“God expected too much of me. Now I need to find my own path,” says Esty, the lead character in one of Netflix’s biggest releases this year, Unorthodox.

Adapted from Deborah Feldman’s 2012 autobiographical book, Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots, Unorthodox is a four-part gut-wrenching yet beautifully detailed story of 19-year-old Esty, a young woman from the ultra-orthodox Hasidic community in New York, as she tries to escape an arranged marriage from the only world she has ever known, to Berlin — the city where her estranged mother, who is ostracised by the community, lives.

Through a series of flashbacks, we’re introduced to Esty and the world she grew up in — the Satmar community, a Hasidic sect known for its rigid enforcement of gender roles and extremely conservative approach to religion — and the events that led to her deciding to leave.

The series provides a rare glimpse into the very secretive Hasidic community. It’s like a world of its own, set in the present era, yet its members are cut off from the larger world. There are no televisions, internet, smart phones, ‘secular schools’ and no real mingling with people outside the community. All that exists for Esty and other members of the community is the community.

She, like her husband Yanky (played by Amit Rahav), has been taught to read and write but the only material she’s given to study are the rules of the community. As a woman, she is not even allowed to read the Torah. Other than this, she has no education and no skills. The only thing she is repeatedly told is that her purpose in life is to get married and have lots of children since the community lost many of its members in the Holocaust and must make up for it.

Deeply conservative communities with strict gender roles. Sound familiar? If there is one thing you should watch during the lockdown, it is Unorthodox and its behind-the-scenes documentary Making Unorthodox

She is barely 18 when her marriage is arranged. Esty is shockingly inexperienced and ignorant, even of her own anatomy. And there is a lot of pressure on her tiny little shoulders to constantly step up as the perfect granddaughter, wife, daughter-in-law etc. The entire community is omnipresent, watching and judging. Twenty-four-year-old Shira Haas, who plays Esty, is tiny, almost childlike herself, and you can’t help but feel protective of her.

Eventually Esty reaches her breaking point and follows in the footsteps of her mother who left the community for Berlin. Esty’s mother was so completely ostracised by the community that she was kicked out of her own daughter’s wedding.

In Berlin, whilst working through culture shock, Esty finds ‘her’ people and purpose while struggling to adapt to this alien new world. She appears petite and fragile, but inside she is as strong as steel. Eventually, the community catches up to her — they’re not going to let go of her so easily.

Unorthodox documents the Hasidic community’s secret customs and traditions in stunning, evocative detail — from the pre-marital sacred cleansing rituals Esty must undergo, to the (mostly segregated) wedding itself, from the aluminium foil covering the kitchen during Passover to Esty’s ‘married’ hair and wigs (Hasidic women are forbidden from showing their natural hair in public).

The series is relatable because we too have our own deeply-conservative communities who believe in a similar strict enforcement of gender roles, where exposure to the outside world is severely limited and the only ‘education’ given is rote-learning of sacred texts. A similar clash between the deeply conservative and modern/secular is also shown in the Turkish film Mutluluk (Bliss) where the lead character, who has never stepped outside her remote village, is forced to travel to multicultural Istanbul.

Unorthodox has been criticised for painting the Hasidic community as black-and-white villains. I don’t entirely agree with that. If the women in Esty’s life and her husband Yanky come across as oppressive towards her, it’s because that’s all they know. Yanky is shown struggling with the same rules and expectations that she is. He fails to understand how to handle his relationship because, much like Esty, Yanky is barely an adult when he gets married. Her escape has shaken his entire world.

Behind the scenes: On Making Unorthodox

What lends the series authenticity is not just the fact that it’s based on author Deborah Feldman’s own experience of escaping the ultra-orthodox Hasidic community, it’s that some of the people playing ultra-orthodox Hasidic Jews are ultra-orthodox Hasidic Jews. Or they were. At least 10 cast members belonged to the community and eventually severed ties with them.

To ensure that the filmmakers got the portrayal of the community accurately and to help the non-Yiddish speaking Jewish actors (such as Shira Haas, who is from Israel) learn the language and get the accent right, they reached out to Eli Rosen. He’s a writer, actor and translator with the New Yiddish Repertory Theatre and a former member of the Hasidic community in New York.

Because the New York section of the film is mostly in Hungarian Yiddish and the language is not spoken outside of the community itself, most of the supporting roles were cast to performers from the New Yiddish Repertory Theatre — except for one key character, that of Yanky’s dodgy, thuggish cousin Moishe.

Most of Moishe’s scenes were based in Berlin and, because of historical reasons, it was very difficult to find Jewish, let alone Yiddish speaking, actors in the city. That is, until the filmmakers were introduced to Berlin-based actor Jeff Wilbusch (who plays Moishe), who told them that Unorthodox was his story, too. He grew up in a Yiddish-speaking ultra-orthodox enclave in Jerusalem and left that community as well.

The behind-the-scenes video, Making Unorthodox, which Netflix released shortly after the series, is as heartwarming and emotional to watch as the series for an onlooker as well as for the cast and crew. Some actors reconnected with their roots, some even found distant family members by working on the film.

The portrayal of the ultra-orthodox Hasidic community is a subject rarely touched upon by popular entertainment. So, when the cast and crew turned up in Berlin (where most of the film was shot, even scenes that were technically based in New York) — with Jews looking very obviously Jew-y, one actor reported hearing an onlooker say, “Look! The Jews have returned to Berlin.” Not quite yet, but perhaps someday.

Published in Dawn, ICON, April 26th, 2020