A Rabbi's Reflection on 'Unorthodox'

Netflix's "Unorthodox" miniseries was a major Jewish cultural event during the COVID-19 shutdown, especially because it was mostly acted in Yiddish. Inspired by Deborah Feldman's 2012 memoir of the same name, it follows Esther "Esty" Shapiro (Shira Haas), a young pregnant Hasidic wife as she flees from the Yiddish-speaking haredi (ultra-Orthodox) Satmar community in Williamsburg, Brooklyn to Berlin, Germany. Feldman went on to write two other memoirs, "Exodus" (2014) and then "Exodus, Revisited" (2021), which provides the most insight into Feldman's background and perspective. I offer here an American Conservative rabbi's reaction to the TV series, to the memoirs, and to the challenges that both offer to Jewish observance.