EXODUS, REVISITED

A Hasidic woman delivers a deeper explanation of why she left her Orthodox community.

Following the unexpected success of Feldman’s first memoir, Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots (2012), which was the basis for a Netflix series, the author delves into the reasons behind her decision to leave a life she had always known. She became a refugee of sorts in the U.S., uncomfortable in mainstream culture and rejected by the Jewish community she left. “I soon realized becoming American was impossible,” she writes. “I had been raised in a world resembling an eighteenth-century European shtetl, where I had spoken a different language, consumed a different culture, and was subjected to religious law instead of civil law…the United States could never be the country I knew and trusted; it could therefore never be home.” Eventually, however, she earned her independence the hard way, with one small triumph or setback after another. Feldman spends long passages contemplating what it means to be Jewish as well as to be a mother who wants her son to grow up with an awareness of his Jewish ancestry yet not be tied to it as she had been. On multiple occasions, her voyage of self-discovery took her to Europe, where she can trace some of her family’s flight from the impending Holocaust. The author also discusses her deep ties to her grandmother, who showed unexpected strength during her years as a slave laborer in a Nazi concentration camp. Given that horrific history, readers might be surprised to learn that Feldman finally settled in Berlin. For those who read the first book, this one will offer answers to questions that she raised there. Readers who have not read Unorthodox, however, won’t have all of the background that underlies this sequel even though Feldman combines some material from the first book into this one.

A satisfying story of self-discovery.