Jewish Book Review: The Sisters Weiss by Naomi Ragen

If the Saturday Wife was largely a disappointment, The Sisters Weiss by Naomi Ragen brought back the pleasure of reading from this author.

The novel takes place in the 'Ultra-Orthdox' part of Brooklyn, starting in the 1950s, where the two sisters Pearl and Rose are growing up in a modest religious family. Their life options are clear and relatively limited: they are going to school and learn some basics until they reach the age when the search for a shidduch (match) starts. Once there is one, the path of motherhood and childbearing/rearing while the man is studying Torah is what a wooman is offered. This system means stability, continuity and it's the traditinal way.

However, after Rose is exposed to the library of a French colleague, her life changed. A photography book considered 'dangerous' will seal her destiny. She is send to stay with her grandmother and enrolled in a very conservative Bais Ruchel Satmer school, where even the religious learning offered to girls is superficial and extremely limited in terms of knowledge.

But Rose keeps going her dangerous way and enrolls for a photograhy class. Matched to a mediocre yet with good-yichus (family background) she is running away the day of her wedding leaving behind an ashamed family and starting her way that will make her a famous photograher.

Four decade later, Pearl's daugher, Rivka, will do the same and her first contacts in the outside world will be her cousin, Hannah, Rose's secular daughter. The story repeats itself, but only the context is the same, as there is no guarantee for happy endings. Rivka will feel fully the dramatic consequence of his radical decision, which also means being cut from a warm community of traditions and celebrations. Even the strong Rose felt the alienation and the childhood family memories of being together with people sharing the same values will be always cherished. 

The Sisters Weiss is a realistic depiction of what really does it mean to leave the Hasidic community, and a traditional way of life in general. The strong ties cannot be cut automatically, on both sides and the heartbreak is not only on the side of those who left, but those who remain do also have their share of sadness. Another aspect the novel features very well is the hardship of adapting to the non-traditional way of life. Rivka's mistake in considering a sexual encounter a relationship comes from the culture she belongs to, where women and girls do not have 'boyfriends': all their life they are prepared to be ready to fulfill their role as wives, spending the rest of their life with a husband. Those women are simply not prepared to understand the accidental and short-term relationships in the secular world.

Another layer of the narrative features women stories. Each of the women that appear in The Sisters Weiss do have a story to tell, which made it into the bigger Jewish women story. From women to surrender to their husbands to rebelious women who are searching for an authentic soul mates. 

There is no happy ending and it is one of the many things I've liked about this book. The author found the best tone and non-emotional approach which suits such stories whose emotion resides in the strength of the characters.

For me, it was by far one of the best OTD (off the derech) reading in a long time, overcoming many of the relatively memoirs on this topic I've read in the long time.