Deborah Feldman

Despite her differences with the Hasidic community, Feldman has said "I am proud of being Jewish, because I think that’s where my indomitable spirit comes from."

Members of the Orthodox community have criticized Feldman, including in a blog titled "Deborah Feldman Exposed," which was dedicated to "exposing the lies and fabrications" in her story. Jesse Kornbluth examined this criticism in a pair of articles in the Huffington Post which concluded "There are claims in this book that Hasids have disputed. I can’t tell what’s true. But I’m sure of one thing: Men who can’t live equally with women aren’t worth living with. No doubt girls all over Brooklyn are buying this book, hiding it under their mattresses, reading it after lights out — and contemplating, perhaps for the first time, their own escape."

Feldman is featured in the 2018 Swiss-German documentary #Female Pleasure and the 2020 Netflix original miniseries Unorthodox is loosely based on her autobiography. Netflix also produced a documentary, Making Unorthodox, that chronicles the creative process and filming, and discussed the differences between the book and TV series.

Deborah Feldman is an American-German writer living in Berlin, Germany. Her 2012 autobiography, Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots, tells the story of her escape from an ultra-religious community in Brooklyn, New York, and was used as the basis of the 2020 Netflix miniseries Unorthodox.

Feldman started blogging and in 2012 published her autobiography, Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots, which became a bestseller. In 2014, Feldman moved to Berlin, where she settled in the Neukölln district, and continued to work as a writer. Also in 2014, she published Exodus: A Memoir. Her books have been translated into German, and well received by German critics, which led to her appearing on various talk shows on German TV.

Once in school she "made a beeline" for a college degree to connect her with the outside world. She began to speak out and "open my mind." She also began to wear jeans and high heels, breaking the strict Hasidic dress code. In 2010, she took her son, left her husband, and cut all ties with the Hasidic community. She lived for two months with friends, and consulted with lawyers to make sure she didn't lose custody of her son. As of 2012, Feldman had not seen or spoken to any of her family since 2006.

Feldman says that the birth of her son was a turning point regarding staying in the Hasidic community: "I saw my future all mapped out... I freaked out at the knowledge that I have the responsibility and guilt of putting everything I saw as my oppression into an innocent person." Feldman lied to her husband saying she wanted to take business classes so she could supplement his income, and in 2006, she and her husband moved out of Williamsburg and she began to study literature at Sarah Lawrence College in Yonkers.