More relevantly, I know half the cast of characters. It makes me want to pounce and gouge their eyes out, but I can’t blame them.

We both got divorced with dreams for more, we both are public about our journey. Here are the connections: I also was raised in the Satmar Hasidic community, and I also have one son. In order to give you the context in which I come to this book, let me tell you that I’m a metaphorical cousin second-removed to it. It’s a good time to give the book a careful review, with, I think, more objectivity, and also with an eye for how readers have reacted to the book since its publication. I’m cooped up in our New York City apartment with my Kindle, suffering the Covid quarantine. We are also talking about her again because the Netflix miniseries adaption of her book is due to hit on the 26 th of this month. I’ve also reaped a bit of the overflow from the book’s success many fans of Unorthodox wind up in Williamsburg on my walking tour because Feldman piqued their interest. I have much more distance from the story. I didn’t give the book a careful read that first time. Yes, all we were talking about were pieces of the book and the book publicity. I still hear about my unforgivable betrayal. I was among the critics, and that fact rained Feldman’s and other people’s anger down on me. Some tried to criticize Feldman, and some saw this criticism as a betrayal. I too was a cauldron of hot-headed opinion and “taking sides.” Soon, there were fault lines among ex-Hasidim. Everyone was talking about Unorthodox, raving, ranting, attacking, defending, calling her a James Frey or an Angela’s Ashes-fussing it all the way to the New York Time’s bestsellers list. Not before or after have I seen so much to-do about our little niche world of defectors of the Hasidic faith.

When Deborah Feldman’s memoir hit shelves in 2012, all hell broke loose.

Unorthodox book author