unorthodox

i just finished reading the book unorthodox by deborah feldman.. i agree with curious jew's opinion of the book. it is not that bad for the frum world. deborah feldman is a rebel who grew up in the satmar community. it is a little cloying to read about her snarky view of frumkeit as she is growing up but this is her story and this is how she felt about it. when you read the story you can tell that she grew up frum. she does have some things that are not correct about judaism but only someone frum would know this. i think that its irrelevant. what bothers people very much is that she grew up in the system and she rejected it and she is not a  drug addict. the worst thing she does in the book is eat treif , stopped dressing modestly and stopped keeping taharas hamishpachah. granted these render her a secular jew, but that is what she has become. a big snooze if you ask me. i am sure many who criticize feldman have never even read her book. please pardon this spoiler if you plan on reading the book, but i do feel that it is very important to share this  . at the end of the book after she has settled on her secular life she realizes that the frum world does not bother her as much as it had before when she was part of it. she also has come to appreciate that judaism is part of what makes her who she is even if she does not choose to be observant. she is not a druggie,she did not form a ponzi scheme,  she is just isnt religious. so what.
i think that feldman got a little carried away slamming frumkeit when she went on the view with barbara walters and company, but i do not think that this will hurt the world view of religious jews or hasidim . it think that we need to worry more about the frum men who are sitting in jail for  having  commited ponzi schemes for making a bad name for frum jews. deborah feldman is 25 years old. her youth  does not excuse her ,but it does not make her the devil either. simon and shuster encouraged her to use her name with her story to make this into a sideshow. had she been anonymous it would not have been as "potent". deborah feldman is the flavor of the month now with her book but in a few months no one will care who she is.
in 1995 a young woman named pearl abraham wrote a book called the romance reader which was also about a rebellious  hasidic girl with another disfunctional family.  she too garnered much attention. it was pre-interenet days so her reputation did not precede her as did deborah feldman's and i thought that her book was much more negative than deborah's.
interestingly enough, deborah feldman mentions that she had read pearl abraham's book as a teenager and that it spoke to  her. then again, deborah feldman was already going in the wrong direction when she read the romance reader, so one can't say it really swayed her. according to wikipedia , pearl abraham has taught at sarah lawrence , the school deborah feldman attended. perhaps they have met.
unorthodox is not the best book i have ever read nor is it the worst. it is entertaining and i do not take everything in it at face value. though she gets some thing wrong, she gets a lot right and this is what irks a lot of people . the only thing that bothers me is that she has photos of her ex-husband in the book , not even so much what she wrote about her marriage.i think that they both misunderstood each other.  i don't think that it was fair to him to have his image in the book without his permission.
in any event , read the book if you are curious. i am sure it will be a big letdown after all of the hype. it is not so much anti religious as much as just one young woman's quest for living life in a way that is best for her.

killing kasztner

i saw the documentary killing kasztner last night. it was a bit slow moving for the first half hour or so , but was an interesting subject no less. im not sure that i can recommend the movie after viewing it because it was a bit dry , but the subject itself is riveting.

rudolph kasztner saved nearly 17 thousand hungarian jews including the satmar rebbe during the holocaust. he did it by making deals with nazis . eventually after the shoah he ended up in israel . a reporter named malchiel gruenwald accused him of collaborating with the nazis and berated him for not having saved more jews. eventually kasztner was assassinated. not only were kasztner and his family harassed over this, but the survivors who kasztner saved were harassed as well. since he saved nearly 17 thousand jews why couldn't he have saved more?

it took sixty years for kasztner to be honored by yad vashem for having saved so many jews. though he wasnt able to witness this many of those he had saved were able to see this. they finally felt vindicated.

i dont claim to know all of the facts about this case , even after seeing this film . i will say that its a crime that kasztner was assasinated. the fact that he had saved SO MANY jewish souls should have been heralded. he many not have saved more than 17 thousand, but this number is incredible. i am also quite certain that others who saved jews made deals with nazis in order to save jews and were honored for having saved jews as well they should be. kasztner should be honored as well . those who he had saved had enough survivor's guilt. they shouldnt have been made to feel bad because of the circumstance they were allowed to to continue living.

after viewing this film i want to read more about this topic. though i cant recommend this film with a full heart because it was slow moving, i am glad that i saw it . it opened up a door of knowledge. now all i need to do is find a copy of perfidy by ben hecht and the kasztner train by anna porter and im good to go.