Few days back I stumbled upon an interview the brilliantly kind Frieda Vizel did with Sara Braun, a Jew of colour from the Netherlands who decided to become Hasidic. Being Black, with a non-Jewish father, with a non-religious background, some may assume that she will face a strong resilience, particularly if she wants to join insular groups, but in her case, it was rather the opposite - with some limits though, such as shidduchim etc.
Usually I am writing more about people who left the religious communities, the so-called off the derech phenomenon - which do usually receive a much wider acclaim, but in fact I am equally curious about the other way round. People who left their secular upbringing behind and willingly took upon themselves the strict rules of observance - and received as a bonus a warm knitted community as well.
That Black Hasidic Lady is the book Sara Braun wrote summarizing her personal story. Illustrated with beautiful photos of her and her equally beautiful family, it is an account of how a girl who grew up in a Dutch village, aware of her Jewish heritage, although in a non-religiously committed way, got to know and embraced herself the Hasidic way of life.
Trained as a soprano, but with an entrepreneurial mind - she tailored wedding gowns for a while while in NYC - she got accepted - as a guest or as a family member, by Hasidic families, most probably Satmer way of Kiryas Joel. She does not mention the name of the group, the only Hasidic sects being explicitly nominated is Chabad - how can someone avoid them anyway - and Belz, to whom she is connected via her maternal side.
´Everything was just about family, community, good food and creating beautiful memories with God at the center´. This sentence clearly resumes what many people were longing for before joining Judaism or who are becoming religious - any religion, in fact. It is the feeling that some people who left the fold will always miss.
The book in itself though was kind of disappointment. In need of extra proofreading and structuring, it leaves you with the feeling that you still haven´t understand too much about her - although her video interviews are more assertive: What exactly was her relationship to God and observance before? How does she ended up suddenly with a non-religious guy from abroad when she was surrounded by Godfearing Jews? How did they negotiated within the marriage the religious observance - which was at the very opposite ends. Why did she returned to Europe though? What exactly meaned her ´radicalized´ observance, which specific minhag ? What about the relationship between her children and their father? How do they navigate between two different worlds? For a while she writes about her husband and suddenly he is ´ex-husband´...She went to the States at 18 as she always dreamed of, which is cool, found a job as an au-pair, and left the job but in any case one needs a valid working permit, including EU citizens. And so on and so forth.
There are also some spicy references about men she met who expected sexual favour from her, but everthing is related within the limits of modesty.
To sum up, That Black Hasidic Lady adds up interesting information about what does it mean to be Jewish - by birth - woman and black in religious communities - there is a lot of prejudice, but there is more than that - but also explores a personal journey of finding one´s place in the world.
The book is a bit disappointing from the literary point of view though, compared to the videos I´ve watched. A slight editing would have changed and improved everything.
