Funny, You Don´t Look Like a Rabbi by Rabbi Lynnda Targan

At 50, Lynnda Targan was accomplished PR professional with an intense and busy family life. Not necessarily an observant Jew - in the ´orthodox´ sense of the word - but with a strong Jewish identity. Somehow though, she was feeling she needs and she can do a bit more; both inspire and get inspired herself.

Hence, her search for a new personal and in the end, professional too, pathway: she started to study about Judaism and eventually ended up receiving the smicha - the rabbinic ordination. A trajectory that was not lacking stumbling block, particularly as a woman, and especially as a woman looking for a position of prestige and ultimately, power. 

Her memoir of ´Unorthodox Transformation´ - Funny, You Don´t Look Like a Rabbi is an account of her pursuing and eventually achieving her midlife professional and personal dream. Her insights are very useful for anyone trying to follow a similar pathway but also share a personal story facing the complexities of the contemporary life. With resilience and motivation, even the difficulties of the Hebrew language can be conquered. 

I´ve found the memoir honest, personal and direct. It explains her personal Jewish perspective as well as her lessons learned. At the same time, this book offers some good insights regarding the take of non-Orthodox denominations on a various daily Jewish practices and interpretations and I am definitely curious to learn out more about the diversity within the Jewish diverse practices.

Choosing to be Chosen by Kylie Ora Lobell

´The world was too amazing for there not to be a God. It was an absolute miracle. I don´t know why I didn´t see it before. It was just common sense that God existed´.

Even since she was a teenageer, Kylie was devoted to journalism and the written word. Faith (Christian), she lost it during her parents divorce. Then, she went through the usual troubles of teenagers from anywhere in the world: anxiety, a bit of bullying, rebellion. There were boyfriends too, Jewish ones, who left because...well, she wasn´t Jewish. Until she met Danny, in her mid 20s, a comedian disillusioned with religion, that she, following her decision to convert Orthodox, brought closer to faith.

Choosing to be Chosen, the debut memoir by journalist and author Kylie Ora Lobell does not differ too much from other conversion stories. It is no sudden revelation. but a promise. After she went to a free meal at a NYC Chabad, she got drawn not only about the great food - both they were surviving on a menial income - but also the sense of belonging that persisted even when their relationship went through a crisis. She wanted to remain with her current husband and being Jewish was part of their story.

Fact-oriented, carefully written and avoiding the usual fluffy exuberance - she recounts how the first time she went to the Kotel she didn´t feel anything, any connection - Choosing to be Chosen is a story about a choice the author made. She shares her story without trying to be a role model or educator, although I would have been a bit curious about some of her lectures and intellectual sources. But the book is not supposed to be about that, anyway.

That Black Hasidic Lady by Sara Braun

´Even since I can remember, I was always a spiritual type of child who would have thoughts and experiences more so in feelings instead of words´.

 

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.

There Was Night and There Was Morning by Sara Sherbill

If one will have the curiosity, as I did, to do a bit of search of rabbi Daniel Sherbill, the rabbi father of Sara Sherbill, he or she will only stumble upon heartwarming obituaries, mentioning him as a kind and helpful person. 

Coming to religion during the 1960s, Sherbill served as a rabbi in several communities across America. Displaying a spiritual yet anchored in the Orthodox restrictions type of belief, he was a different person in relationship with his family and with some of the younger - way too younger - women members of his communities. He was praised for bringing Jews back to Judaism, in the midst of his hippie-like, denominational type of religious practice.

His daughter, Sara, the author of the recently published memoir There Was Night and There Was Morning - I recommend to have access to the book as I did, in audiobook format read by the author, an to feel the emotions of accounting the abuse and trauma from her own voice and emotional breaks - knew a different person. And so did her mother, and siblings too. Prone to terrible anger attacks and violence, he was also a sexual abuser, targeting very young girls from his community, luring them into drugs, as he ended up as a drug addicted too.

Sherbill´s memoir is very much focused on the tentacular outreach of trauma, sometimes inherited, that can permeate our lives in so many unexpected ways. First and foremost though, it affects our way to trust other people, to position our relationships, our human connections. It may make you believe that the world is full of predators and bad people hiding behind a pious mask. It pushes people out of religion, any kind of religion, although sometimes by converting old rituals into daily routines that keep the life go on, 

It is a very emotional story although I struggle a bit trying to understand the type of community it was, and how it really operated in real time. But for the storry itself, it is largely irrelevant, as we are left with the right approach and knowledge of trauma that is more important than the context.

Rating: 4.5 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered by the publisher in exchange for an honest review

 

I.M: A Memoir by Isaac Mizrahi

´The Syrian community have never seen anything like me before´.

One of the most successful Jewish designers in the US, Isaac Mizrahi is a bubbling personality that wrote fashion history. Born in a Syrian-Jewish family and a student of Yeshiva of Flatbush, he broke up with the religious community, came out as gay and fulfilled his artistic dreams. In addition to being a fashion designer, he also performed on the stage and movies, wrote a graphic novel and created costumes for opera or theater.

I.M is his memoir relating his life story. I  had access to the book in audio format, read by the author and it was a very pleasant experience - although Mizrahi mentioned that he does not like to hear his own voice. 

The book unfolds as a chronological suite of the events that marked his early childhood, his relationship with his parents - especially with his mother who was and is a model for him - with the Syrian Jewish community and his steps into the world of fashion, as well as his sleep problems and lifelong struggle with insomnia - an aspect I largely relate to as well. There are many details and observations interesting also for the fashion business history in general.

At times I felt that there are way so many details and a larger focus on events, without a specific structuring of the memoir based on milestones or various categories, but it belongs to the genre of memoir to follow the timeline and style that it is considered appropriate by the author and no one else. It is a subjective choice that the reader shall accept in its entirety.

A special not to the cover which is elegant, simple and straight forward. It suits very well Mizrahi´s fashion style.

Rating: 3 stars

Shanda by Letty Cottin Pogrebin

´(...) how sacrosant privacy once was´.

Shanda. A Memoir of Shame and Secrecy by American Jewish journalist and author Letty Cottin Pogrebin is not only a historical testimony of Jewish life after the war, but also offers to the reader an unique example of memoir writing and researching.

Secrets are part of the Jewish life, particularly for the post-war generation, but Pogrebin set the culture of shame and secrecy into a larger realm of cultural context and sociological understanding. Secrets are more than a pathological temptation of lying, but they are the result of (sometimes too high) social expectations and communal curiosity. Some facts are better left untold and the culture of sharing - the naked social self built under the pressure of social media exposure, among other things - is not necessarily meaning a better family connection. It is just a different relationship no more or less authentic.

There are different ways in which Pogrebin is able to trace those secrets and deleted traces of assumed social shame: her own memories, random pictures found in family throves or forgotten enveloppes, discussions with different family members, her own genealogical researches. Although I loved to follow up the Jewish story, this part was in many respects more fascinating, as it shows the many diverse ways in which a good memoir and a family research in general can be done. 

Shanda is a testimony of diversity of Jewish life in America and a model for anyone - Jewish or not - is interesting in the art of memoir.

Rating: 5 stars

An Iranian Jew in Wedding, Berlin

 ´Ein kleiner, von allen gehasster, feiger Jude war ich. So fühle ich mich zumindest´.

Arye Sharuz Shalicar is a often spotted in the German media those days, as a spokeperson of the IDF for the German journalists. He is articulated, up to the point and fluent in the international language of public relations. But before, a few years ago, before making aliya in 2001, he was a boy from Wedding, versed in the language - both body and verbal - of (mostly) Arab gangs of Berlin, like the PLO-Boys and many more.

In a similar vein with Ben Salomo´s memoir of life as a Jew - and Israeli - in the Berlin rap scene, Shalicar adds a different layer of information about the heated hate against Jews among his Palestinian and non-German colleagues. While reading his fights and humiliations as a teenager growing up as a non-religious Iranian Jew, I was automatically thinking the latest weeks of anti-Israeli protests in areas like Neukölln or Sonnenallee. Nothing new under the sun, apparently.

Shalicar´s memoir also shares his limited contacts with the local Jewish community, limited both in terms of language - due to the predominance of Russian - but also the reserves against non-European Jews. 

The book is a journey of self-discovery and reconnecting with his own roots and heritage, against all odds. A story of resilience in an unkind world. 

´Free as a Jew´

 

Prof. Ruth R. Wisse belongs to a generation of Jews that seen and experienced too much to accept any pressure to change their opinions, no matter how controversial. The direct contact with realities of the last century, filtered through a knowledge acquired using the classical literary and religious sources leaves no space to compromise.

Born in Czernowitz, she and her family escaped to Canada via Romania, fearing the Stalinist repression. This early life experience will deepen her understanding of communism, particularly during Cold War. As a Canadian Jew, she witnessed the birth of a new post-WWII diaspora, as well as the multicultural local policies, making friendship with Leonard Cohen. Further more, on the educational level, she experienced directly the birth of Jewish studies in the North American realm, and was directly involved in the rebirth of interest for Yiddish literature. A staunch supporter of the state of Israel, she seized the right directions that may lead to the new forms of Jew-hate - like anti-Zionism. 

She assumed her opinions of being against the ´affirmative action´, criticized the Oslo Agreements and remained a clear supporter of what would be later called ´neo-conservative´ political directions. 

And when the world was over and over again took by troubles, she found comfort in the old tales of Yiddish writers, that she promoted and taught over the years. Besides the strong memorialistic perspective, the book is also a reminder of the timeless value of Yiddish literature and its importance for the Jewish intellectual history.

Testimonies like the ones generously shared by Prof. Ruth R. Wisse are very important from the intellectual point of view. No matter what we may disagree with, she fully assumes her values and beliefs. Making and defending an intellectual choice should be no shame. Accepting someone else´s different standpoint is the beginning of a conversation that may not bring us to changing someone else´s mind, but at least will benefit in terms of understanding the difference and the diversity of ideas, without taking personal offense and directly attacking the opponent.

Rating: 4.5 stars

Book Review: Isidor. Ein judisches Leben by Shelly Kupferberg

 

A well known moderator of Jewish cultural events, Tel Aviv born Shelly Kupferberg published this year her first novel, a literary memoir of her great uncle Isidor Geller. 

First pages into the book, one may believe that the book is a work of fiction, but once the mentions of searching through the letters and diaries and scraps of the past in the Tel Aviv apartment of her grandfather - the Austrian-Israeli historian Walter Grab - we realize that Isidor is in fact a memory reconstruction. Literarilly speaking, it is impossible to fully reconstruct someone´s past assuming a full precision. Indeed, especially placed in a literary context of a family figure, most probably there will be life episodes and testimonies of a high personal, subjective nature therefore fictionalisation has its own place. Personally, I was not extremely pleased with the blurred lines between those approaches - literature and historical reconstruction - but it is a matter of clarity that I am feeling comfortable with sometimes in specific literary contexts. There are also a couple of repetitions about the characters, which although may make sense from the point of view of an unfolding storytelling, still does take some precious storyline time.

Returning to the novel as such, there are elements so familiar to almost all Jewish stories from the German-speaking realm - both in terms of common tragic destiny and, in some cases, assimilation. There are also many details that are resurging more and more boldly lately, especially related to the stealing - concealed for so many reasons - not only of Jewish properties, but of art and valuable objects, as well as book collections. However, the specific personal traits are equally important and do make the stories uniques and worth telling.

Isidor. Ein judisches Leben contributes to the emerging literature in German, by Jewish authors, about Jewish lives before and during the Shoah. The mentions: ´in German, by Jewish authors, about Jewish lives´ are simulataneously important for the sake of authenticity and owning the narrative in a way that does not try to excuse or to edulcorate the facts, but to share stories as they were, instead of fitting into a narrative imposed from outside the Jewish realm.

The outstanding poetic cover deserves a special mention as well, and as usual, I am in awe about the high quality of the covers of German books.

Rating: 3.5 stars

Book Review: Brazen by Julia Haart

´I may be tiny, but I can be deadly´.

I am a consumer of almost everything about the condition of the off-the derech. What is now at the margins, the dissent wave against the various establishments, may one day represent the mainstream. It used to happen with the Hasidim once upon a time as well.

However, after reading quite a couple of such testimonies - and watching some movies as well - there is a given setting which defines this emerging genre, a pattern which at the limit is a easy/cheap recipe stereotypically reproducing itself. Some of its features are: escape from the ´cult´; cutting the ties/becoming estranged with/from the ´old world´ - among which children, siblings, parents and/or spouse; few paragraphs repeated in different forms about the oppressive dress code and the nida laws; excessive search for sexual adventures; getting saved by someone, something, an organisation, literature, the non-Jewish boyfriend. It looks as a cartoonish - cynical - description which unfortunately is what often the ´outside´ world wants to listen. No matter if it is the same old story re-told again and again, important is to have a bit of fun with an escape-game-from the Middle Ages cultish mindset.

There are some noticeable exceptions but unfortunately the more I read the less I am interested in continuing this intellectual adventure. Although, my curiosity is bigger than my literary standards, therefore count on my to review the next OTD memoir.

My latest journey was Julia Haart of Netflix´s My Unorthodox Life, Brazen. I had watched the movie - rather said, punished myself to do it - and was appalled by the vulgarity and exhibitionism. Plus, doing a bit of research, I realized how fake this ´reality´ show actually was. Both Haart and her daughter Batsheva divorced shortly after the end of the series, despite the excessive displays of love and harmony towards their respective spouses. 

I started the book though with an open mind and I appreciated the first part of it, despite the high need of editing and the overall bad and incoherent writing. Plus an inadvertence or two, like mentioning that ´yeshivish´ is a sect. 

Haart was born in Soviet Russia and left with her non-religious parents when she was three years old. Her parents, scientists by background, turned religious - not Chabad though - and with the enthusiasm of the new comers hurried to adopt extreme versions of different religious practices. Although lacking a formal education, Haart used to be a teacher - religious, including - in various girls school. As a Monsey resident, the mother of four felt oppressed by the men-predominant society, parting ways to a world where ´women acquire greatness by proxy´. Her taking off from the religious world took her around 12 years. At 42, she left her husband and started a career as shoe designer, living the fashion glamour while living in hotels by the week and heimische for her children during the weekend. 

The ways in which she fought to keep his children close, despite her more and more extravagant style is meritory and no matter the circumstances, her success had a positive impact on the life of her children - her daughter Miriam and Batsheva are social media stars with fat advertising contracts and following. 

Most probably there is much hidden from her story, that may not suit her ´feminist´ assertions. Less sordid still obsessive, her sexual adventures do not necessarily bring anything spectacular to her story. In 2022, many women do have sex when and where and with whom they want, especially her aimed audience. If they would have been told in a more literary way, maybe there would have been a higher interest, otherwise, a big bored sigh from me. 

Her deep anger for being for over 40 years kept captive in a society not at all friendly towards women - bodies, clothes, their careers other than baby-making - is understandable. But there were people among the religious who invested first a humongous amount of money, without recipes, in her company. 

Haart adds the character of the ´business women´ to the series of OTD life stories. It was partially interesting to get into her story, although I doubt greatly the veridicity of many facts. And a memoir whose authenticity is in doubt ceased for being a memoir at all. 

Book Review: Lot Six by David Adjmi

I am for a long time very conflicted about when exactly someone may consider his or her life experience rich enough for writing a memoir. I am not radically opposed to the idea that someone before the retirement age has a life eventful enough to turn it into a 1 person personal story, but given the amount of such accounts I came across in the last years and months, I will be very cautious in considering that all those experiences are worth writing about and nevertheless reading them.

After such a skeptical, arrogant even start, let´s talk the book. Lot Six by David Adjmi is a finely written account of the author´s struggle in and out the very conservative - not necessarily strictly religious in the classical Orthodox sense of the world - Syrian-Jewish community in NYC. In my experience, the Syrians are one of the most insular Jewish communities, with a very different and highly exclusivistic attitude towards other Jews, for historical and sociological reasons that I will maby discuss on another occasion.  

The book is not one of those Off-the Derech books, about an Orthodox Jew that left the fold for becoming an atheist, opposed to his previous community. Instead, it is an account of a process of coming at terms with an identity, sexual as well, reinventing a new destiny, but without necessarily opposing the old world. From this perspective, the story appeals too much to audiences that are ready for this kind of accounts, without a dramatic ending - he still stays in contact with his family, although he is dismissed and run away himself from the yeshivish world. 

Adjmi remains connected to his disfunctional family which struggles with money. His family is broken way before the official separation of his parents: his father is a con, he and his siblings are struggling with depression and his mother is rather psychologically absent. ´People in my family talk about killing themselves all the time´. 

Although the family is not strictly religious, rather normally Jewish, they sent him to a yeshiva, where his religious experiences are rather peculiar. There is anything special about his Jewish heritage that remains his background story because, as we many of us know, you cannot divorce it easily, if ever.

Personally, I´ve found the part dedicated to the search for his own literary voice more interesting and revelatory. It made me curious to read some of his plays that are inspired by his personal encounters and life experiences. But as much as I consider it is important to share a personal experience and story of reinvention and transformation, eventually helping other people going through similar experiences to raise and find their voices, sometimes I felt that all the information was enough for a long article at the first person, but definitely too long for a full book. As I had access to the book in audiobook format, I´ve found the book experience even longer...

Rating: 3 stars

Political Memories of an Enfant Terrible of Israeli Politics

I cannot decide if Yair Lapid is a better journalist than politician or the other way round, but his father, Tommy was for sure a journalist first. Part of the first wave of journalists in Eretz Israel, Lapid brought into the country a Mitteleuropean tradition of unconventional debate and anti-iconoclastic fervor. Such people do rarely have followers unless one grew up in the daily ambiance and ambivalence of addressing politics in that part of the world. 

The Memories After My Death was written in 2009 in Hebrew, by Yair, and recently translated into English. Probably between translations and the writing of the son, original nuances were lost, but someone curious both about Tommy Lapid and his times can still receive satisfactory answers to a large array of questions. 

The story is told chronologically, from the childhood years in Novi Sad and Budapest to the first impressions upon landing to Israel and Lapid's adventures in the world of post-communist businesses mediating media purchases in Central and Eastern Europe on behalf of billionaire Robert Maxwell. Episodes of a life well spent taking wholeheartedly all the possible professional and personal challenges. 

My feeling was that the book was pending between a story based on life facts - which is a good approach, as maybe for many mostly of younger age, the interesting past of Tommy Lapid wasn't always obvious - or a story built around ideas and life philosophy - an approach requesting in-depth elaboration. From the last point of view, I think that many of the political controversies he created, especially in relation with the religious mainstream were diplomatically muzzled by the more experienced sabra politician of a son. 

All the observations being made, this book is worth reading it if interested in some historical insights into the recent genesis of Israeli politics and media history. There are echoed from a different time and moral age, a reminder that times are always changing and it is good that way too.

Rating: 4 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered by the publisher in exchange for an honest review

Book Review: The Book of Separation

When the Jewish divorce is pronounced, the Biblical term for the get document given to the woman is sefer kritut, in translation, the book of termination or the book of separation. In her memoir, Tova Mirvis retraces her journey from the moment when her separation process started - not only from her husband, but from her Orthodox life - until she climbs her own mountain and tries to set up her free life, the original version of herself. 'After years if trying to silence the voice inside her that she did not agree, did not fit in, did not believe, she strikes out on her own, to discover what she does believe and who she really is'. 

I've previously read and reviewed another book by Tova Mirvis and liked both the approach and the writing. Her memoir to be released in a couple of months, flows beautifully, streaming through the various tensed and even anxious life moments, while trying to put herself and the scattered fragments of her life together. 

After 17 years of marriage and three children, the lines between herself and the community, the path of the tradition and her own path are blurred and where other could easily find comfort and peace she is tormented by questions. Her incessant questioning marks her progressive taking off, starting from getting away from the community pressure - 'we were taught, we were told, we were watched' -, following her voice as a writer, ending up her own struggles with observance and reconciling her old and new ways with her new situation as a divorced woman partly in charge with the education of her children, with a father remaining Orthodox. 

Sometimes, making choices is much easier although painful and difficult, than being accepted for what your choices made of you. 

I loved everything about this book, but especially the honesty and the genuine way she opens her heart. Is that kind of book that I would not have anything against reading twice.

Rating: 5 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered by the publisher in exchange for an honest review

Book review: Cut me Loose, by Leah Vincent

Oh, I had so many second thoughts telling me NOT to read this book, from a previous mediocre experience with a memoir written by someone in a similar situation to the precaution of not hurrying up to read a book everyone is excessively talking about in the media. But one single second was enough to start reading it and to continue doing so till the last page.

And what a good decision to spend some late hours in the night it was. The book is beautifully written, with open heart and honesty. An emotional and sensitive person, Leah is looking for her own sense of self. Being one of the 11 children of a Yeshivish family she looks for affection, attention and sense in a world of rules and 'fabricated mask superimposed'. On a side note, I saw recently some mentions regarding the 'Yeshivish sect', which is a misunderstanding. Maybe people are too much used with the exotic Satmer stories and cannot go out of this mind frame.

Honest reporting

She doesn't want revenge or to expose people, and is delicate enough to alter details about her family. She is writing about herself, a young Jewish girl that wants to find her own way. It is not easy to continue living within the limits of your small world nowadays without having even a limited contact with the big world and through those interactions arise the tension and the need of sense and stronger identity. Sometimes, you return to your world as long as you can understand or you are explained. If not, the temptation is to keep going and break the chains of family and obedience.

The first reason of conflict is her natural desire to go to college. But she needs to get married and take care of the family and with a good yichus - her father a rabbi and her mother a descendant of the Vilna Gaon, she had a fair amount of chances to get a good match. 

I'd heard myself more than once that a girl should not be so 'klug' if is looking to marry well. And that Torah learning is only for men. But times changed and her family belongs to the mind set of the second WWII generation trying to cope with more observance and limitation from the overall world. The main line against is: College boys and girls mixed and spent their time studying wasteful and immoral ideas'.

Women, including from good yeshivish and hasidic background are learning as much as men and sometimes even earning more than them. There are some limits of professional achievements and the success doesn't go smoothly. 

Too late

'If they would have negotiated with me, I would have been satisfied. Perhaps I never would have left my faith', she says. This long relationship with loneliness that Leah's choices will bring is the result of the lack of compromise. She wanted to be saved from her rebellion, but with love and affection and a little bit of direction. She did not receive it because the parents were either too busy or simply unable to understand what she was looking for. And why. Her father accused her often she is looking for attention, but it is nothing wrong with it. Wrong was her perfect loneliness: without friends, relatives to take care of her and financial support, she is left with her own choices and she is struggling looking for affection, herself and a new sense in life. 

Despite the nightmare of being raped and neglected and abused, and being hunted by suicidal tendencies she made it to Harvard. The tone of her writing is sincere, far from being pathetic and sweetly ironic: 'A Yeshivish girl who could fall for a Rastafarian drug dealer should be bold enough to go to college'. Once accepted to Harvard, she was finally able to tell to herself: 'nobody can tell me I am worthless'. Of course one can live well without Harvard but for her, it was the final societal confirmation that she is good, and smart and can have her own life. Her bet was successful, but she is among the lucky gifted few who did it. 

Loneliness

And again, there is the loneliness one can hardly cope with, religious or not. Most part of the time she was left alone, with her choices and desperation and lack of alternatives because beyond her capacity of imagination. She doesn't know the language and is unable to find friends. She take a small sign of attention a manifestation of love. And when the 'love' is over, she is again left alone.

'The relief I found in cutting my skin helped me cope as I lived my split life of religion and college, modesty and loneliness, hope and memory'. She never keeps learning though and think back about her experiences, she is making new friends and succeed to marry and have a child. Plus, she finished Harvard and creates good writing. There are not bad children, only inexperienced parents and being able to recognize the mistakes and look for permanent improvement is part of the Yiddishkeit. Those who decided to went frei are not worse than the rest, but individuals looking as much as the rest of us for sense and sensibility. Loneliness is horrible and no one has the right to condemn someone to went through it, as Leah did. Helping when needed is a huge responsibility and burden and no one should be left alone.

I strongly recommend the book to anyone, regardless of the degree of observance; there is a lesson to be learned from everything and this honest story has a lot to teach us all.