Picture this really shiny nylon fabric and thick, floppy, long sleeves, and pants covered with an extra layer of material to make it look like a skirt. My principal would walk by and slap me on the ass and be like, “Your skirt shows too much.”Įvery summer, starting when you were 8, you were sent to a Hasidic summer camp upstate can you describe the bathing suit you had to wear? No matter what I wore, the school principal always had a problem with me, because I’m a little Kardashian-esque and I developed young. If you had a curvy body, then there was something wrong with you. Now you can only wear high-neck blouses, with woven fabrics, because their theory is that woven fabrics don’t cling. You used to be able to wear a long-sleeve, high-neck T-shirt. But during your adolescence the law became even more restrictive.įeldman: When I was 11, they changed the clothing rules. The Post: From a very early age, Hasidic girls are expected to wear skirts and shirts that cover them down to their wrists and ankles. Women aren’t allowed to eat out.” Feldman stands in her old Hasidic neighborhood in Williamsburg. 14, she chronicles her oppressive upbringing and arranged marriage.Īt 23, emboldened by classes at Sarah Lawrence College, she left her husband and the community for good - taking her 3-year-old son with her.įeldman recently discussed her experiences with The Post over (very nonkosher) crabcake sandwiches and Key lime tarts: “I think I love eating out more than most people,” she says, “because I was never allowed to do it. In her memoir, “Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots,” out Feb.

Deborah Feldman with her son and ex-husband. Abandoned by a mother who left the faith and a father who was mentally disabled, she was taken in by her grandparents, who brought her up to be a quiet, obedient, God-fearing woman who would get married in her teens and start a large family right away.

Until two years ago, Feldman was part of the ultra-conservative Hasidic Satmar community based in Williamsburg. Then she begins to talk about her background. Clad in a miniskirt, semi-sheer sweater and cowboy boots, this confident, stylish young woman seems every bit your typical New Yorker. Sitting in a cozy Upper East Side restaurant, 25-year-old Deborah Feldman stashes her copy of “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” in her handbag and greets the chef, who’s come out to say hello.

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