Saturday, July 17, 2021

Julia Haart and her Unorthodox Life

HMMM.... Where do I start? I just watched the new Netflix series MY UNORTHODOX LIFE. I wanted to hate it but I did not. In case you are living under a rock there is a a new Netflix series about a formerly yeshivish woman who became a VERY rich fashion designer married to a very rich goy who owns Elite World and La Perla to name drop a little . I follow Modi Rosenfeld on Instagram and he summed it up best in his Instagram story. "Nebach, she had to go OTD to get a Netflix special".And after reading this pearl it hit me. Julia Haart has the life every kid who wants to go off the derech thinks their life would be if they were not frum. They would be a rich CEO , they would have a rich goyishe spouse who does their bidding more than their former yiddishe one would . There would be rainbows and unicorns. Julia Haart has an awesome life now and even she admits in her show that she is very fortunate that her kids still talk to her and her husband isn't forbidding her to see their fourteen year old son. Most people who go OTD do not have famiial support and they also do not have the drive to succeed that Julia does. That said, though her life is pretty rad, her life is very 1999. If she didn't have the OTD stuff this would not be a very cool show. Her children are not very wild, even the one who is questioning her sexual preferences is pretty vanilla in terms of 2021. Yes if Julia Haart was not OTD, this series would not even be a thing. Of course Julia denigrates the frum lifestyle, but I did not find Julia herself to be all that admirable as a person so it kind of weakens her denigration. She meddles too much with her adult children and their sex lives as well as being too pushy about how non-religious she would like them to be. Haart is so over the top that her frum ex husband who does appear in the series comes off as a saint. This is why I do not hate this series. No matter how much she denigrates frumkiet she does not totally trash her ex husband. The series ends with her family celebrating her ex husband's impending engagement to his girlfriend and Julia being genuinely happy for him. The other thing that this series does is that it uses a lot of frum words and terms and explains them . I have never seen a mainstream series do this ever. Of course Julia mostly was negative about these the Jewish concepts, but it does incidently give people an introduction to Judaism one may not have had before. MY UNORTHDOOX LIFE is very stylish and fun to watch but I really do not know why people beside me would like it. I understand why so many hate the show, she insults frum Judaism and she has some real gripes . Then again, being frum isn't for everyone and if she had her gripes at least she left and is living the life she wants. If nothing else, maybe it will help those of us who remain frum to fix some of the issues that Julia complained about and help those who question find reasons to love Judaism and stay religious even though some aspects of frum life are flawed.

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