Western Utopia and Dystopia in Feldman's Novel Unorthodox and the Homonymous Netflix Series
By Ioannis Salaounis
A Thesis submitted to the Department of English Literature and Culture, Faculty of Philosophy of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Master of Arts in English and American Studies
Thesis Supervisor: Prof. Aikaterini Kitsi
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki March 2021
Salaounis 2
Table of Contents Acknowledgments ...... 3
Abstract ...... 4
Introduction ...... 6
Chapter One: The Depiction of the West as a Utopia and an Escape for Oppressed Women, as Seen Through Esty's Eyes ...... 14
1.1 Deborah's Doubts About her Community ...... 15
1.2 Esty's/Deborah's Ordeal in the Hasidic Community and her
Escape to Berlin...... 17
1.3 The Scene in the Lake ...... 26
1.4 A New Lifestyle ...... 29
1.5 Education and Cosmopolitanism ...... 33
Chapter Two: Dystopian West ...... 39
2.1 The Depiction of the Hasidic Community in Unorthodox ...... 41
2.2 Western and non-Western Woman ...... 45
2.3 Femonationalism in Unorthodox …………….………………………...... 50
2.4 Women's Exploitation ...... 54
2.5 The Superiority of the West Versus the Other
Man...... 56
2.6 The "Threat" of the "Un- Emancipated"...... 60
Conclusion ...... 63
Works Cited ...... 65
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Acknowledgements
First of all, I would like to thank my supervisor, Prof. Aikaterini Kitsi, for her guidance and support throughout my undergraduate years and of course, for the completion of this thesis. Also, I would like to thank my beloved parents and my brother who have helped me all these years and believed in me. I would like also to thank Marianna Setsidou for her invaluable help. A special thank you goes to all my other professors as well, who have helped me during all those years that I have spent in Aristotle University.
A big thank you to all my relatives and friends, who have supported me in any ways imaginable and still do every day. Without all this help, I could not be here today and for this support I am grateful. Especially, during this difficult year, their aid was priceless.
Salaounis 4
Abstract
Deborah Feldman's book Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My
Hasidic Roots was published in 2012 and depicts the writer's life in a Hasidic community in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York. In this memoir, Feldman narrates her life's experiences in this closed religious community, which insists on practicing
Orthodox Jewishness and adhering to the traditions of Eastern European Jews.
Deborah, the main character in the memoir, confesses how hard it is for a woman to endure her position in this authoritarian, patriarchal society, where women are not allowed to educate or entertain themselves or even make decisions about their own body, clothes, appearance etc. These particularly harsh circumstances that are imposed on every Jewish woman who lives in this Hasidic community are a means of controlling their lives and sexuality. Women's sole role is reproduction; as a consequence, they are not allowed to indulge in anything that the community regards as inappropriate for them because their only focus should be to bear as many children as they can in order to make up for the Holocaust Jewish victims. For Deborah
Feldman and Esty as well (the character that functions as Feldman's persona in the mini-series which is based on the book) the only salvation from this confined life is their passage to a westerner's way of living. The flight to Berlin is for both characters an escape from their dysfunctional marriage and the promise of new opportunities for them and their children.
This essay will explore how the West, which in this case is presented to the reader through the depiction of Berlin in the mini-series, functions as a Utopia for
Esty because it offers her whatever the Hasidic community of Satmar in NY denied her; a meaningful life, full of opportunities and possibilities. Using feminist and film theories, this thesis will argue how Berlin is presented as a western Utopian place Salaounis 5 where every dream can be fulfilled. The latter chapter of this thesis will propose a different reflection of the West. More specifically, through the prism of Sarra Farris' notion of femonationalism and Chandra Talpade Mohanty's post-colonial feminist thinking, this essay will also argue how the western Utopia that is presented in the
Unorthodox mini-series, is in fact a Dystopia due to the fact that it exploits women in a different way. West's depiction of women that belong to religious and cultural, non- western backgrounds is inaccurate due to the fact that the West wants to portray the non-western woman as the submissive victim of the evil, oppressive and misogynist
Other Man who controls her. Then, this essay will show that the West strongly encourages these non-western women (like Esty) to conform to western ideologies and values in order to escape their oppression and through this assimilation, become
"members" of the western civilization and thus serve other purposes and practices which will be originating from westerners themselves. Non-western women are a valuable workforce for the West and also a way through which the West can present its (false) superiority to other cultures.
Salaounis 6
Western Utopia and Dystopia in Feldman's Novel Unorthodox and
the Homonymous Netflix Series
Introduction
At the beginning of the fourth episode of the Unorthodox Netflix mini-series,
Esty Shapiro's family is present at the holy holiday of Passover Seder. Passover Seder is a ritual feast that marks the beginning of Passover. The youngest child that is able to attend it both physically and spiritually is requested to ask the holy Four Questions, that are included in the Haggadah,1 by an elder. Esty's grandfather answers to the little boy's questions by reciting the Haggadah and speaks of the great ordeals that Jews underwent in the past and how they were liberated by God through Moses (Part 4
53:55-52:00). This is one of the many scenes that indicate one of the many issues that this Netflix mini-series explores: the Jewish Hasidic culture of the Satmar community in Williamsburg, New York. Other issues that this particular TV series touches upon are the oppression of woman in the Hasidic community and the benefits of living outside of such religious communities.
The Unorthodox TV series, which streamed online on Netflix in March 2020, was created by Anna Winger and Alexa Karolinski, the former being an American writer and producer who currently lives in Berlin and the latter a German director, while the direction was undertaken by Maria Schrader, a German director as well. The
Unorthodox mini-series is inspired and partially based on Deborah Feldman's memoir called Unorthodox: The Rejection of my Hasidic Roots (2012). Feldman is a Jewish writer who resides in Berlin at the moment, just as Winger, and was born in the
Hasidic community of Satmar in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York. She was raised as an Ultra-Orthodox Jew in a very restricted, fully religious environment where
1 A Jewish text that is being read during the holiday of Passover Seder as a way of conveying (especially to young Jews) stories that are included in the book of Exodus and fulfilling this particular holy ritual-holiday. Salaounis 7 women's sole life purpose is to give birth to children in order to make up for the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust. In her memoir, Feldman analytically narrates her childhood, her experiences in this strict community and how she eventually fled from it with her son due to the fact that she could no longer bear this kind of life.
Through her book, she explicitly explains how difficult it was, especially for a girl like her, who lacks parental support,2 to be raised in such a patriarchic community. Being denied the right to education and entertainment, Deborah realized that she had to escape this religious community. This thesis will argue through the use of feminist and film theories, how and in what ways Deborah's Hasidic community is oppressive towards women and how Winger' and Karolinski's TV series makes an attempt to create and present a utopian western city in Berlin for Esty where she can indulge in happiness and everything else that she cannot obtain in her religious community. Berlin is depicted as an ideal place where Esty3 finds happiness and gains everything that her community denies her. The second chapter of this thesis will propose a different interpretation of the West. More specifically, through the prism of
Sarra Farris' notion of femonationalism and Chandra Talpade Mohanty's post-colonial feminism, this essay will also argue how the western Utopia which is presented in the
Unorthodox mini-series, is in fact a Dystopia due to the fact that it exploits women in a different way comparing to the one of the Hasidic community. This essay will present some cases that portray this TV series as misleading, in regard to the superiority of the West and its culture towards other oriental religions and people that
2 Deborah's father and mother were divorced due to her father's incompetence to perform his duties as a father and as a husband. Also, her mother was unable to obtain Deborah's fostering due to the community's unjust beliefs and attitudes towards women, and fled to Europe. 3 Deborah's name is used whenever there is a reference to the book or her religious community and Esty's name is used whenever there is a reference to the mini-series. Deborah and Esty's religious community are the same and the Hasidic community that is portrayed in the mini-series is very similar to the one that Deborah describes in her memoir, since Esty is just a persona for Deborah. However, this mini-series is not a biography of Deborah Feldman but just a way to depict life in the Hasidic community and life in a non-religious, Western society.
Salaounis 8 originate from the so-called "Third World".4 According to the notion of femonationalism, the portrayal of the western world as superior to other cultures and the depiction of the non-western man as evil, misogynist and oppressive towards women is one instance of the Unorthodox mini-series' narrative, which promotes a rather religious stereotype regarding non-westerner religions and an excuse for westerners to persuade the women of those cultures to assimilate into western norms.
Furthermore, this introduction will offer background information regading the Hasidic
Jews and will shed some light on why Esty left her community and fled to Berlin.
An important fact to mention is that the homonymous Netflix TV series portrays one more aspect of Deborah's life that the book does not; namely, the female protagonist's stay in Europe. More specifically, Winger's and Karolinski's mini-series production attempts to offer its viewers one more aspect of Deborah's life in Europe in a detailed manner; at the end of her memoir, Deborah flees from her religious community in Brooklyn and some years later she emigrates to Berlin. Due to the fact that Feldman is a well-known writer, the 2020 Unorthodox mini-series created a fictitious character named Esty to function as her persona. Whatever happens to Esty during her stay in New York in the series, is based on Feldman's memories that are included in her memoir. However, Esty's experiences in Europe are not a part of
Deborah's book. In the mini-series, the western world (in this case the city of Berlin) is contrasted to the Hasidic context, which is prevalent when Esty is in the community of Williamsburg, and is presented as a means of escaping from this restricted and rigorous, religious community.
Since the ancient times, Jews have been a group of very misunderstood people, yet very persistent in their beliefs, who try to maintain their religious practices
4 In the book Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism (1991), Mohanty states that people who have strong links with countries that belong to the "non-European third world" such as Asia, Africa or Latin America are considered to be "third world peoples" (5). Salaounis 9 and culture against all odds. According to Robert Wistrich, Jews are the people who are most hated throughout the history of western Christian Civilization (Ch.1).
Blamed for the murder of Jesus Christ, as well as for other atrocities that happened throughout history, the prejudices that surround Jewish people are countless. Other false accusations, that Wistrich also mentions in his book A Lethal Obsession (2010), include involvement in magic rituals, forging alliances with the Anti-Christ and controlling the world's financial system with the aim of dominating the entire planet
(Ch.1). This hatred and prejudice was culminated in World War II when over six million Jews died by the Nazis. Being controlled by Adolf Hitler, history's most infamous anti-Semitic, Jews suffered a holocaust, which resulted in the destruction of the Jewish population across Europe.5 Lynn Rapaport argues that "[b]y the end of
World War II, the Nazis had murdered approximately 6 million European Jews, reducing the world Jewish population to fewer than 11 million" (188). Trying to rebuild their lives and their religion, many of them immigrated to the U.S.A. As Dana
Evan Kaplan states, Jewish Orthodoxy in America "had been strengthened by the arrival, after World War II, of almost 150.000 immigrants between 1944 and 1952" and "[m]any of them were Holocaust survivors from Eastern Europe" (71).
Orthodox Judaism is one of the many basic sections of Judaism and it is also the religious sect in which Deborah belongs to. One of Orthodox Judaism's branches is the Haredi Orthodox Jews who, during and after the World War II, traveled to
America and settled as a community in the suburbs of big cities like Chicago and New
York (71). These ultra-orthodox Haredi Jews formed their communities in the suburbs and one of these communities is the Hasidic community of Satmar which is located in
Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York, where Deborah was raised. Lawrence Grossman
5 For more about the effect of Holocaust on Jewish lives read the whole of Lynn Rapaport's seminal article "The Holocaust in American Jewish Life". Salaounis 10 explains that these Haredi Jews of the Satmar community chose to live in America rather than immigrate to Israel like other Jews, because they remain "adamantly opposed to the very existence of the State of Israel on the grounds that Jews may not create a state until the messiah comes" (97).6 The Hasidic Jews are part of the Haredi
(Ultra) Orthodox Judaism and they consider themselves to be the most authentic
Jewish group due to their strict, religious everyday life and their harsh rules.
Feldman's Hasidic community is called Satmar and, as Kaplan affirms, many
Hasidic Jews of the Satmar community moved to Williamsburg (71). According to
Deborah Feldman, "Satu Mare, or Satmar, in Yiddish, is a city on the border of
Hungary and Romania" ("A Note from The Author"). The author elucidates that Satu
Mare is the origin of the name that is given to this religious community due to the fact that a rabbi, named Rudolf Kasztner, who was saved by a lawyer and immigrated to
America with other Holocaust survivors, wanted to name this Hasidic sect after his town's name "in an effort to preserve the memory of the shtetls7 and communities that had been wiped out in the Holocaust" ("A Note from The Author"). Furthermore,
Feldman adds that Hasidic Jews maintain their almost extinguished heritage by adhering to their religious norms and cultural beliefs, such as wearing Jewish dresses, speaking only in Yiddish and giving birth to as many children as possible in order to avenge for their victims under Hitler's reign and reinstate the Jewish population.
Hasidic Jews of the Satmar community hold the belief that acculturation and assimilation into other cultural and political systems, such as these found in
Europe, America and the western World in general, is the reason why God punished
6 According to Jewish Virtual Library, many Orthodox Jews oppose Zionism (the notion that Jews should reclaim their homeland-Israel- and to maintain their cultural and religious heritage) because they hold the belief that this is a blasphemous act that usurp God's role and that only through the future redemption will the real Jews reclaim spiritually their Holy Land. For such reasons, Jews are experiencing daily the "life of exile through the mirror of the biblical mode of expulsion, whether the expulsion from the Garden of Eden or freedom from slavery in Egypt (Gelbin and Gelman,5). 7 Small towns with Jewish population. Salaounis 11 them through the Holocaust, because they forgot their true nature, their Father in
Heaven and His holy commands. For this reason, while situated in America, they operated and lived only within their communities' boundaries and created a propaganda full of myths and prejudices for the younger Jews, in order to keep them restrained and controlled in the case that some desired to live a different life out of the
Hasidic community. This indoctrination proved to be quite successful since, as
Grossman states Jews were repelled "by a modernity they associated with a threatening non-Jewish world, [and] they were unprepared to compromise with it"
(90).
Jewish men secured their religious community's continuity by forming numerous yeshiva schools and having their young population study the Torah and the
Talmud many hours per day (Grossman 96). This education forms their mindset and leads them to live a life based on the notion that they should never underestimate God again so as to not get punished with a new Holocaust. For the same reason, they instruct their women to pursue a life whose sole purpose is to bear children and force them to follow strict religious rules. As far as the leader of the Hasidic community is concerned, the rabbi, he is perceived as God's deputy and is also viewed as "the repository of God's will, […] who, in most cases, descends from a long line of
Hasidic masters" (Grossman 97). Grossman clearly indicates that the rabbi is so important that Hasidic Jews respect him and follow his every decision.
However, all these strict adherences to tradition and religious practices oppress Deborah, as well as her persona Esty in the mini-series, to such a great degree that they both fled from their communities. This is the point where the TV series differs from the book. As much as the book covers Deborah's life in Brooklyn and the oppressive Hasidic community, the Unorthodox mini-series creates a beautiful image Salaounis 12 of the West and more specifically western Europe which functions as an escape and utopian place for Esty's problems. Winger and Karolinski manage to create an ideal destination for Esty in Berlin where an oppressed woman like her is saved by the western way of living, western norms and political/economic systems; something that the Hasidic community of Satmar in New York fails to offer her. The "strict ritual practices" of Judaism as well as the rabbis' rules force Deborah to leave the community (Davidman 9). This is depicted in an almost similar way in the TV series as well. When Deborah's baby is born, she realizes that it will be the best for them if she flees the community and travels to Europe.
One of the advantages that the real West8 offers to Deborah/Esty is access to the public sphere. More specifically, as Frances Raday concludes in her article
"Modesty Disrobed-Gendered Modesty Rules under the Monotheistic Religions"
(2013), "[t]he patriarchal roots and impact of gendered modesty on women [that the
Hasidic community impose on the Jewish women since they control what they should wear and how they should act on them] have to be seriously weighed against all the positive reasons women may have for identifying with a religious community and its rules" (299). Such rules constrict women's role and can be considered as a violation of woman's human rights (299-300). Thus, the West is depicted as the ideal, utopian location for Deborah/Esty by permitting and offering to them everything that is denied them in Williamsburg. The people that Esty meets in Berlin, the choices that she is offered regarding education, clothing, entertainment, eating habits and sexual life as well as her reunion with her mother, are considered to be some of the vital characteristics that the mini-series attributes to western cultural systems, which are
8 My use of the phrase "real West" denotes here everything that is relevant to Western culture, politics, norms and economy. Although, Deborah lived in New York, during her stay in her community, she was denied almost everything that a middle Western woman in her age would consider rightful such as access to higher education or entertainment. See the next chapter for more info. Salaounis 13 implicitly presented as superior to oriental cultural and religious practices like
Judaism.
However, a more detailed look at the mini-series can reveal that in fact
Berlin as well as the West in general, may not be the utopian place that Deborah imagined in her memoir but a rather dystopian place which exploits women indirectly by trying to initiate them in its own culture and its own system as well as portraying their religion and culture as inferior and oppressive towards them. More particularly,
Deborah's religion is portrayed as oppressive towards her and other Jewish women, through Esty's persona in the series, but this depiction of the Hasidic community in the TV series can be regarded inaccurate if analyzed carefully. Various Jewish
Hasidic women, who have seen the mini-series, describe that it is not conveying the whole truth about this community. Also, their arguments in connection with
Mohanty's post-colonial feminist thinking, which argues that westerners are not usually depicting accurately the conditions and the reality of the non-western world, lead to the conclusion that the view of this community is not accurate. This, of course, does not change the fact that Deborah's religion is oppressive up to a point but the exact representation made by Winger conveys a rather exaggerated reality. One more inaccuracy, that is also evident in the mini-series, is when Esty stays in Berlin. The situations that she is involved in, which are all blissful, present the western civilization as the utopian place where nothing wrong can happen; and this is misleading. The people she befriends there or the easiness with which she is accepted for an audition in an expensive college are circumstances that are not always so easily achieved.
Salaounis 14
Chapter One
The Depiction of the West as a Utopia and an Escape for
Oppressed Women, as Seen Through Esty's Eyes
In the very first episode of the Unorthodox Netflix mini-series, Esther
Shapiro tries to escape from the suppressive Hasidic community to which she belongs and she eventually succeeds in doing so. Feldman's book is the basis as well as the inspiration for this mini-series' creation where the West is depicted as an escape for the oppressed people, especially women, and as a Utopian place where they can live a meaningful life without constraints. Feldman's memoir, which is the source text for the mini-series, is used in order for the viewer to fully understand various aspects of the Hasidic community of Satmar in Williamsburg as well as to comprehend Esty's actions and attitude in the mini-series. Esty (or Esther) and Deborah are like two sides of the same coin since Esty's character is inspired by Deborah's memoir.
As Deborah narrates in her memoir, she was facing a great number of ordeals while she was living in her ultraorthodox, Hasidic community in Williamsburg,
Brooklyn, New York. These ordeals included her exclusion from academic education and studies, the forbiddance of reading and entertainment, a suppressed sexuality as well as other aspects of her life that would have been incomplete if she had not escaped from her oppressive community. In line with the book, the Netflix mini-series as well depict the West and western practices9 in general as something helpful and essential for those people like Deborah and Esty, who live a difficult life full of oppression and misery. However, the mini-series adds a more western aspect than the book since it is depicting Esty's life in Berlin after her escape. This particular chapter will explicitly show and analyze, through Deborah's memoir and perspective as well
9 This term is used to describe whatever can be associated with West as far as it concerns its culture, civilization, social norms, political systems or various beliefs. Salaounis 15 as the Netflix homonymous series, how the Jewish woman is oppressed in the Hasidic patriarchal community of Satmar which prevents women from living a happy life and it will also argue how the West, which is mainly depicted and presented in the series, functions as a Utopia and an escape that can offer sanctuary from this oppressive
Hasidic community by offering to Deborah/Esty a better life. Moreover, Esty's assimilation into some western norms like changing her clothing and appearance, and gaining new experiences which were alien to her back in the community, will also be discussed. Deborah and Esty's personal point of view and perception of their experiences present religion from "a gendered perspective" and in that way, the memoir and the mini-series "can highlight the ways in which women find themselves disadvantaged and marginalized" (Bradley 36) .
1.1 Deborah's Doubts About her Community
One of the many Jewish holidays is Lag Ba' Omer. According to the Jewish Virtual
Library, Jews are obligated to count the days from the Passover until the day before
Shavu'ot. There are exactly 49 days between these two holidays and on the 33rd day, the Jewish people celebrate the holiday of Lag Ba'Omer. This period of 49 days is also known as the Omer period. More specifically, the Jewish Virtual Library states that the Omer period apart from its religious reference to the time between Passover and Shavu'ot, is also used as a reminder for "partial mourning in memory of a plague which killed dozens of Jewish scholars during the lifetime of Rabbi Akiba" . 10 The word "Lag" is the number 33 in Hebrew and this particular holiday is usually
10 Passover: Jewish Easter. Shavu'ot: It is one of the most important holidays during which Jews celebrate the giving of the Torah to Moses by God. It is similar to the Pentecost of Christianity during which, Christians celebrate the arrival of the Holy Spirit. (Jewish Virtual Library) Omer: According to Jewish Virtual Library, Omer was used to refer to a sheaf of corn or an omer of grain which was used as an offering on the second day of Passover. Akiba: An important rabbi who lived the 1st century after the Birth of Christ. Salaounis 16 celebrated with large dinners and lighting bonfires. The Jewish Virtual Library also states that the day of Lag Ba' Omer symbolizes a break in this plague. It is during this holiday that Deborah started to have doubts regarding her life in her community and started wondering how it would be if she adjusted to the outside world.
In her memoir, Feldman describes that a lot of firefighters were present during this holiday in her community out of fear for a fire breakout. She states that
"[l]ooking at those smooth-cheeked firemen, I feel a strong and desperate longing to bridge the chasm that lies between us" (59; my emphasis). The Jews detest goyim people (Non-Jewish people) and fear that blending into their civilization would be a catastrophe for them because God would punish them. Feldman realizes that "for once
[she] blends into the crowd" and that these thoughts about desiring to be assimilated in this mysterious, forbidden culture must be suppressed (59). However, even though such thoughts are considered to be sinful, Deborah starts reflecting on the disadvantages of her community as well as the rabbis' harsh rules and prohibitions about women's status, such as the ones forbidding her to "read English books or wear the color red. [The rabbi] isolated [them], made it so [they] could never blend in on the outside" (60-61). Feldman criticizes her rabbi's totalitarian decisions about setting up a community in Williamsburg after WWII with extreme measures and rules while, on the contrary, the Jews who lived in Europe before the war, her grandfather included, "weren't extremists; they were educated people who had homes with wooden floors and Persian carpets, and they traveled freely throughout the Continent"
(60). However, it is important to be stated that even though Feldman starts having these specific thoughts about the western world outside of her community in her memoir, it is the Netflix mini-series which adds the extra characteristic of presenting
Berlin as the place where Esty flees to. In the series, Esty replaces Deborah, and her Salaounis 17 stay in Berlin as well as her experiences there, are parts of the mini-series only.
Deborah's book is crucial in order for someone to understand further the oppression of woman in this Hasidic context through Feldman's point of view but the Utopian and the Dystopian element of the West is being conveyed mainly through the Netflix series.
1.2 Esty's/Deborah's Ordeal in the Hasidic Community and her Escape to Berlin
Both Deborah and Esther, are involved in a complicated and frustrating marriage with men who did not understand them or aid them in their effort to escape the harsh, oppressive circumstances in the community. They both suffer all the restrictions and rules associated with women, and attempt to flee from their communities in order to find sanctuary in the West. Deborah's memoir ends when she gives birth to her son and escapes her community.
Throughout her book, Deborah mentions that the Rabbis of this Hasidic community are imposing strict rules especially to women and the young children.
More specifically, they are catechizing children and women into believing that if they step out of their religious community, the anger of God and bad fate will fall upon them. All these various rules such as a specific code of dressing and behavior, that are imposed on women by Deborah's Hasidic community, remind us of Michel Foucault's notion of docile bodies. In his book Discipline and Punish (1975), Foucault is using the term "docile bodies" to refer to the fact that the modern body is conceptualized as an instrument through which power functions and the way that this body can be disciplined. Analyzing Foucault's theory, Lisa Downing in The Cambridge
Introduction to Michel Foucault (2008) states that the body during the 18th century was conceptualized to be a "raw material capable of being sculpted to and for the Salaounis 18 operation of power" (78). Downing explains that this "philosophical conception of a body which, in its docility, was infinitely manipulable was mobilised by the workings of what Foucault chooses to call the 'disciplines'" (78). Although Foucault's theory starts from the body of the soldier in "pre-modern" times when he was recognized by his "natural characteristics" (78), his theory of "docile bodies" is relevant to this day.
In order to explain power and discipline, Foucault uses Jeremy Bentham's notion of Panopticon. Stephen M. Young in his article about Foucault's disciplinary power states that the Panopticon was "the architectural layout of a prison where the guards reside within a central tower and maintain surveillance over all inmates"
("Michel Foucault: Discipline and Punish"). The structure of this building, a central tower, permitted the surveillance of every inmate in this prison from one guard only.
The inmates though, could not see the guard and in that way they developed "an impersonal and anonymous relationship with power" (Downing 82). Applying this theory in the Hasidic community in Williamsburg, it is apparent that the Hasidic sect functions in a similar way to Foucault's theory of "docile bodies" and Bentham's
Panopticon.
More specifically, Jewish women and children are being raised to be pious and obedient. Rabbis, the leaders of these communities, nurture and teach them to obey God in every aspect and to lead a religious life. This religious life though, entails oppression for women and subjection to patriarchal norms and customs. Especially
Jewish women are "sculpted" into being fully "disciplined". One of the ways of being always obedient and disciplined is by "delimiting and constraining gestures, motions
[and] attitudes" (Downing 80). In her book, Lynn Davidman informs that:
God had commanded the Jews to sanctify their lives by stringently
following all 613 laws in the Hebrew Bible, as they have been Salaounis 19
interpreted by scholars and rabbis throughout the generations. (21; my
emphasis)
Scholars and rabbis are capable and powerful enough to manipulate and interpret laws and rules in the Hasidic community with regard to what their interests are and also, what they believe to be a good way of catechizing women to do their religious duties as birth-givers. Laws such as these are a vital component of a Jew's Hasidic identity because as Davidman contends "bodily practices [which are performed daily by Jews following the Holy laws] are not only visible signs of an interior identity; they actually create one" (212). Considering identity Butler states that it "is performatively constituted by the very 'expressions' that are said to be its results" ( Butler qtd. in
Davidman 212-213) and thus applying Butler's notion to these practices, Davidman deduces the fact that "the very performance of Hasidic rituals constructs a Hasidic identity" (213). Also, Davidman informs that these laws could be organized into
"those that governed gendered and sexual behaviors, diet, dress, and other aspects of physical comportment, as well as those limiting member's exposure to places, ideas, and knowledge that might contradict Hasidic ideals" (67; my emphasis).
Being constantly criticized and monitored for their religious performance and purity, the Jewish women are facing what the inmates in the Panopticon prison did: a watcher they cannot see or touch but one that constantly watches and controls them. The watcher in Jeremy Bentham's notion of Panopticon can symbolize, in this case, the Rabbis and the notion of a God-punisher that they instill into Jewish women's minds since childhood. 11 Forcing Jewish women12 to become "docile" in an
11 If a Jew sinned, he/she was experiencing a "moment of great drama and significance" (Davidman, 65). In her book, she contends that the "Hasidic socialization aimed to convince children that they would be severely punished by God if they failed to observe all 613 biblical commandments as they were interpreted in their respective communities. Hasidic children did not grow up with a conception of a loving and forgiving God; instead they were told that God was harsh and stern and would penalize them for every transgression, even accidental ones" (141). Salaounis 20 indirect way using "discipline" like the Holy laws, the patriarchal Hasidic community, which is controlled mostly by men, accomplishes at creating subjects "who [are] self- monitoring, developmental, the object at the intersection of numerous vectors of management and coercion and, most of all, useful, productive" (Heyes 162; emphasis in the original). Thus, by making women docile, useful and productive, rabbis manage to keep everything and everyone under control and in this way the patriarchal community in Williamsburg continues to function smoothly. Women give birth to as many children as they can, in order to make up for the Holocaust victims, while men are in control of their lives and they avail themselves of the women's effort to be good wives and mothers. For these reasons, Esty is gradually giving up her old habits.
These harsh religious rules were imposed on Jewish women by the community so as to prevent a second Holocaust and to maintain their religious roots.
According to the rabbis of the Hasidic community of Satmar, God punished the Jews through the Holocaust, the most disturbing and cruel part of Jewish and global history of the 20th century, because they were assimilated to other societies and forgot their religion. In the first chapter of her memoir, Deborah describes her teacher's point of view regarding the Holocaust: " 'Assimilation,' my teacher always says, 'was the reason for the Holocaust. We try to blend in, and God punishes us for betraying him'"
(35). In one of her interviews, 13 Feldman contends that:
They [i.e. the rabbis] believed that the only way to prevent another
punishment, another Holocaust from happening was to develop a
12 In the chapter "Freedom and Bodies" in the book Michel Foucault: Key Concepts, Johanna Oksala argues that disciplinary power is different from other earlier forms of bodily coercion "which were violent and often performative: public torture, slavery and hanging for instance. Disciplinary power does not subject the body to extreme violence […] but through detailed training [such as a strict religious environment] reconstructs the body to produce new kinds of gestures, habits and skills (88; my emphasis). 13 This interview can be found in the YouTube video "Unorthodox: Deborah Feldman's escape from Brooklyn to Berlin". Salaounis 21
lifestyle that was stricter than any Jewish lifestyle that had been lived
before and every single rule that they designed was like an extreme
interpretation of a Jewish law and they lived this extreme interpretation
because they believed that they were appeasing God by doing this and
that God would have mercy on them that He would quell His anger
against the Jews people. (0:57-1:26; my emphasis)
From these instances, it is clear that in order for Jews to not be assimilated into other cultural systems or societies, they had to create a barrier which would function as a chasm between their world and the one of the outsiders. Deborah describes that
"[a]ppearances are everything; […] the reason Satmar Hasids dress in such a specific, conspicuous manner is so both insiders and outsiders will remember the vast chasm that lies between our two worlds" (35). Dressing in a different way and living a very different life according to the kind of life which the Holy Jewish rules indicate, is the only way to protect themselves from another divine punishment.
Women, of course, are the ones responsible for the compensation of the six million Holocaust victims, having to use their bodies' functionality. This is the most important reason for rabbis to control women in this patriarchal community. Women are the ones who can ensure the continuity and the future of this religious community.
They are given the task to fulfill this important duty. So, one of the ways that rabbis ensure that the women will remain obedient and disciplined, except for the ways that have been mentioned, is to make them feel insecure with their bodies as well as feel themselves as evil. Being characterized as God's Deputies, the rabbis have the upper hand as far as the rules in this community are concerned. In the same interview
Deborah also argues that: Salaounis 22
[…] if the women are not controlled then the existence and the
permanence and the future of the community cannot be secured so in
order to control the women they have this intense fear of the female
body and female sexuality and so they turned us into the source of evil.
They turned us into the big threat and women are told that their bodies
are very dirty and very shameful and that their sexuality is inherently
evil and that they have to work their whole life just to compensate
themselves and the people around them for the evil they represent […]
you grow up and you learned that your body is disgusting. (5:42-6:24;
my emphasis)
Deborah continues her speech by saying that even though women's body is perceived as a "disgusting" part of them, they had to use it nevertheless for reproduction. Thus, in order to secure that reproduction will be efficient, the community urges women into matchmaking from an early age, usually 17 years of old, with someone respected Jew so as to give birth to as many children as possible.
Matchmaking is one of the most oppressive characteristics of this community for Jewish women due to the fact that it compels them to marry someone they probably do not even know as well as to have many children in order to expand the population of Jews. Matchmaking is obligatory and Jewish women usually do not have the right to oppose it. As Feldman describes in her memoir, one ordinary day her grandmother asks her to shower and dress up so as to be prepared for her meeting with her future husband. Deborah does not know anything about this occasion and she cannot do anything to stop it:
''Where were you so long, mamaleh? It's late, we have to go soon,
schnell take a shower, mamaleh '' […] ''We're looking into a match for Salaounis 23
you, and you are going to see the boy's mother and sister. Your aunt
Chaya and uncle Tovyeh are taking you; they will be here in an hour."
(122; emphasis in the original)
This quote indicates how powerless Deborah's opinion is on the matter since she is not permitted to express her point of view but on the contrary she does what a faithful
Jewish woman should do in such circumstances; she follows the "holy" laws for the sake of her community and the Holocaust victims' redemption.
Subsequently, a successful matchmaking leads to marriage, which is a form of imprisonment for the Jewish women of the Satmar community. Jewish women have to be obedient to their husbands and they are even responsible for his mistakes and sins. In the mini-series, Esty's wedding takes place during the second episode
(Part 2 31:40-26:50) and resembles Deborah's wedding in her memoir(163-168).
Furthermore, during the second episode, a respected woman of the community offers advice to Esther in order to improve her abilities regarding marital relations and obligations. She places emphasis on the fact that she must have children because this is the most important role of the family and in order to do this, she also must have sexual intercourse with him every Friday and only if she is clean (Part 2 52:15-
50:20). In this case, the adjective "clean" implies that the woman should not have her period for at least 7 days and then she also has to perform her duty in mikvah14 bathing pool. Of course, this indicates that the couple will be separated for approximately 15 days15 every month and that women must perform then her marital obligations once again every Friday in order to conceive a child. Men are considered
14 As it is depicted in the mini-series, mikvah is a special place that is used from women in order to perform a purity ritual. This ritual is usually performed after women's menstruation in order to resume her marital obligations. 15 During menstruation Jewish women sleep separately from their husbands as well as one more week during which they are not bleeding and when they perform the mikvah ritual bath. Salaounis 24 to be kings and women their servants and followers. For all these reasons, Deborah and Esty's flee to the West was inevitable.
In the fourth episode, Esty's piano teacher after having been informed that
Esty is pregnant, tells her that she can make her own decisions about her pregnancy in
America. To this statement Esty replies, "Williamsburg is not America. You don't know the rules" (Part 4 31:33-31:27). Esty's teacher knowing about the brainwashing that the young Hasidic Jews are being subjected into in this community, highlights to her that "The rules are imaginary. The eruv wires around the neighborhood aren't electric, there's no moat around the kingdom of Williamsburg filled with crocodiles…Their power is just in your head" (Part 4 31:26-31:14). In Berlin, Esty has control over her body and it is her choice what to do with her life and her child.
More specifically, in the third episode, Esty is visiting a gynecologist and is informed that she has options regarding her pregnancy (Part 3 43:30-43:00, 42:10-42:00). She has the right to choose, something that is not possible in her community. She has the right to abortion till the end of the first trimester of her pregnancy and of course, she has access to medical consultation and support if she desires to keep the baby. In this case, Virginia Santini's words about "a society in which a woman's relationship with her body is her own and in which no woman has to justify or explain taking control of her life" are becoming real through Winger's Utopian city of Berlin (41). The control of woman's own body is a crucial human right that every woman has to acquire and in the case of Esty, this right is offered to her in the West. Santini supports that the right to abortion is very crucial and that women in every country have to fight for it (39-
41).
Thus, Esty, after realizing that the only opportunity for a better life is to escape her community and to flee to the real West, collaborates with her piano teacher Salaounis 25 in secret in order to obtain the necessary files and she flies to Berlin. In Europe, Esty discovers a new place which offers her a better future. Regarding a general utopian place, Parra and Walsh argue that such a "new place [like Berlin] invites utopian thinking"; in other words it is the place where "the contemplation of other possible worlds, coupled with hope and prospect of change for the better" (qtd. in Bray and
Thauer 279).
The first episode of the Unorthodox Netflix mini-series depicts Esther's escape from her Hasidic community in Williamsburg to Germany. Esty manages to flee to the capital city of Germany and there she begins her new life. Having the
German legal papers distributed to her by her mother, Esty obtains German citizenship and thus, she can permanently live there. One of the first instances that indicate how the West is portrayed in contrast with the Hasidic community is lighting.
Wolfgang Thaler as the series cinematographer is responsible "for arranging and controlling the lighting of a film and the quality of the photography" (Giannetti 17,
12th edition). It is detected that the neighborhoods and the buildings in the Hasidic community are usually depicted with low key lighting and some "dramatic streaks of blackness" (17). For example, in Part 1 the scene when Esty has dinner with her grandparents on Shabbos day (40:00-39:00) is poorly lighted. Similarly, the scenes where Esty has a discussion with Yanky (28:00-26:00) or when Esty and her grandmother are testing her wedding dress (5:30-4:30) and even the scene in Part 3, where Esty has sexual intercourse with Yanky, are all scenes located in a room with almost no lighting (18:00-15:20). The lack of lighting of these scenes reflects the gloominess of the Hasidic community in Williamsburg and contrasts it with the West, which is constantly presented with colorful filters, high key lighting and positive mood. According to Louis Giannetti, "[c]olor tends to be a subconscious element in Salaounis 26 film. It's strongly emotional in its appeal" and "psychologists have discovered that . . .
[people] tend to accept color passively, permitting it to suggest moods rather than objects" (22; my emphasis, 12th ed.). It is very interesting that whenever the Hasidic families are depicted in the series, they are usually in a dark room. For example, in the first episode, when Esty family and her husband's family are discussing about what they should do to find Esty, the room is poorly lighted with the curtains closed whereas when Esty meets her friends in Berlin, the scenes usually depict external, sunny places (Part 1 37:23-36:10, 19:59-19:50).
Moreover, Giannetti contends that lighting has a number of different styles, every one of which is "usually designated as a lighting key"; "the style is geared to the theme and mood of a film as well as its genre. Comedies and musicals … tend to be lit in high key… [t]ragedies and melodramas are usually lit in high contrast" (17; emphasis in the original, 12th ed.). In Part 1, when Esty arrives at Berlin and takes a taxi, the scenes throughout the city are illustrated with a high lighting key revealing how embellished and life-saving this country will be for her. Other examples of high lighting scenes that transmit a positive aura are the coffee shop (Part 1, 32:40-32:20), the scene in the lake (Part 1 17:00-14:50) or the music classroom (Part 2 25:00-
24:00), which imply how much Esty enjoys her time in Berlin.
1.3 The Scene in the Lake
One of the most important scenes in this mini-series is also being held during the first episode. In Part 1, Esty randomly meets a couple of music students and she starts spending qualitative time with them and while she gradually becomes a member of their company, she accompanies them to a lake where they intend to swim. It is in this Salaounis 27 crucial moment when Esty truly embraces the West and leaves behind her past and everything that oppressed her. More specifically, Robert, the only German in the company, informs her that the lake, used to be a border for East and West Berlin and every person that escaped through the lake was instantly shot. The goal of those people in the past, was to gain their freedom by escaping through the lake. In the same way, Esty removes her traditional, old-fashioned clothes she used to wear in
Williamsburg and progressively enters the water, while removing her wig, one of the main symbols of her Hasidic patriarchic community. She closes her eyes and thus performs a spiritual ritual through which she is embracing the West, leaving behind everything that restricted her. This symbolic act, demarcates Esty's gaining her freedom. Brigid Delaney states that this scene resembles a "Christian baptism, but instead of joining a flock she is leaving one. A liberation of sorts has taken place"
("Unorthodox: a thrilling story of rebellion and freedom from New York to Berlin"; my emphasis).
Additionally, one more interesting aspect of Esty's emotional condition is that before she enters the lake, she is standing in the shadow of a tree. It is then, when she realizes that she should let her past go and embrace her new western identity that comes forth into the light (Part 1, 18:45-16:03). Esty's movements while she is in the water, are depicted with such detail that magnifies the significance of this act of liberation. "Epic events and exterior locations are presumed to be fundamentally more suited to the medium" (Giannetti 101, 12th ed.). These movements performed by Esty
"are recorded from close and low angles" (15:20-14:50) and in this way "[they] seem more intense, speeded up" (100). The removal of the veil indicates in this case how
Esty abolishes her old self as well as her community's oppression towards women. In her seminal article, Raday argues that some feminist advocates "oppose the wearing Salaounis 28 of the veil or headscarf, regarding them as symbols of patriarchy and oppression of women and not as the products of women's free choice" (284). Also, Raday continues her line of thought by stating that the "French Constitutional Council released a communique declaring […] the veil violates women's equality and the public order"
(284; my emphasis). While Esty was in Williamsburg, she constantly wore her wig, which is another symbol of oppression and violation of women's rights such as the veil or headscarf, in order to indicate her marital status and the fact that it was unethical for someone to look upon her. By removing it, she indicates that she is gradually adapted to a new culture that accepts her.
It can be suggested that Anna Winger tries to accurately illustrate Esty's life in Berlin in such a way so as to draw a parallel between Deborah's real present life there and Esty's fictional life, since the Unorthodox Netflix mini-series can be categorized as a partially realistic and partially fictional TV show. In this way,
Winger manages to show how Esty is saved in the West when she flees from her community. Thus, it is important "to concentrate on what's being photographed" and
"on how it's being photographed" (Giannetti 41; emphasis in the original). Esty's life in Berlin flows in a natural way and she is being transformed from an oppressed to a dynamic woman thanks to the opportunities offered to her in this western city.
Another important issue which is included in this mini-series, is how Esty starts after the scene in the lake to wear different clothes and change, in this way, her personality. In Part 2, Esty tries to wear jeans for the first time in her life (38:50) and from this point onwards Esty is presented more like a western woman rather than a religious, traditional person who wears only old-fashioned dresses and wigs. In her book Becoming Un-Orthodox (2014), Davidman argues that "exiting [the Hasidic] community is dependent upon changing internalized, habitual techniques of the body Salaounis 29 and learning new bodily practices available in the wider society" (214). These techniques are referring to the many laws and rules that Hasidic Jews such as Esty and
Deborah had to follow and constantly perform in their lives. Also, in order for Esty to be assimilated to a western city, she has to relinquish such practices and embrace new ones that will form her new identity.
1.4 A New Lifestyle
Throughout her stay in Berlin, Esther incorporates a new lifestyle into her daily routine not only by changing her appearance and wearing new clothes which resemble a western woman's type of attire, but also switching from Yiddish to English, in her effort to eradicate the effect the community had on her. Giannetti states that "[s]poken language is steeped in ideology. It's an instant revealer of class, education, and cultural bias" (237 9th ed.). Esty's use of English indicates that she starts adopting this lifestyle. Edward T. Hall argues that "[w]henever an American moves overseas, [s]he suffers from a condition known as 'culture shock'. Culture shock is simply a removal or distortion of many of the familiar cues one encounters at home and the substitution for them of other cues which are strange" (199). Experiencing new things like going for swimming or taking a walk without her husband, or hanging out with friends at night, are some of the interesting aspects of life that the West offers her. Davidman suggests that "[i]n learning to create, recreate and represent themselves as non-
Haredim, changes in bodily practices were essential to their transition into the wider society" (18).
In her seminal article "Who We Are and From Where We Speak" (2011),
Paula Moya indicates that identity is the way through which "situated, embodied human beings" interpret the world and everything that surrounds them (80). However, Salaounis 30 regarding the social relations and experiences that one may have, the identity may change because it is something fluid. More specifically, Moya establishes the notion that:
[A]s identities track social relations, they are highly contextual and
subject to change in response to the transformation of social relations;
they come into being through the kinds of experiences we have, and
they inform the way we interpret the world around us. (80; my
emphasis)
By realizing how beneficial the West will be for her, Esty's identity is gradually altered. She adapts her actions, demeanor and her interpretation of various events in her life based on a western way of life. During the scene when she has a coffee with a music teacher, Esty tries ham by accident, a food which is not allowed for a Jew to eat because it is not considered kosher food; 16 she thinks that she may be sick at first but then she realizes that nothing will eventually happen because the Rabbi's preach about the bad effects of non-Jewish food was simply propaganda (Part 2 43:48-42:45). Of course, Davidman argues that "those [practices] that became constitutive of our identity during our formative years could not be completely replaced even as we acquired the cultural knowledge and routines of the body that we incorporated into our new identities" (195). Still, Esty manages to conform as much as she can to her new routine and her new identity by following an everyday program similar to her friends' program. Under these circumstances Moya's speculation about identity and experience that "are understood as mutually-constitutive, with both being relevant for
[…] the production of knowledge" is affirmed (80-81).
16 According to Jewish Virtual Library, Kosher food is a kind of food that is approved by the Jewish dietary law. Salaounis 31
Esty relishes being a part of Robert's17 company because through this relationship, she manages to explore and discover a variety of different activities that she had never experienced before. One crucial moment for Esty and her new western self happens during the third episode. Esty is invited to a club, a place that is strictly forbidden for Jews and especially for Jewish women due to its supposed immoral and lascivious character, and, she is once again experiencing something that was
"supposed to kill [her]", according to her community's beliefs (Part 3 10:45-10:00).
She is dancing, drinking and entertaining herself along with her friends. All of these are happening during the last 11 minutes of this episode and are some of the most crucial parts of the episode.
One important element regarding this club scene is music. Esty and her friends are dancing and drinking beer while listening to electro house music, which is the dominant, atmospheric element of these scenes (Part 3 11:00-5:00). According to
Giannetti, "[w]ith or without lyrics, music can be more specific when juxtaposed with film images" (219 9th ed.). Music as a pure form of art can symbolize many things such as "locales, classes or ethnic groups" or in this case, the mood of the character and interesting connotations about the plot (222). Being combined with medium-shots and low lightning, the music is unfolding interesting aspects of Esty's character. Esty is discovering new aspects of her personality and is experiencing new things. Dancing to the rhythm of this music, which implies an intoxicating feeling on her side, the atmosphere is being prepared for the love scene which is going to follow. Not only does Esty enjoy her stay in that place during the night but she also has sexual intercourse with her German friend Robert. During the last minutes of Part 3, Esty couples with Robert in his room. One more important implication for this scene apart
17 One German young man whom Esty meets a few days after she arrives in Berlin. Salaounis 32 from the music, is that when Esty goes to the bathroom, she randomly meets with some girls who compliment her haircut18 and ask her if she would like to try their red lipstick (8:00-7:50). Giannetti suggests that "[r]ed is a color that's often linked with sex" and the red lipstick that Esty puts on for the first time, connotes its seductive characteristic (23, 12th ed.). The moment that Esty has sex with Robert in his room is contrasted with the sexual intercourse that she had with Yanky in the same episode
(16:00-15:00). Her intercourse with Yanky is something robotic and cool whereas her sexual intercourse with Robert (Part 3 4:30-3:00) happens in a smooth, romantic way which indicates how the West offers sexual freedom, emancipation and expression to oppressed women from tight, religious communities that deny their rights to sexual emancipation.
Throughout the mini-series, Yanky forces Esty to have sexual intercourse with him every Friday, as the Jewish law commands, thinking only about his duty to become father and build a family with as many children as possible. On the other hand, Robert, who functions as a symbol of the West, never forced Esty to do something and their sexual intercourse came in a natural and gentle way. In this scene, an effect similar to backlighting is used for their romantic contact. "Backlighting, which is a kind of semi-silhouetting, is soft and ethereal. Love scenes are often photographed with a halo effect around the heads of the lovers to give them a romantic aura" (Giannetti 21, 12th ed.). The close-ups and the romantic tension that reaches its apex in this scene are disclosing Esty's mood and pleasure.
Furthermore, another interesting characteristic that evolves as far as Esty's appearance and actions , which are constantly changing in this TV series, are concerned, is how the director places emphasis on Esty's appearance in the night club.
18 Not wearing the wig anymore, Esty disclosed her short hair. Salaounis 33
Esty's appearance can be applied to Giannetti's systematic analysis of the costume.
Giannetti categorizes one person's appearance in a film by testing its various connotations such as fabric, silhouette, age, period, class, body exposure, image etc.
(327-328, 9th. ed.). Among other characteristics, Esty's clothing denotes a middle- class, young woman with a slender silhouette, a non-revealing but modern outfit and an elegant image that contradicts her previous appearance with full body dresses which connotes an old-fashioned, strict and controlled way of dressing. In the club, she is wearing a nice dress which exhibits her new identity once more, in contrast to her dressing style while she was in Williamsburg.
1.5 Education and Cosmopolitanism
During the fourth episode, the advantages that are presented and offered to Esty during her stay in the capital city of Germany reach the apex. The music academy, which Esty randomly found out in the first episode, offers to students from harsh environments and severe life conditions a chance to gain scholarship in order to attend this particular college. Esty, after having applied for this special program, is tested by a committee of famous musicians and academics for her musical talents (21:10-
13:30). The fact that the West provides Esther with this opportunity is contrasted to her community's failure to provide her with even a basic education. Τhe Hasidic community in Williamsburg does not allow women to perform simple tasks which are considered granted in an advanced society such as singing or reading.
More specifically, during the fourth episode, when Esty is asked by one of the teachers in the committee why she sang a "secret" song that she was singing with her grandmother in the past, Esty replies that it was "secret" because she "come[s] from a community in Williamsburg, Brooklyn where women are not allowed to sing Salaounis 34 in public" (Part 4 17:44-17:38). 19 Also, when the teacher asks her why this happens,
Esty replies: "A woman performing loudly amongst men is considered to be immodest. Even seductive" (Part 4 17:35-17:28; my emphasis). In her memoir,
Deborah states that her Bubby20 used to sing in a low voice but she stopped it whenever Zeidy used to enter the room because "women are not allowed to sing, but in front of the family [it] is permitted. Still, Zeidy encourages singing only on
Shabbos" 21 (12). The fact that women can be found guilty of seducing men just by singing, reveals how oppressive is this community for women.
Apart from singing, reading is also forbidden for women. In her book,
Deborah is constantly referring to her attempts to hide a book whether a literary or a religious one, in fear of getting caught:
I hide my books under the bed, and [Bubby] hides hers in her lingerie,
and once a year when Zeidy inspects the house for Passover, poking
through our things, we hover anxiously, terrified of being found out.
Zeidy even rifles through my underwear drawer. (26; my emphasis)
Even reading religious books, like the Talmud, is forbidden for women. In the mini- series, even though it is not depicted that Esty is forbidden to read, when she recites holy rules from the Talmud, she is reprimanded by her husband for even trying to read it (Part 3 17:45-17:30).22 Even for men, reading in other languages is regarded to be satanic. Deborah's grandfather clearly states that an "impure language […] acts like a poison to the soul. Reading an English book is even worse" (Feldman 26). Deborah is frequently reading books by Roald Dahl, Jane Austen and other famous writers in
19 The Netflix platform usually uses reverse time tracking and so, all the time references will be reversed. 20 Yiddish word for grandmother. "Zeidy" is a Yiddish word used by Deborah to refer to her grandfather. 21 Sabbath. The seventh day of the week when Jews are resting. Also, known as "shabbat". 22 In her book The Hole in the Sheet (1987), Evelyn Kaye states that "[o]ne learned rabbi has said, 'Whoever teaches his daughter Torah, teaches her lasciviousness' " (67). Salaounis 35 order to cope with her life's anxieties and difficulties. The books inspire her to endure her harsh life's circumstances and conditions in her community.
Deborah explicitly states that the Hasidic's view regarding education is that
"[e]ducation […] leads to nothing good. This is because education-and college-is the first step out of Williamsburg, the first on the path to promiscuity […] that distanced a
Jew so far from God as to put the soul into a spiritual comma" (81). Had Esty not escaped her community, the opportunity to study music would not have been provided to her. Kaye warns that "[w]omen must not give up their education and professional training" (205). Although Kaye is a Jewish woman herself, she strongly opposes anti- woman and strictly religious groups and communities as well as argues that women should not be dependent on men but to pursue their own careers away from their religious communities (Introduction 16-29). In her book, The Hole in the Sheet
(1987), she contends that rabbis and other "backwards-looking religious extremists want to deprive women of the right to education. They want to persuade women that they are incapable of coping in the world outside the home" (26). Moreover, she adds that such religious extremists want to catechize women into believing that their sole role is to become mothers, as rabbis teach young Jewish women to believe in
Deborah's Hasidic community, and that everything that contradicts Hasidic ideologies is inferior and sinful (26-27).
According to Kaye, "the multi- racial, multi-ethnic and extraordinary rich and diverse community of cultures" that we live in (i.e. West) requires education as an essential tool for professional employment and thus survival (27-28). This opportunity and the right to education is given to Esty in Berlin. In this way, western practices and ideologies are allowing Esther to have a meaningful life. In her article,
"Deconstructing Equality in Religion" (2013), Cheryl Preston quotes Elizabeth Salaounis 36
Stanton and other feminists' point of view regarding organized religions and states that "the […] role of religion in women's oppression [is] central" (29). Rosemary
Radford Ruether argues that Judeo-Christian traditions are responsible for "this sexual domination and subjugation" at women's expense (Ruether qtd. in Preston 29). The western Utopia which Esty discovers in Berlin, offers a solution to these problems by offering to everyone a better opportunity in their lives. By offering such escape and solidarity to oppressed women like Esty, the West is fighting the patriarchy of these religious communities which "[f]or centuries, Judeo-Christian teachings have espoused the inferiority of women as a means of maintaining" it (McDonald qtd. in
Preston 30). Depriving women of basic pleasures like singing or reading, the patriarchal Hasidic community in Williamsburg is making efforts to render women incapable of having their own voice or their own will.
In addition to West's advantages, the Netflix Unorthodox mini-series includes the cosmopolitan element in its 4 episodes. Throughout the series, Esty's interaction with other people in Berlin such as Robert, Ahmed, Clemens, Yael and
Dasia, has an interesting characteristic. All her friends come from various parts in the world. Robert is from Germany, Ahmed from Nigeria, Clemens from Poland, Yael from Israel and Dasia from Yemen. Also, their music teacher, Karim, comes from
Arabia. In that way, the West seems to be uniting different people who usually come from harsh circumstances and search for a better future. The issue of cosmopolitanism is very crucial since it is associated with western practices and as Martha Nussbaum argues, "cosmopolitanism's foil and ideological antithesis" is a strictly religious community, nationalism and "religious convictions" (Nussbaum qtd. in Neuman 144).
Esty's, Yael's as well as Ahmed's origins in Williamsburg, Israel and Nigeria respectively hindered them from pursuing their dreams in their countries. After Salaounis 37 listening to the reason for which Esty left her community, Ahmed states, "I hear you
Esty. I mean, imagine being a gay kid in Nigeria. A gay kid with a cello" (Part 2
9:00-8:40). So, people like Esty or Ahmed flee to the West to attain their objectives; objectives that their religious communities do not permit them to obtain. It is also highly possible that the music teacher Karim was raised in a harsh, austere and fully conservative environment in Arabia where he could not pursue his talent in music.
The advantage of cosmopolitanism is evident when he helps Esty pursue her dream as well. A man of different culture and religion helps a Hasidic woman to pursue her goal to become a professional musician in a western, civilized city that unites people
(Part 2 43:55-41:45).
Cosmopolitanism is derived from the words "Cosmos" and "polis" (city), meaning that cosmopolitans are the people who are citizens of the world. This term was used by Diogenes, the ancient, Greek philosopher. Justin Neuman contends that:
To travel smoothly among the flows of global culture and public reason
one need not abandon the nation, but one must, in the dominant
account, be willing to shed the parochial trappings of religion-or at
least relegate such attachments to one's private life. (144)
Esty and her friends are welcomed to respect their religious beliefs, their national origins as well as their world view but not at the expense of their fellow citizens.
Berlin is represented here as the place where everyone can maintain their identity if they like it, or change it as they desire, but always in a way that improves their personality and life standards. Neuman states that any cosmopolitanism "that is worthy of [its] name must offer a model of inclusivity and universalism that both recognizes and reckons with the substantive differences that separate varieties of religious and secular experience" (144-145). Thus, cosmopolitanism and the West Salaounis 38 enable Esty and her friends to achieve their dreams to become musicians despite the difficulties that they addressed in their hometowns in the past. Cosmopolitanism's universal claim is that "all human beings share certain innate rights" that may have been inaccessible to them because of their "class, race, caste and perhaps even gender and sexuality" (Gelbin and Gilman 12).
Last but not least, Winger and Karolinski include a very crucial element in the last episode their TV series. When Esty is singing a Yiddish song and is performing in front of the music instructors, everyone is amazed by her performance.
It is interesting to note, however, that Esty selects a song from her own religious culture and that is implying that even though she fled from her community, she does not fully abandon every aspect of her religion. In his book The Multicultural Riddle
(1999), Gerd Baumann argues that a religion is not just "some cultural baggage that is taken along on migration wrapped, tied and tagged; even when it is, it cannot be unpacked at the other end" (78). Thus, he explains that religion is more like a sextant, it changes regarding the circumstances and the experiences of the believer-carrier
(79). Thus, Esty's connection with her religion does not stop but rather changes at the same time she is assimilating in a new culture that seems to offer her happiness. The ending scene of the series, when Esty finds the little compass that her music teacher gave her in New York, proves Baumann's argument to be precise.
Salaounis 39
Chapter Two
Dystopian West
Anna Winger's portrayal of the West through the Unorthodox Netflix mini- series offers a description and a depiction of how western practices, ideologies and lifestyles can aid someone who originates from a constricted religious community like
Deborah, Esty or some of her friends in Berlin who come from countries that are part of what Chandra Talpade Mohanty calls the "Third World". In other words, this
Utopia that Anna Winger created in the series while Esty is living in Berlin, tried to accomplish what Barbara Goodwin and Keith Taylor characterize as something that purports "to be utopian"; a utopian place "should have universal scope and offer benefits to all those within this frame of reference" (qtd. in Peter Fitting 96). Berlin offers to all its inhabitants like Esty and her company, what they desire and helps them to achieve their goals. Esty's dream to become a professional musician is aided through West's educational and political system which offer her help and guidance.
However, Anna Winger's depiction of the West in this mini-series does not convey the whole picture of how a western city is but rather it embellishes this notion of a western country with hyperbolic statements that in many cases are not so true. It is an indisputable fact that Esty and Deborah's religious backgrounds restricted them from pursuing the kind of life that they wanted but the fact is that the West, which in the mini-series is presented like a miraculous environment where everything can happen, is not being presented in a multifaceted way. In other words, the West is not only the bright side which is being depicted on the show but it has a dark side as well.
As it is portrayed in the TV series, even though a western country can offer various opportunities to a lot of people, it is still a place with many disadvantages, devious practices and unfair political and economical systems that in some ways resemble the Salaounis 40 practices of Deborah and Esty's religious communities. Seen through the prism of
Sarra Farris' notion of femonationalism and other seminal sources23 that analyze non- western people’s religious backgrounds as well, this essay will propose how the western Utopia, that is presented in the Unorthodox mini-series, is in fact a dystopian place due to the fact that it exploits women economically and politically. More specifically, this essay will argue that the West's depiction of women who belong to religious and cultural, non-western backgrounds is inaccurate and this is deliberate due to the fact that the West wants to portray the non-western woman as the submissive victim of the evil, oppressive and misogynist Other Man who controls her.
Projecting various "benefits" of the secular woman in contrast with the norms of the
Hasidic women is one more way that the West uses in order to present the oppression in these communities. Then, this essay will show that the West strongly encourages these non-western women (like Esty) to conform to western ideologies and values, and through this assimilation, they will become "members" of the western civilization. In this way, they will serve other purposes and practices which will be originating from westerners themselves. Non-western women are a valuable workforce for the West and also a way through which the West can present its superiority to other cultures. For such reasons, Esty, is exploited but in a different way.
23 Most of the sources that will be used for this chapter are referring to Muslim and other non-western women (Jewish women are a part of this category). Muslim women outbalance in the category of non- western women because they outnumber other non-western religions and religious communities due to their majority. However, this does not pose a problem since as far as it concerns Jewish women, whatever applies to Muslim women, applies to Jewish women as well due to their religions' shared beliefs. For example, religious restrictions regarding clothing, education or women's role and position that apply to Jewish women like Deborah, apply to Muslim women as well. Salaounis 41
2.1 The Depiction of the Hasidic Community in Unorthodox
Anna Winger's portrayal of the West in the mini-series makes an attempt to prove that living in a western, innovative and civilized country like Germany is contrasted to the experiences and life conditions that one may have in a Third World country or a country that belongs or holds similar beliefs to the Oriental cultures. In the
Unorthodox mini-series, even though the depiction of Esty's religious community which is based on Feldman's novel is quite accurate as far as it concerns Deborah's point of view, it is important to be argued that how Deborah and Anna Winger perceived the Hasidic community is creating specific stereotypes regarding the orthodox Jewish community. On the one hand, the fact that Deborah's life was not so happy and entertaining due to her family's condition24 and on the other, the fact that
Anna Winger makes this situation more intense by contrasting Deborah's unhappy childhood with the happy life that Esty enjoys in Berlin, while having her mother and her friends supporting her, is an example which indicates that our view of the Hasidic community is limited. Esty's life in Williamsburg is similar to Deborah's. Both women lacked parental support in their communities and found company in the West.
One argument that supports the theory regarding our limited view inside the
Hasidic community is that Simcha Sher and Marion, two orthodox Jewish women who appreciated the mini-series, argue that even though the actors and the creators did their best regarding this TV series, they fail to depict the Hasidic community in an accurate way. Through her YouTube channel, Simcha states that various religious rituals like the Mikvah or the sexual relations with a husband or the obligatory prayers are not so oppressive as they are presented in the mini-series. Of course, from
Deborah's point of view and personal experiences, such religious practices may have
24 She did not have her mother by her side and her father was incompetent to manage her upbringing, so Deborah was brought up by her grandparents. Salaounis 42 been oppressive but this does not imply that every woman in the Hasidic community experiences the same feelings and the same conditions. It is true that Deborah was experiencing a lot of pressure in the community but this pressure does not apply to every women in the Satmar community. This particular adaptation of the Hasidic life by Anna Winger is rather promoting some religious stereotypes. Furthermore, Simcha argues that her religion is "empowering, it's [even a] philosophy of feminism" and
Deborah's experience is personal and not general ("An Orthodox Jew Reacts to
Unorthodox: Did Netflix tell the truth?" 4:30-5:20). Moreover, Marion adds through her channel that:
They really did a disservice to a lot of religious communities because
they didn't show too many redeeming qualities of these people and the
way they live, and I felt that was unfair. Many people are very happy
living a Hasidic Orthodox life. Many people have a lot more freedom
and education and experiences than the specific folks that they showed
in this show. ("A Jewish Woman Reacts to Unorthodox on Netflix"
5:45-6:15)
Marion's perspective agrees with Simcha's because she believes that by showing only some bad aspects of the religious life, the creator of the series obscures the good aspects of religion such as the feeling of serenity and a meaningful life for the individual (6:15-6:30).
In addition to the two Jewish women, Chandra Talpade Mohanty offers a critical insight regarding the depiction of Third World and non-western communities by westerners. In her seminal article "Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and
Colonial Discourses" (1988), she characterizes such depictions as inaccurate and sometimes wrong. Her post-colonial feminist thinking leads her to the conclusion that Salaounis 43 westerners produce "a particular cultural discourse about what is called the 'Third
World' " (333). Every culture, ideology or religion that does not primarily originate from the West can be characterized as "Third World". In the book Third World
Women and the Politics of Feminism, she states that "[g]eographically, the nation- states of Latin America, the Caribbean, Sub-Saharan Africa, South and Southeast Asia
… constitute the parameters of the non-European third World" (5). In addition to this, she states that regarding "black, Latino, Asian, and indigenous peoples in the U.S.,
Europe, and Australia, some of whom have historic links with the geographically defined third world, also refer to themselves as third world people" (5; my emphasis).
In a similar way, American Hasidic Jews can be referred to as Third World people.
Even though they live in America, these particular Jews maintain strong, spiritual links with their country (Holy Land) to which they will come once again when their
Messiah comes. Their tradition, culture and religion is kept alive regardless of their location.
In her article, Mohanty also argues that the relationship between the "Other
Woman" who is represented through literary or scientific discourses and what is the non-western woman in real life, is in fact two different aspects of the issue (334). The depiction of Esty as a Hasidic woman in a strict religious community who is saved by escaping to the West, is not necessarily an accurate and realistic portrayal as far as it concerns the external reality. Such depictions of feminist writings though, have "a political effect in the context of the hegemony of Western scholarship" (336).
Depicting Esty as the vulnerable, uneducated and oppressed woman who poses a contrast to the "self-representation of western women as educated, modern, as having control over their own bodies and sexualities, and the freedom to make their own decisions", confirms Mohanty's view that through treating non-western women as Salaounis 44 oppressed in general leads to a homogeneous treatment of all non-western women as oppressed and in need of saving by the West (337-338). Of course, there is no denial that women's oppression is a serious matter in such religious communities but defining women such as Esty "as archetypal victims freezes them into 'objects- who- defend- themselves', men into 'subjects- who- perpetrate- violence', and (every) society into powerless (read: women) and powerful (read: men) groups of people"
(339). Esty's friends from Berlin, the teachers who test her musical skills in the music academy as well as the people living in Berlin are presented to be exactly the opposite type of people regarding Esty's family and friends in the Hasidic community who are portrayed as backward and evil.
This particular depiction of a Hasidic community, inspired by a westerner's perspective like Anna Winger, resembles what Edward Said described as Orientalism.
Orientalism is a "Western style for dominating, restructuring and having authority over the Orient" (3). According to Said, the West or "the Occident" defines herself through its contrast to the Orient. Said argues that, through depicting the Other, which in this case indicates Jewish and oriental religious cultures, the "Orient has helped to define Europe (or the West) as its contrasting image, idea, personality, experience"
(Introduction 1-2). The West as the dominant male who has the power and privilege speaks for her (i.e. the Orient as a woman who is in need) and represents her (6).
Shehla Burney contends that Orientalism as "a complex web of Western representations of the Orient" (26) is depending its strategy on the " 'positional superiority' of the Westerner" (28; emphasis in the original). Using Gramsci's theory,
Said supported that "European identity [''us''] is deemed to be superior to all 'those' Salaounis 45 non-European peoples and cultures" (28). In the mini-series, the Occident25 creates a false feeling of superiority by depicting the westerners as the people who are good, kind and always willing to help ( Part 3 38:40-37:37) and on the other side, depicting the Jews in the Hasidic community as the people who blackmail and make threats
(Part 2 33:40-32:55). Delaney also argues that "Unorthodox doesn’t really explore the positive side to clan, community, tradition and belonging which occur in closed, religious communities". On the contrary, it depicts only the positive side of the West and presents Esty as privileging "individualism, freedom and free will over the submersion of individuality into a larger, and possibly more cohesive, communal and spiritual life" ("Unorthodox: a thrilling story of rebellion and freedom from New York to Berlin").
2.2 Western and non-Western Woman
Moreover, one more interesting aspect that this particular TV series touches upon, regarding the inaccurate portrayal of the non-western woman by the Occident, is the fact that Esty is presented to be blissful while living a secular life in Berlin, something which proves Joan Wallach Scott's words when she argues for the "benefits" of a secular woman. Representations of gender equality and sexual liberalization, which are present in the mini-series, portray secular women as more "autonomous, free to pursue their desire, in contrast to [non-western] women whose sexuality is literally under wraps"26 (156). In the mini-series, there are a lot of scenes which portray the
25 The Western people in Berlin are the primary people of the West who are depicted intensely in this show and through them, the notion of a Utopian Western civilization can be conveyed to the viewer. Regarding the people in New York, the mini-series portray mostly Jews except for Esty's music teacher who is apparently a New Yorker. 26 These wraps apparently allude to hijabs, wigs or burqas, garments that according to many westerners, suppress women's sexuality and freedom while presenting them as victims of the patriarchal oriental man. In her memoir, Feldman narrates that her grandmother was "sinking into reminiscent misery" every time she thought about how God punished them (i.e. the Jews) through the Holocaust because they assimilated into other cultures and abolished their cultural and religious roots (25). Salaounis 46 various benefits of the western Woman. Esty's friends are free to go to any place they desire like the club in the third episode or the lake in the first episode without having to answer to any husband or to wonder if they violate any religious rule (Part 3 11:00-
6:00). Had Esty stayed in her community, she would not have had the chance to do anything she wanted. As it was mentioned in the previous chapter, the rabbis created the notion of fear for a second Holocaust while they imposed the wearing of turbans and wigs on Jewish women to prevent them from falling into the sin of assimilating into other cultural practices.
Another instance of the woman's oppression and the power of men that the show depicts to be happening only in the Hasidic community, which is contrasted to the "life benefits" of a secular, western woman, is how women's appearance is controlled. In her memoir, Deborah describes the moment when her Zeidy asked her
Bubby to shave her hair:
''Husband of mine,'' she retorted indignantly, ''you went crazy in the
head or what? It's not enough for you that I cover my hair with a wig,
even when my own mother didn't bother back in Europe, but now you
want me to shave it all too? Never in my life did I hear of such a
frumkeit, 27 of such a religion, that says a woman has to shave her
head.'' (24; emphasis in the original)
Jewish women usually wear wigs, hats or scarves when they are in public to cover their shaved head in this Orthodox Hasidic community as a symbol of modesty and humility. Especially for Ultra-Orthodox Jews, the laws of Tzniut28 are strictly followed. Furthermore, the wigs as well as other means of concealing hair are very important for Jewish women because it is also what the Torah requires from them to
27 According to Free Dictionary, it is a Jewish word for religious devotion. 28 According to Jewish Virtual Library, Tzniut is a group of Jewish religious laws that include rules for modesty, appearance and discretion. Salaounis 47 do in order to be pious believers. Specifically, the Torah and other religious Jewish books state that "Hair covering is a Biblical requirement for women" (Kesubos 72) and "Hair covering is defined by the community" (Mishnah29 Kesubos 7:6). In
Deborah's book and the mini-series, wigs are worn by both Deborah and Esty as the modesty laws, that women are being subjected to, indicate. Shaving her heads as a symbol for more piety, women in the ultra-orthodox community in Williamsburg shave their heads and wear a wig. Deborah states that Zeidy's answer to her grandmother regarding the reason they had to shave their heads was:
[T]he rebbe wants us to be more ehrlich, more devout, than any Jew
ever was. He says that if we go to extreme lengths to make God proud
of us, he'll never hurt us again, like he did in the war. (25; emphasis in
the original)
In this case as well, rabbis are controlling most of the rules in the Hasidic community and they are the ones to whom every Jew resorts to for help. In the first episode,
Esther's father-in-law seeks help only from the rabbi because he is the one capable of solving serious matters such as this: "Fine. I'll go see the rabbi" (Part 1 44:30-44:25).
In his first volume of The History of Sexuality (1976), Foucault implicitly presents sex as an instrument of power. Using the notion of "sex," westerners appear to be fighting for non-western women's sex liberation while presenting liberated, secular western women as happy and autonomous, independent of other men.
Throughout the mini-series, the benefits of the secular woman become clear by
29 A written collection book that includes the Jewish oral traditions also known as the Oral Torah. These quotes can be found in Allison Josephs' video "Why Do Orthodox Jewish Women Wear Wigs". Also, in this video one can find other quotes regarding wigs as well as Allison's view on what modesty really is. According to her, modesty can be achieved by a Jewish woman if she wears a wig (for centuries, wig is one of the ways to conceal your hair and especially during 18th and 19th century many famous men wore them too) and implies in that way her religious-marital status by showing to other men a barrier (wig) between her real hair and the fake ones. In that way, even if a wig can make a Jewish woman look attractive, it is still a barrier and a symbol of modesty that reminds other men of her humility. Salaounis 48 depicting Esty who is progressively starting to change her dressing style. After the lake scene, she stops wearing her wig, she wears jeans for the first time and she starts resembling more a typical westerner rather than a Hasidic one (Part 2 39:10-39:02).
Esty's western clothing follows such western norms and naturalizes "a particular mode of femininity … fulfilling one's natural qualities and desires as a woman and as an individual" (Scott 157). Especially, during the club scene in the third episode, Esty and her friends' entertainment is highlighted through the use of medium-shots, full shots and close-ups. Giannetti states that a full shot involves a scene where more than
3 people are depicted (11 12th ed.) and during this scene, medium-shots (shots that usually present the upper part of the body) and full shots are an interesting way of portraying what is happening (Part 3 9:20-9:00). The close-ups which are present when Esty and Robert are looking at each other, something that foreshadows their sexual act at the end of the episode (3:50-3:39), "tend to elevate the importance of things, often suggesting a symbolic significance" (Giannetti 11). This "significance" alludes to the emancipation of Esty's sexuality and her gradual assimilation to western practices as analyzed in the previous chapter.
However, this western depiction and analysis of the female body and sexuality as well as the advantages of living a secular life in the West can be contrasted with the religious norms of many communities that many people deliberately choose to follow by wearing wigs, veils or burqas because they want to lead a spiritual and religious way of life. Sima Zalcberg Block argues that for many
Jewish women, wearing capes, a religious outfit for many communities, has "an important religious meaning" that empowers women to express their "group's uniqueness" (51). It is used as a sanctification of God's name. Also, not following a more religious way of clothing, is something sinful and wrong by religious women. Salaounis 49
Nilüfer Göle suggests that "the Islamic veil, when it is not enforced on women by state power or communitarian pressure, and express[es] the personal trajectories of women and their self-fashioning piety, presents a critique [of] secular interpretations of women's emancipation" (qtd. in Scott 161).
Winger's mini-series fails to convey the meaning that many women who live in religious communities deliberately choose to wear capes or wigs and it is not enforced on them. This does not mean that what Winger chose to present is wrong but it is only covering a minor aspect of the whole religious agenda. "The normalizing and naturalizing of "our" secular, Western way of life" (Scott 162) is something that is partly ethical and righteous because as Mohanty states these " 'particular cultural sexist practices are addressed' through a Western 'gaze' "(qtd. in Runyan and Peterson
241). The perception of many people around the world, who regard the West as an utopian place while comparing it with other under-developed countries, is inaccurate and in fact, the West can be presented as a dystopian place. Scott states:
The history of secularism is hardly a history of gender equality (women
in the countries of the West earn lower wages than men and have
nowhere near parity in political representation; domestic violence
against women is rampant; sexual harassment is a fact of life for many
women at work, at school, and on the street … . (162)
Even though the West presents herself to be an escape for various problems both in the series and Deborah's memoir, it is in fact a place where injustices continue to happen, women are being exploited like everywhere else and many white men are as oppressive as many other non- westerners. The Unorthodox mini-series portrays many aspects of the Hasidic community and the western world but not all of it. Throughout the mini-series, none of the westerners' characters like Robert or Esty's music teacher Salaounis 50 in Brooklyn are presented to have flaws. On the other hand, many Jewish like Moishe are presented to be flawed characters.
2.3 Femonationalism in Unorthodox
Mohanty's argument regarding the generalization of "Third World" and non-western women's oppression by men in their communities is implicitly linked with Sarra
Farris's notion of 'femonationalism'. Inspired by Jasbir K. Puar's term called homonationalism, which refers to the tactics involved for separating American gay and queers from sexual and racial others by "foregrounding a collusion between homosexuality and American nationalism", Farris's femonationalism refers to the tactics with which national right-wing parties are using feminist theories to redefine gender roles regarding Islam and other non-western people for political and economic reasons ("Femonationalism and the 'Regular' Army of Labor Called Migrant Women"
187). According to Farris's, these right-wing political parties are using feminist theory for anti-Islam, anti-migrant and apparently for anti-Orient campaigns in general, in order to integrate (another word for assimilation according to Farris's) non-western women like Muslims (and we can add Jews as well who are considered to be non- western folk) into the West and western lifestyle for economic reasons (187-189).
Farris contends that, after the Second World War, "the decline of the birthrate and the mounting number of elderly people, coupled with the erosion, insufficiency, or simply non-existence of public or affordable care services, has resulted in the marketization of so-called reproductive labor" (189-190).
Non-western women like Esty's mother who migrated to the West are used as a part of the reproductive labor force. Like Esty's mother, a lot of non-western women do not have educational skills or any kind of expertise knowledge and so, the Salaounis 51
West exploits them in a cunning way; it uses them to occupy such specific professions that a lot of western women do not take up. Political parties in western countries like countries in Europe, need non-western migrant women as workforce for such services, especially in the care and domestic sector. As far as it concerns migrant men, they, on the other hand, are perceived as a "surplus laboring population of the unemployed and underemployed whose existence is a 'necessary product' of capitalist accumulation and whose constant reproduction is used by employers to maintain low wages" (189). However, this presence of migrant men is threatening "national workers with job losses or a lowering of their incomes" (189). Thus, femonationalistic practices contain tactics which represent men as an "obstacle to social and cultural integration" in general, and thus they constitute a threat to European people. In order to represent men as an obstacle, femonationalism tries to portray men as the cruel and violent Other who is responsible for the gender inequality of "non-Western and
Muslim migrant women" (188).
The results of these methods can be seen in Anna Winger's mini-series which can be used as a tool of femonationalism due to its depiction of men as patriarchs, violent and misogynists and woman as the obedient, oppressed and humble person who lives under the dominant domain of men until they escape to the superior West.
Analyzing Winger's Unorthodox through Giannetti's film theory, the previous chapter showed how the West is presented as the superior, utopian place in contrast with the religious community of Satmar in New York. In addition, this chapter implies that the
West is perceived and presented as superior through Esty's experience because Anna
Winger quite successfully depicts the Jewish Man as the evil Other who oppresses
Esty. By "portraying [Jewish] women as passive victims who needed to be rescued and emancipated", the Unorthodox mini-series thus, "present[s] sexism and patriarchy Salaounis 52 as the almost exclusive domains of the [Jewish] Other"30 (In the Name of Women's
Rights 2). For instance, in the fourth episode, Moishe who is the cousin of Esty's husband, kidnaps Esty in order to speak to her and before releasing her, he threatens her twice that if she does not return back to Williamsburg, they [meaning the Jewish men] will come for her and will get her and her son back using force (Part 4 38:00-
37:20, 6:00-5:50).
Furthermore, it would be interesting to examine the scene where Esty confronts Moishe after he has abducted her, through the prism of Giannetti's reference to Edward T. Hall's books The Hidden Dimension (1966) and The Silent
Language (1959) regarding proxemic patterns is interesting. Giannetti states "the relationships of organisms within a given space" is the basic meaning for proxemic patterns (77 9th ed.). Moishe stands upright facing Esty and in this way the cinematographer using these bodies' posture, presents Moishe as a threat for her and makes her fear for life, especially when he approaches her with a gun (Part 4 36:35-
34:50, 34:00-32:00). This is one more instance where the male Other is presented as a threat to women. It is possible that Moishe's character is inspired partially by
Deborah's cousin Moshe, as the similarity between the two names 'Moishe-Moshe' suggests.
In the third chapter of her memoir, Deborah narrates that one time she and her cousin Moshe went down to the cellar of Zeidy's house in order to collect some wine bottles and in that cellar Moshe molested and sexually assaulted Deborah:
His jaw is tense, his eyes narrowed. I lift my knee up to kick him, but
he fixes my legs against the wall with his own thick thighs, crushing
me with his weight. One hand lifts my wrists up over my head and the
30 Even though Sara Farris' argues for Muslim women in this point in her book, it has already been stated that most of the harsh circumstances applied to Muslim women can be applied to Jewish women as well, due to their religious communities' common ideologies and habits. Salaounis 53
other reaches for the zipper to my housedress. He yanks it down in one
quick motion, and I bend over reflexively to hide myself, screaming
this time. (69)
Deborah's young age as well as her timidity and her strict religious upbringing would create thoughts of indignity and shame if she told anyone about this and so after managing to free herself from Moshe, she did not seek real psychological or any other kind of help from anyone in her community. Thus, it is highly possible that Winger based Yanky's cousin on this character in order to show the misogynism which prevails according to her in the Hasidic community. However, the inherent misogyny of Jewish Hasidics that is portrayed in the series can be also applied to other non- westerners as well. For example, Igor, who is one of Moishe's friends in Berlin, is presented to own a strip club and he behaves to his female employees in quite a rude manner (Part 3 37:00-36:40). It is important to be stated that Igor is Russian, and that the people who work there, are also Russian. Also, Esty's mother, Moishe and other characters, like the cleaning lady in the music college, are all non-westerners31 who are presented to work either in reproductive labor and other low-paid jobs or to work in notorious places. Furthermore, Moishe has also other bad habits such as alcoholism, gambling addiction and he socializes with gangsters and pimps. These characteristics are contrasted to the people who live in Berlin and are presented as successful, loyal and diligent, such as the boys and girls in Esty's company and the teachers in the music academy. Even Esty's piano teacher in Williamsburg, who is a westerner, is depicted as educated and kind comparing to most Jews living there.
31 Esty’s mother has a British origin but due to her religion, she can be considered as a “Third-World” individual in the mini-series. Salaounis 54
2.4 Women's Exploitation
Floya Anthias and Nira Yuval-Davis support the notion that women constitute an important and primary role "to the creation and reproduction of ethnic and national projects" (Smith 207). More specifically, Anthis and Davis argue that women offer crucial advantages to a nation and western ideologies and for these reasons, political parties that endorse such ideologies need women in order to continue their national existence. The continuation of western beliefs, dogmas and cultures is heavily relying on women in order to be secured. Women can be seen as:
a.) biological reproducers of members of ethnic collectivities; b.) as
reproducers of the boundaries of ethnic/national groups; c.) as
participating centrally in the ideological reproduction of the collectivity
and as transmitters of its culture; d.) as signifiers of ethnic/national
differences[…] e.) as participants in national, economic, political and
military struggles. (Yuval Davis and Anthias qtd. in Smith 207)
Consequently, women as the "vital components of cultural reproduction" are needed also for other economic and political profits (207). Since it is apparent that women play a more important role than men, who, according to Farris, pose a threat for cultural integration, various feminist theories and measures for gender equality and women's emancipation are used for integrating women into western societies. Farris describes that feminists, nationalists, as well as neoliberal advocators use various civic integration techniques so as to initiate non-western women to western societies
(Introduction, 2). The Unorthodox mini-series is one way to promote the idea that non-western women like Esty, who are presented as oppressed due to their non- western strict way of life that is governed mostly my men, can be happy and escape from this by acknowledging "women's rights as a central value of the West" and by Salaounis 55 assimilating "to western cultural practices, which are presented as more civilizationally advanced" (Introduction, 3).
The Hasidic community is presented as a violent and patriarchal space where women appear not to be safe; after Moshe tried to molest her, Deborah states that she wants "justice" and that "[she] should be safe at least in [her] community" (67). The
West is presented as a superior environment where Deborah/Esty can only be safe from anyone who wants to hurt them. Of course, such practices serve a variety of profits for westerners, such as labour force in the domestic and care sector that was previously mentioned, since Esty's mother in the mini-series obtains a job by offering care and treatment to elderly Jewish people in a nursing home (Part 3 30:10-28:25).
Even the cleaning lady that finds Esty sleeping in the music academy in the second episode comes from a non-western country (Part 2 46:10-45:55).
After targeting and presenting Muslim, Jews and other non-western Others as
"enemies of western societies" and after trying to indoctrinate non-western women into western practices and ideologies, right-wing political philosophy which is present in Anna Winger's TV series accomplishes to distinguish ''Us'', referring to the white,
Christian and women friendly people, from "Them", the evil, patriarchal and misogynist Others who oppress women like Deborah and Esty (Farris-Introduction 7-
8). Then, non-western women like Esty, or her mother, acquire a better life but this time, without their awareness, they serve political and neoliberal practices which are used in the West for reorganizing the "productive and particularly the socially reproductive sphere" (Farris-Introduction 14). In other words, the West, like some strict religious communities, is exploiting women for its own purposes; by employing
"western European imagery", Netflix's Unorthodox portrays "the homogenizing figure Salaounis 56 of the non-western woman as the victim par excellence of non-western male violence"
(Farris-Introduction 11).
In the mini-series, when Esty arrives in Berlin and she meets a company of music students, only one of them is born in Berlin. Except for Robert, everyone else comes from some other country. However, the young men who originate from other countries have been assimilated into Berlin and a western lifestyle because some of them did not feel welcome in their own countries due to their personalities and, in the case of the Nigerian boy, sexuality. In this way, through this mini-series, it is conveyed that one can be liberated from his or her culture's boundaries by assimilating into a more free environment like the city of Berlin. Also, Esty's mother was assimilated to the West due to her experiences in the Hasidic community, where she was married to a man she did not love. Being hunted down by specific members of the community, she fled to Berlin and found work there. It is very interesting to observe that when Yanky and Moishe visit her in Berlin, she demands from them to speak only in English (Part 2 33:35-33:00). Giannetti states that language, which in this case corresponds to a large proportion of Germany's population, indicates the
"cultural bias" of the speaker (237). Choosing to speak English rather than Yiddish,
Esty's mother chooses the western civilization over her own. However, while westerners are pretending that they want to save these women, they are "channeling them toward the very sphere (domestic, low-paying, and precarious jobs) from which the feminist movement had historically tried to liberate them" from (15).
2.5 The Superiority of the West Versus the Other Man
Apart from the economic reasons for which the West uses non-western women in the domestic and care sector, it also uses them to present its superiority to the Orient Salaounis 57 cultures. More specifically, Farris argues that in order for someone to realize why westerners depict non-western men as the evil and oppressive Other and the non- western women as the suppressed and victim Other, one must first explore how racism functions in these two categories of men and women (73). Both non-western men and women in the Unorthodox mini-series (i.e. the Jewish people in
Deborah's/Esty's community) are presented as inferior to westerners like Robert or professor Karim, who immigrated to Berlin to become a successful music professor.
As it was previously analyzed, this inferiority is presented to be happening because
Jewish people and especially women, live a restricted life with no professional careers or anything meaningful except for being good mothers and wives. Farris uses two
"conceptual tools" of racism which are used by westerners like Anna Winger, which are developed by critical race scholars, so as to support her argument (73). On the one hand, she uses the term "sexualization of racism" to emphasize that regarding non- westerners' cultures, there is an element of misogyny and racist behavior towards women due to "different stereotypes" which present men as "sexual threats" and women as "sexual objects" respectively and it is sexualized because men are presented to have implying sexual desires to "possess the body of the racialized woman" (73-74). As it was previously mentioned, Deborah's cousin tried to rape her and as far as it concerns the mini-series, sexual pressure on women only comes from non-westerners like Yanky, who presses Esty to make love with him every Friday
(Part 3 19:00-14:20). Another example is Igor, who, as it was previously mentioned, is a Russian owner of a strip club, who uses women for profits to his advantage (Part
3 37:00-36:00).
However, the West itself also tries to possess that female non-western body through depicting the Other man as the only responsible one for women's oppression. Salaounis 58
Even though there is no direct evidence that this happens in the mini-series, it is important to be stated that the mini-series highlight rabbis' view regarding women.
Rabbis characterize and think Jewish women as evil perpetrators who are responsible for men's sins, as it was shown in the previous chapter, and for that reason they should be suppressed. In the mini-series, Esty is the one who is falsely accused of being responsible for the failure of her wedding with Yanky regardless of Yanky's faults
(Part 4 35:00-34:00).
On the other hand, Farris uses the term "racialization of sexism" to indicate how West's racism towards these communities operates by "[stigmatizing] the Other" after portraying that sexism and patriarchy are "the exclusive domains of the (non- western and Muslim) Other" (74). By depicting Jewish men as the patriarchal people who force their women to give birth to a lot of children, forbid them the right to education and entertainment and restrict them to a fully religious life, the West presents this non-western life as "a sexist hell for women" and promotes western life as the ideal one (Farris 74). None of the western people or the people who have been assimilated to the western way of life, is presented to be oppressive towards women in general. Esty's friends welcome her in a friendly environment and always support her.
Thus, the West indoctrinates non-western women into its culture by exploiting this stigmatization for its own political, national and economic reasons.
In his book Sex and Racism in America, Calvin Hernton describes sexual prejudices and stereotypes about African American people in order to show that these prejudices were a part of the "racial relations in US history" (qtd. in Farris 74).
Similarly to US practices, Winger creates the feeling that western culture is superior to Orient cultures and everything that originates from the East through illustrating the
Jewish Man and Woman as the subordinate Others who need admonishment and Salaounis 59 saving respectively. The creation of this superiority feeling and the fact that a lot of western people believe that they are capable of saving the Other woman resembles
Gramsci's notion of cultural hegemony. Based on Gramsci's writings, Artz and Ortega
Murphy state that "[h]egemony is that system of power that has the support of the subordinate" (3). Esty's life in Berlin is better than that in her community even though she implicitly serves other western benefits. So, Esty by consenting to live in Berlin, she "willingly participate[s] in practices that are not necessarily in [her] best interests because [she] perceive[s] some tangible benefit" (Artz and Ortega Murphy 3). In order to obtain consent, the West tries to make people like Esty adopt dominant western ideologies. Artz and Ortega Murphy argue that "one's activities and beliefs are greatly influenced by existing social and cultural conditions" (11). Esty's stay in
Berlin gradually influences her to adopt a western lifestyle by changing her way of dressing and her eating habits by consuming forbidden foods which are not included in the kosher part of her religion as it is showed in the mini-series. "Ideologies", Artz and Murphy describe, "have serious consequences because they organize human practices" (12; emphasis in the original). By endorsing western ideologies regarding eating habits, dressing and entertainment which are forbidden in her community, Esty is becoming a part of the West, serving its purposes and prolonging its existence as cultural reproducers as Yuval Davis states regarding women's role to the " the creation and reproduction of ethnic and national projects" (Smith 207). Dominant western social groups that "benefit from [this] hegemonic arrangement […] participate in the production and consumption of popular culture and those […] practices that underwrite the hegemonic relationship" (27). These dominant meanings regarding the inferiority of non-western cultures and religions to West's supremacy "reinforce [the] political and economic dominance" of the dominant social western groups of people Salaounis 60 that want western ideologies and practices to continue to be present in the contemporary world (27).
2.6 The "Threat" of the "un-Emancipated"
Women like Esty and other non-western people in general, constitute a threat for western cultures due to their religious beliefs, different way of lives and social relations. Scott argues that the very "presence of the un-emancipated constitutes a threat to the very life of western civilization-a threat that must be contained or eliminated"32 (154; my emphasis). Also, Scott argues that westerners who use these notions create a feeling of contradiction because, on the one hand, non-western women are presented like aggressive human beings and on the other as victims of the evil Other man (154). What is common in these two arguments, Scott continues, is that according to western philosophy, cultural symbols like the veil or hijab [or the
Jewish wig] must be forbidden in western countries (155). In the Netflix mini-series,
Anna Winger and other members of the staff, place a high emphasis on the wigs.
Throughout the 4 episodes, Esty, her grandmother, her aunt and every member of the
Jewish society wear wigs. The camera lens highlights these moments with close-up scenes and especially in the very first scene of the third episode, when Esty after she has her hair shaved, the series reaches at a climax because in this scene, one can experience the depression that Esty feels when she sees herself without hair, as if she has lost control on one more part of her body (Part 2 12:05-11:15, Part 3 55:05-
54:40). Furthermore, one more crucial element in the show is that when Esty takes off her wig, during the lake scene in the first episode, and never wears it again, she
32 Scott quotes Ayaan Hirsi Ali and the philosopher Andre Glucksmann who supported Anti-Islam theories by stating that cultures like Islam and their customs like wearing a veil are responsible for many terrorist attacks like the 9/11. Jacques Chirac, the French president contended that "[w]earing the veil is a kind of aggression" (qtd. in Scott, 155). Salaounis 61 adjusts like her mother, who does not wear wig any longer, to a different lifestyle
(Part 1 15:35-15:15).
Winger and the other directors as well, took lots of measure to portray even the shtreimel33 in a great detail (Making Unorthodox 6:00-5:00). Through these scenes, the wig is presented as the ultimate symbol of women's submission. Farris' notion of femonationalism is strongly linked with this way of thinking because only by presenting women as un-emancipated will they be able to initiate them into western practices in order to serve other economic and political profits. Regarding the veil, the same appliance can be made for Jewish wigs as well:
The veil is taken to be the ultimate sign of women's lack of
emancipation, of their forced or willing submission to a culture in
which an inegalitarian system of gender relations prevails. The calls to
outlaw headscarves, veils, and burqas, 34 are all uttered in the name of
women's natural right to self-determination and equality between the
sexes. (Scott 155; emphasis in the original)
"In the name of women's natural right" is the West's excuse to expose other non- western cultures and characterize them as inferior while supporting that women's emancipation and gender equality is a privilege which is inextricably connected to the
West. Thus, the scene in the lake during the first episode which was analyzed in the previous chapter can now be interpreted differently: as West's effort to make Esty a part of its ideology. The removal of her wig is not her way into freedom as it may seem but a way into one other oppressive social community which will exploit her for different reasons. Farris characterizes such women as the "biological reproducers of
33 A fur hat worn by Jews on Shabbat and other Jewish holidays. 34 Seyla Benhabib provides an interesting analysis regarding the banning of veils, scarves and other religious symbols in her book Another Cosmopolitanism (2006). She describes that in a secular state like France religious symbols contradict the "egalitarian, secularist ideal of republican citizenship" because these symbols exhibit the origins and religious beliefs of the people that wears them (52-53). Salaounis 62 the nation" who have to "comply with the standard of womanhood established in western European countries" in order to gain their freedom (78, 103). Scott's reference to the meretricious benefits of the secular woman is one of West's tries to achieve this false notion of freedom.
By way of conclusion, according to Scott, Farris' argument regarding Muslim women and non-western women is that only by assimilating to western norms and divest themselves from "the communitarian constraints that inhibit the fulfillment of their desire", will they be able to serve the capitalistic and political profits of the West
(161). As it was analyzed in the previous chapter, Esty gradually changed her dressing style and habits while living in Berlin. This transformation depicts that Esty started little by little to conform to these western values. Farris contends that non-western women as the bearers of values and cultures of other communities/nations must be familiarized with "the codes of the nation of 'destination' " and neutralize in a way their habits and norms (103). Women with not enough education like Esty's mother take up domestic professions that western women and men usually do not want to take up like cleaning, housekeeping and babysitting (128). Moreover, even though it is not depicted or implied in the TV series, women in general, can "re-establish the demographic advantage of one nationality" since they possess "reproductive bodies"
(180). This way they serve western needs. Although an academic opportunity is offered to Esty through a special program, the mini-series does not show what happens to Esty after the audition day. The mini-series ends with Esty waiting at a cafeteria and her friends coming towards her. The music that accompanies this scene is serene and peaceful, something that denotes a good ending (Part 4 4:30-3:00). No matter the case though, it is not guaranteed that in real life, one could so easily obtain an opportunity to be accepted at an expensive university. Salaounis 63
Conclusion
Deborah Feldman's memoir sheds light on the life of a Hasidic Jewish woman in a strict religious community such as the community of Satmar in New
York. Throughout the ages, Jews endured a lot of ordeals which range from sentiments of hatred by other nations towards them to violent attacks and ultimately a genocide during the second World War. No matter the case though, the Jewish religion endured throughout all those years and today, millions of Jews are scattered around the globe maintaining their tradition and culture. One example out of the many
Jewish religious groups, is the Hasidic community of Satmar in Williamsburg,
Brooklyn, New York. Feldman as well as Esty in the Netflix mini-series, were born and raised in this community, which is strict and oppressive towards women by forbidding them basic human rights such as the right to education and entertainment due to the fact that rabbis believe that in this way, they will secure their religion, they will prevent a second Holocaust and they will protect their women from assimilating to western and other cultural systems, something that according to their belief was the cause for the Holocaust.
Not being able to cope with such conditions, Deborah and Esty fled to Berlin where they found happiness, people to support them and a chance to a better future.
The Netflix series portrays the city of Berlin as a Utopian place where the protagonist
Esty receives everything her community fails to provide her with; love, friends, entertainment and education are some of these benefits. Through the use of film theories and feminist thinking, the first chapter argues that the city of Berlin is depicted as a paradise where Esty develops her personality and improves her life conditions. The second chapter offers a different perspective. Even though the city of
Berlin is presented as an ideal place and a means of escaping from the oppressive Salaounis 64
Hasidic community, it can be also presented as a place where wrongdoings are still taking place. Using the Other Man, who in this case stands for any non-westerner, as a symbol of oppression and evil, the West tries to indicate its false superiority over other nations and cultures and at the same time, it promotes the idea that non-western women should be assimilated to western norms in order to have a better life. Women are a vital tool for the West, since they constitute a group of people that the West can exploit politically and economically. In other words, the West exploits women such as the Hasidic community does but in a different way. As a concluding remark, it must be stated that both the Hasidic community and the West, which in the mini-series is mainly presented through the city of Berlin, have both beneficial and negative aspects.
The West may offer Esty and Deborah a chance to escape, but it is not the Utopian place which wholeheartedly offers them everything.
Salaounis 65
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