‘Unorthodox' author Deborah Feldman: Leaving My Hasidic Life Behind

THE WOMAN WHOSE MEMOIR INSPIRED THE NETFLIX HIT – AND CONTROVERSY WITHIN THE COMMUNITY SHE ONCE CALLED HOME – TELLS THE STORY OF HER JOURNEY TO INDEPENDENCE

As the streaming date for the Netflix series Unorthodox approached, Deborah Feldman couldn’t help feeling on edge. Inspired by her 2012 memoir of the same name, the show traces a girl’s coming of age in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg community of Hasidic Jews and her eventual rejection of the ultraorthodox group. Two of Feldman’s friends had adapted the book for the screen after a long consultation with her, and she spent weeks on the set. Still, “I was terrified”, says Feldman, 33, that the lead character, Esty, might come across as a victim – especially in the pivotal scene where she confronts her husband over his parents’ interference in the newlyweds’ sex life. (Esty suffers from painful muscle spasms called vaginismus that make intercourse difficult.)

Feldman needn’t have worried. Esty (played by Israeli actress Shira Haas) explodes, “How will we ever do this successfully? Your whole family is in bed with us!” And Feldman, in her private screening, cheered. “I felt those things but never said them,” the author tells WHO. “When she let it all out, I thought, ‘Oh, I’m jealous. I would have liked to be like that’.”