'Unorthodox' had voyeuristic motives: for the first time a member of the sect revealed what was going on inside the Satmar walls of orthodoxy. And that member was me, a 26-year-old woman who tells everything without restraint, even the reasons for the marriage failure ».




The cover (Abendstern ed.)


For months "Orthodox" is at the top of the New York Times bestsellers, then it is translated all over the world ("Ex Orthodox", in Italian from the Abendstern editions, the new edition will be released on August 26 for the publisher Solferino). In 2015 then came "Exodus", in which Deborah narrates in detail about her divorce, her studies of English literature at Sarah Lawrence College, her travels in Europe, in the villages of Hungary on the trail of her grandmother (who lost all his family members in Auschwitz), and at the origins of the Satmar, since even the rabbi Teitelbaum miraculously escaped the Nazi trains for Auschwitz. «Teitelbaum was a rabbi with a strong charisma», he says sipping his cappuccino, «but the model that he and founders like my grandfather built in New York is a prison with very high walls, and for us women total repression ». Even today, when she talks about the thousand taboos she was subjected to since she was a child - "we couldn't wear anything red, we couldn't walk down the street next to a man," she remembers - she lights up with indignation. "Within the community, the woman's destiny is to make herself invisible, your body must be covered as much as possible and in the Orthodox communities you immediately recognize the female step because on the street women are in a hurry to disappear from circulation as soon as possible". At school, however, that a young girl awake and thirsty to know how Deborah feels more the oppressive breath of fundamentalism. "The first hour we prayed", he recalls of that crazy training and everything in Yiddish, "then came Jewish history, which in the Satmar ideology is nothing but the history of persecutions that culminate in Holocaust". In this dogmatic "ideology" Hitler is only the last of the signs of divine anger at the disobedience of his people. And Zionism with the founding of the State of Israel the last of the political aberrations.


Shira Haas on Unorthodox (Netflix) poster


"To those outside the group this may seem crazy," Deborah says distraught, "but every year in Manhattan the Satmar protest against Israel by burning their flags on the street." Orthodoxy is a heavy poison that penetrates slowly and from an early age into the skin and mind. “A little girl from another Jewish community,” she recalls, “offered us some chocolate one day, but my cousin refused it. Since then I have begun to wonder how one can be Jewish, but not kosher. And from that scene I began to understand that fundamentalism is a construction with a thousand variations and contradictions ». In fact, even the habits and customs of a sect like the Satmar can be loose if you are part of the "Lev Tahor" group, "which in Hebrew means" pure heart "", explains Deborah, "So pure that their women go around the burga and are the Taliban of Jewish orthodoxy." For some "fundamentalist feminists" even the decision to wear religious veils, from hijab to burga, can be a sign of emancipation, a theory that sends Deborah Feldman into a rage. “In Islamic or Orthodox societies, women are seen as a threat to be constantly monitored. Her existence is an attack on the purity of man in his relationship with God. "In Islamic or Orthodox societies, woman is seen as a threat. Her existence is an attack on the purity of man in his relationship with God" With these veils the woman submits to the dictates of a theocracy, and I do not see what is liberating in this ». What is certain is that it is precisely the genuflection before strict theological norms that arouses great curiosity in the eyes of us postmodern profane. As can be seen from the huge success on Netflix not only of "Unorthodox" - the series in four episodes signed by the German director Maria Schrader and inspired by the life of Deborah - but also by the three seasons of "Shtisel", the series about a family Orthodox Church of Jerusalem. In the film "Unorthodox" the beautiful Shira Haas, the Israeli actress in the role of Esther Shapiro, cries and despairs when her aunt shaves her for the wedding. Deborah instead confesses "to have admired the shape of my head and to have lived that moment lightly". But there is also another salient difference between reality and fiction. “The haircut scene was the first we shot in Berlin. Shira had cancer as a child and at school she was "the little girl without hair". So he really suffered when he shot that scene for "Unorthodox" ». Even the concept of belonging or identity, two almost magical words in the current ethical-political debate, vary a lot if we talk about it with Deborah. From her point of view as a woman subjected to a chilling group dynamic for over 20 years, those two words generate rejection and anguish. «In German affiliation is said" Zugehörigkeit "which in Yiddish, coincidentally, means" normal ". But today I don't want any belonging, and I don't belong to anyone except myself ». Shira had cancer as a child and at school she was "the little girl without hair". So he really suffered when he shot that scene for "Unorthodox" ». Even the concept of belonging or identity, two almost magical words in the current ethical-political debate, vary a lot if we talk about it with Deborah. From her point of view as a woman subjected to a chilling group dynamic for over 20 years, those two words generate rejection and anguish. «In German affiliation is said" Zugehörigkeit "which in Yiddish, coincidentally, means" normal ". But today I don't want any belonging, and I don't belong to anyone except myself. " Shira had cancer as a child and at school she was "the little girl without hair". So he really suffered when he shot that scene for "Unorthodox" ». Even the concept of belonging or identity, two almost magical words in the current ethical-political debate, vary a lot if we talk about it with Deborah. From her point of view as a woman subjected to a chilling group dynamic for over 20 years, those two words generate rejection and anguish. «In German affiliation is said" Zugehörigkeit "which in Yiddish, coincidentally, means" normal ". But today I don't want any belonging, and I don't belong to anyone except myself ». Even the concept of belonging or identity, two almost magical words in the current ethical-political debate, vary a lot if we talk about it with Deborah. From her point of view as a woman subjected to a chilling group dynamic for over 20 years, those two words generate rejection and anguish. «In German affiliation is said" Zugehörigkeit "which in Yiddish, coincidentally, means" normal ". But today I don't want any belonging, and I don't belong to anyone except myself ». Even the concept of belonging or identity, two almost magical words in the current ethical-political debate, vary a lot if we talk about it with Deborah. From her point of view as a woman subjected to a chilling group dynamic for over 20 years, those two words generate rejection and anguish. «In German affiliation is said" Zugehörigkeit "which in Yiddish, coincidentally, means" normal ". But today I don't want any belonging, and I don't belong to anyone except myself ». which in Yiddish, coincidentally, means "normal". But today I don't want any belonging, and I don't belong to anyone except myself ». which in Yiddish, coincidentally, means "normal". But today I don't want any belonging, and I don't belong to anyone except myself ».


This is why Deborah's entire journey (or flight) from New York to Berlin, the meaning of her memoir and the novels she is writing are based on a simple idea: that of personal happiness. Which in summary is the exact opposite of what Tolstoy tells with the story of Anna Karenina. "In the opening words of his masterpiece, Tolstoy tells us that happiness makes equals and unhappiness unique", underlines Deborah: "I instead believe that happiness is a path with high risks and costs, which involves liberation from the dogmas of others and from tradition, but it is always a story of personal development ». Happiness as individualism at all costs, and against all, seems a variation of the American myth of the self-made man or the cowboy who, with bullets, defends the fence of his ego. But for Deborah this is not the case. "The American newspapers would like me to tell my liberation from dogmatism as the perfect form of dreams and life in the United States, but mine is a profoundly European story, born and rooted in Old Europe." It is therefore no coincidence that Deborah Feldman, the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, decided to live with her son Isaac Benjamin in Berlin. In short, for those who have turned their backs on their sect, family and spouse, it is not at all obvious to talk about happiness. "When I told my husband to leave everything because he would never be happy there he replied:" Happy, what does it mean? "", She remembers: "In a religious space there is joy, perhaps ecstasy in God, but not personal happiness ". Deborah Feldman, born in New York on August 17, 1986, and now a German citizen, happiness l ' found in Berlin and especially in literature. "For me, literature is a sounding board that broadens your perceptions of the world and life," she says with conviction. As a good American, she cites "Gamica geniale", the saga of Elena Ferrante perceived in the US, even by authors like Jonathan Franzen, as an exemplary model of "salvation" in literature. "Yes, I too, like the protagonist of Ferrante, live literature as a personal empowerment and liberation from the past," she admits.


Unlike the entirely Neapolitan epos of Lila and Lenù, however, Deborah is inspired by Primo Levi when she thinks of the mystery of literature. «Levi for me is one of the most important writers ever, the only one who manages to describe the most brutal situations of man as if he were looking at them from the sky. In the tradition of Judaism there is the idea of ​​angels embodied in some human bodies, and for me in Levi one of the angels of literature is hidden ». A German publishing house has already asked her to write an essay to interpret the work and life of the author of "If this is a man". already written, and will be released in September for the Luchterhand editions. "It's called" Miriam " and it is the story of a modern prophetess who lives in Antwerp, and who bites the finger of the angel who is touching her lips before she comes into the world. This is how Miriam chooses her destiny ». In the traditions and legends of Hasidism, from which the family of Deborah and her former Satmar community comes, not only the figure of the angel is present, but also that of a strong woman, who became the first rabbi. "We live in a world beyond religion", Deborah concludes: "Yet we are desperately looking for new inspired prophetesses, like Greta, the icon of the ecological movement." Or like herself, Deborah Feldman, the woman who brought the crude dogmatism and machismo of false prophets to its knees. This is how Miriam chooses her destiny ». In the traditions and legends of Hasidism, from which the family of Deborah and her former Satmar community comes, not only the figure of the angel is present, but also that of a strong woman, who became the first rabbi. "We live in a world beyond religion", Deborah concludes: "Yet we are desperately looking for new inspired prophetesses, like Greta, the icon of the ecological movement." Or like herself, Deborah Feldman, the woman who brought the crude dogmatism and machismo of false prophets to its knees. This is how Miriam chooses her destiny ». In the traditions and legends of Hasidism, from which the family of Deborah and her former Satmar community comes, not only the figure of the angel is present, but also that of a strong woman, who became the first rabbi. "We live in a world beyond religion", Deborah concludes: "Yet we are desperately looking for new inspired prophetesses, like Greta, the icon of the ecological movement." Or like herself, Deborah Feldman, the woman who brought the crude dogmatism and machismo of false prophets to its knees. "We live in a world beyond religion", Deborah concludes: "Yet we are desperately looking for new inspired prophetesses, like Greta, the icon of the ecological movement." Or like herself, Deborah Feldman, the woman who brought the crude dogmatism and machismo of false prophets to its knees. "We live in a world beyond religion", Deborah concludes: "Yet we are desperately looking for new inspired prophetesses, like Greta, the icon of the ecological movement." Or like herself, Deborah Feldman, the woman who brought the crude dogmatism and machismo of false prophets to its knees.

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