New York – She’s got some chutzpah!
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A gal who ditched her hubby and ultra-Orthodox Satmar community in Brooklyn left behind a trail of broken hearts and hurt feelings to pen a controversial yarn.
Deborah Feldman, 25, says she was choked by an antiquated religion and trapped in a loveless marriage — but that’s news to her husband, Joel Feldman, who friends and family say is “shattered” by the damning memoir.
“She was crazy about this boy,” Feldman’s uncle, Izzy Berkowitz, 58, told The Post. “She was dying to get married.
“He did everything and anything for her, but she never appreciated anything no matter what he did,” Berkowitz insisted. “She lacked happiness. Nothing was good enough for her.”
Feldman, who’s been on a whirlwind publicity tour for “Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots” that’s included a powwow with Barbara Walters on “The View,” offers a clinical account of the couple’s marital intimacies.
“He feels betrayed,’ said an old friend of the jilted pop. “She wasn’t forced to marry him. They were madly in love.”
Pearl Engelman, 64, a neighbor of Feldman’s when she lived in Williamsburg, blasted the author.
“It paints the whole community in a bad light,” Engelman said. “We’re in an uproar. We feel insulted. I think she’s a lost soul.”
Blogger Failed Messiah exposes more lies in Feldmans book here, and here.
Izzy Berkowitz the uncle for Feldman speaks out here
Someone should come out with a book to expose all her lies, she should be ashamed of her self!
In her You Tube video she talks about leaving her family and friends behind to find her new self. She says it is all worth it and I believe she wishes to encourage others to do the same.
What is she talking about? I understand she chooses to live differently but why betray those who tried their best for her? Ones family and friends is all one has and are to be valued above everything and anything! Is there not a saying about not throwing stones into a well that has sustained you?
Isn’t it amazing – the thousands upon thousands of happy marriages & secure & functioning families mean nothing in comparison to one crazy, vindictive woman who can’t cope. How about someone writes a book about normalcy in the frum veldt? Oh, but it won’t sell, it won’t be salacious, scandalous, or full of lies.
I hope her ex sues for permanent custody: this child is in real danger from such a disturbed woman.
All of the people grasping on to the possibility that deborah is lying in certain small details of her life that mean very little in the scheme of things are all acting like people who were demanding to see Obama’s birth certificate. It’s really pathetic. In the end of the day this is one person’s perspective; but don’t tell me that the chassidishe dating/marriage system is perfect. No dating system is perfect, but the chassidishe system is outdated and meant for 1,000 years ago.
Go Izzy go!!!
We appreciate u coming foward and exposing Devorah for what she is.
Btw, we miss you back in willy. Any plans of moving back?
I believe she did this for economic purposes. Her book is one of the highest in amazon rankings. Unfortunatley her greed for money overtool any sense of moraity and she attatcked inoccent people without a hint of mercy.
There is a great opportunity for a good writer to make a challenging book I think it will sell more copies!
I am absolutely astonished at the enormous volume of free advertisement and publicity Deborah Feldman (and her book) have been given by this website alone.
Thanks to VIN (and other, similar, websites) she is laughing all the way to the bank.
This is what my soccer-playing friends would call “an own goal”; Feldman’s detractors have achieved the diametrical opposite of what they had intended.
Frankly, if it wasn’t for VIN, and the Satmars in hysterics I would never have heard of this immature woman. You are giving her more punlicity than she could ever have hoped to get otherwise.
Publicity or not, We have an obligated to defend our reputation and values and stick up for Kavod Shamayim that was so horribly disgraced…
May she find truth in her own future as if she has any conscious she will not be able to live with the anti-orthodox smut she has brought to our day.
There is a You Tube video where she is featured driving through Williamsburg on Shabbos! There a those who choose to live differently but what kind of person goes all out to hurt her own aging grandparents as well as everyone else she ever knew with such chutzpa? According to her uncle, Deborah Feldman was not abandoned by her mother. He says she walked out on her mother and now she has walked out on her husband and everyone else who tried their best to treat her as one of their own. I invite a liscensed psychologist to diagnose and explain what type of personality she has.
She is one sick puppy!
How about we start an “Occupy Simon & Schuster” until they pull this book that full of sheker and sina!
Its hearthbreaking, I watched an interview she gave… It boils down that she had a real tough childhood and as a result she acts up badly
She claims her mother ran off and she claims her mother was gay, now being a child of such mother/house is davestating and painfull, also she claims she was molested not sure to what extend but that could really hurt…. I am not saying she is right or any of this is a real excuse and I am a chasidish guy and I fell hurt and feel her pain and the way I see it that everyone and everything in her childhood was her enemy….. What’s left on us to do is make sure our kids get the proper love and feel comfortable expressing their needs (not every child could really deal with everything) and keep the dangerus people away or under bars
We should write to Barbara Walters, her network, ThePost, and every other news outlet that ran the story, and let them know how klal yisroel feels about the shtusim in this shmatteh of a book. Reference this article or any other that shows clearly the twisted, sad and desperate shakranis this nebuch-case is.
All the anti-frum blogs are pounding her, they’re all asking how she got a fabulous book contract and a gig on “The View” when other writers with more compelling and TRUTHFUL stories to tell, just pile up rejection letters.
The only thing that will STOP her, at this point is an all out attack, the ignoring her idea hasn’t worked. Hatzolah of KJ needs to sue her and the publishing companies for libel, the NY Post needs to be pushed into giving equal room for an article showing what frum life really is, and She needs to be pushed, until even the park slop yuppies won’t want anything to do with her.
Madly in love?
Who in Satmar or any chassidus gets married for love?
what a pity
a emotionally insecure woman whos greed for money has overtaken her sense of virtue, correctness and sense of family and heritage
she will eventually have nothing not her money or family or friends either new or old
and the worst part of it is that she is not happy now and never will be
what a pity
Hate to break the news to all those people claiming that the Chassidic way of doing things was meant for 1,000 years ago—–Chassidism hasn’t been around for 1,000 years. The Besht was born in 1760, so do the math.
After finally having read the book, I’d agree its more a work of fiction rather than fact on several of the anecdotes, although the overall characterization of Satmar life is accurate on many points. Many of the issues she cites related their marriage certainly ring true as any social worker who has worked in the frum community will confirm. I suspect her ex-husband will soon be coming out with his own version of their time together, perhaps on a reality show called “My Love Life in the Heimeshe Hood”.
She has many features of borderline personality disorder (look it up and see if you agree).
As for the publicity, her publisher and / or a PR firm such as Howard Rubinstein (who ‘created’ Shmuley Boteach) are eager to sell this book and realize a provocative, salacious book sells–especially when the target is the orthodox Jewish community (a popular target for bashing by the NY Times, Jewish Week, et al, by those who can assuage their guilt for ‘marrying out’ or leaving their religion by finding fault with those who stayed committed to Yiddishkeit.)
in satmar they thought her KANUES this is the reverse, thats all she knows.
I am not going to even ask you about the trash I’m supposedly talking about…but for the record and to satisfy my curiosity…can I have an in-depth explanation in defense of your statement…because I certainly am not on the same page with you…enlighten me…I’m willing to listen.