Has anyone watched Unorthodox on Netflix?

[ihatethecold]

I loved it. Really fascinating and interesting to see inside the traditions and customs of Hasidic Jews.
It sent me down a rabbit hole googling questions afterwards.
The men’s hats are incredible.

Oh I feel quite relieved at that!

I watched both this and Shtisel (which I love and have watched about 5 times). Although Unorthodox is good it has been criticized by women who have left this form of Orthodoxy. It just shows Esty making the transition to modern life relatively effortlessly and all this nonsense of the "perfect" diverse group of musicians who accept her unquestioningly. I think that is definitely the flaw in this series. It would've been much better to explore her story in a slower and more realistic way like with Shtisel. Also the demonization of the women who stay in the community with the evil mother in law and sisters. While her young husband is a more sympathetic character. I prefer Shtisel for being a much more nuanced and complex development of the characters. Showing the reasons and beliefs those have within the community and not just automatically treating those outside as morally superior and better at relationships. I lived in Germany for 6 years recently. The group of young adults are about as realistic as any group in any major city in Europe, that is, not very. It's too easy to dehumanize people in communities we are not familiar with.

This NYC professor has reached out to another community to find out more about his Orthodox Hasidic neighbors:

Meets a local Rabbi

Visits a synagogue

Visits an Orthodox home with his African American wife and her daughter

Visits an African American wig shop and a Hasidic wig shop

Thanks for those links. I will take a look.

They're great because there is no assumption that you know anything about the community and the Rabbi, his wife and other members of the community answer questions and explain their beliefs. These videos have been very popular within the Hasidic community because they have been open and respectful on both sides. Thet are experiencing an up swing in anti-semitic attacks in the NYC area just as has been happening throughout Europe.

Love and Marriage in Orthodox communities in Israel (each episode of this documentary is about 50 minutes)

Different communities also have different traditions depending on whether they are Ashkenazi; culturally Eastern European who moved East from the Rhineland and France after the Crusades
Sephardic; originally from the Iberian peninsula - Spain & Portugal - but expelled in 1492 & 1496 who settled all around the Mediterranean including North Africa and Greece.
Mizrahi jews; those existing in the Middle East and North Africa since biblical times: so Iraq, Kurdistan, Syria, Georgia, Iran, Dagestan etc.
Maghrebi jews; are those from North Africa who have been there since the middle ages under the al-Maghrib or Arab rule.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Because in these communities women often marry very young, 17 and under wards, you will find a beautiful divorcee with no children and a law degree is consider over the hill and hard to match at 25! You also see a young couple about to marry who are both divorced with children. Also what seems likely to be a very successful marriage of two 18 or 19 yr olds!

Typo: that was supposed to be 17 and upwards.

Also, 3 young people leave the community.

The author does some great AMAs on reddit if you’re interested.

I also don’t think it’s fair to say she wasn’t honest - she wrote a memoir that was hugely successful, several years later it was made into a drama, which necessitated truncating bits of the story and giving it a better narrative arc.

Funnily though i was a bit like ‘yeah right, who meets a group of friends like that on their first night’ and she addresses that, says it is and she is still friends with several of them! And then I remembered I once moved to France and met loads of people on my first night in a bar and ended up being mates with them (some to this day) and ended up working in the bar! 20 years ago now! So it does happen!

But the fact that she didn't go straight to Berlin in real life meant she had made the transition away from the community before she got there. So the criticisms are pretty fair. It was from others who had left, not secular people. Basically transition takes time, years rather than a couple of months.

I found the series fascinating. I often drive through a community of Hasidic Jews in Manchester and have been fascinated for years. They always seem to have strong family bonds and you often see the whole family walking out together. I was also interested because it's the males who wear the more interesting outfits, whereas in other religions, it seems to me that it's often females who have to wear the most elaborate clothes while the blokes wear jeans etc.
I'm still fascinated after the film, and need to now watch the other suggested films.

This, and sex education, has made me realise I suffer with vaginismus; both great shows from Netflix. Certainly filter through the shit to find gems though!

In real life did she take the child to Berlin with her?

RainySaturday you might like this series “Strictly Kosher” about the Manchester Jewish community. It’s a lot of fun with Miriam Margolyes (who is Jewish) narrating.

Episode 1

Episode 2

Episode 3

Not watched it yet Ihatethecold but want to now I have seen your thread and heard this interview with Deborah Feldman on Woman’s Hour:

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000htnp

Interesting too to see the posts about the accuracy of her autobiography.

To be fair to Deborah Feldman “Unorthodox” is only based on her life, it’s not supposed to be completely faithful to the book. They obviously have to be able to tell a story in a way that’s manageable in a few episodes. My critique was more of how the director decided to portray the orthodox community. It’s a cop out to just do the classic “young adult escapes evil, repressive community for more moral and wonderful secular life” . Neither is all bad or all good. I know religious people who are content in tight knit communities with lots of support, and some secular women who feel very alone, misunderstood and struggle without any support in individualistic societies.

“Shtisel” does a much better job I think because the director and screen writer both grew up in the type of homes and community they are portraying. The story and characters are more balanced and nuanced. I think it’s very significant that Deborah Feldman’s mother had already left (if that is true) as she had a role model and pathway out and someone she could go to to help her build a new life.

1forsorrow regarding babies, most of the largest Orthodox communities in the USA (such as the Satmar) were founded by Rabbis who were refugees first from the Pogroms at the end of the 19th century and then from the Nazis. They founded communities who believe they have a holy responsibility to rebuild and replace those who were murdered. Creating an Orthodox Jewish home with many children and grandchildren is the ultimate triumph and victory.
From the NYT: a Jewish woman has 2,000 descendants.

www.nytimes.com/2010/02/21/nyregion/21yitta.html

It must be a lucrative career being a gynaecologist in a Jewish community.

I saw a group of hasidic Jews in a Cornwall theme park last year. I have to say I was fascinated. It was a boiling day and I did feel for them, dressed in thick tights and long sleeves and the men in shirts and trousers. I've always been interested in Judaism . I think it's the strong family bond

I have Jewish ancestry, but I can't find out anything about it because, other than my grandfather (who died before I was born) they all ended up in the gas chambers.

@Womanlywiles I just watched the wig shop video, it was very interesting. The wig shop owner’s hair was a million miles away from the dowdy bobs that I see on the Stamford Hill ladies. I hadn’t realised that they take the wigs off as soon as they get home and are putting them in and off all day. However that got me thinking more about what is, to my mind anyway, the key question and one which I don’t think they ever answer:

If seeing your hair is a sacred thing for your husband, why do you chop it all off so that he doesn’t see you with beautiful hair? (It’s clear from those wigs that they do value the aesthetic beauty of hair.)
Connected to that, why go to such lengths to make the hair look natural, doesn’t that defeat the purpose of minimising the distraction of external beauty that the older woman talked about? (Though I noted she had a more old-fashioned “wiggy” looking wig)

I also wondered idly how many children wig shop lady had.

To me the logic of Muslims wearing a hijab to cover their natural hair makes a lot more sense.

Modern orthodox Jew here (happy to answer any questions if you have any) but not Hasidic but to answer a few questions.

1. There are eruvs in most modern orthodox areas which are basically strings tied onto poles to make the area a "walled city" to allow you to carry on the sabbath something you can't do outside otherwise. HOWEVER, Hasidic jews don't generally believe in this and I don't think Williamsberg has one.

2.yes, Yiddish is derived from german - it's about 80% german with a sprinkling of Hebrew in it and written in Hebrew alphabet. it does have some different pronunciations though (much to my annoyance when I found practicing my german with my Yiddish speaking grandfather just left me confused).

1. the covering your hair thing is about keeping your natural beauty for your husband (some people shave their hair cos it's just easier to fit a wig) but they still have beautiful wigs to cover their hair a bit like how other people cover their body with beautiful clothes to cover their modesty even though the clothes make them look more beautiful than being naked. modesty is not about making you ugly, its about keeping your body private.

1. the laws about a mikveh are long and complicated (had several hours worth of lessons on it before getting married). You are supposed to keep seven clean days after the end of your period obv for some people this can put them past ovulation or never get there if they have a lot of spotting in between and if this is the case then rabbis can give you consent to visit the mikveh earlier. You generally do it at night because you are supposed to have seven clean days and the day starts at nightfall so once you've just finished your final clean day you go as soon as possible ie at night. it's not to prevent people seeing you.

Happy to answer any other queries.

If anyone is interested in more about this community, the film ‘Disobedience’ is brilliant. Probably available to buy him amazon. Same people did Ida, another wonderful film but set in Poland rather than London.