Arnon Grunberg meets Deborah Feldman
Channel: De Balie
Date: 2017-05-21

In this episode Grunberg talks with best selling author Deborah Feldman - who left the ultra-orthodox Jewish community in Williamsburg - about her life in a parallel society and the search for her own identity. How is it to build a new life when your past turns against you? How do you look at the role of women within a religion if you grew up in an orthodox Jewish community? And what remains of your own identity if you leave your youth behind? 

Feldman grew up in an ultra orthodox chassidic community in Williamsburg, New York. The strict community tells her what to wear, what to eat, who to speak. If Deborah Feldman is seventeen she is married to a man she does not know. Two years later, they get their first child.

Feldman is just 25 years old when her first book appears; Unorthodox: "The Schandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots" (2012). Herein she describes her memories about her escape from the strictly religious community. The book is an instant bestseller and is celebrated by the New York Times. Critics praise Feldman for her courage, strength, and independence for leaving the closed community. In her second novel "Exodus" (2015), Feldman describes the next phase of her life. A book about the sense of alienation after leaving her life in Brooklyn behind, and the search for a new identity. Feldman is currently living in Berlin and is writing and making a film. Thus her work focuses on issues that are at the interface between globalization, religion and identity.


About the series
'Arnon Grunberg Meets ...' is a talk series at De Balie in which Arnon Grunberg speaks with prominent thinkers, writers, artists, and politicians. Grunberg spoke among others with Marlene Dumas, Zadie Smith, Tomas Sedlacek, Ulrich Seidl, Nathalie Laceur and Damiaan Denys in this series.


Livestream 2017-05-21

This video is also at:
https://vimeo.com/debalie/deborahfeldman
http://www.debalie.tv


 N E D E R L A N D S : 

Arnon Grunberg ontmoet Deborah Feldman
https://www.debalie.nl/agenda/podium/arnon-grunberg-ontmoet-deborah-feldman/e_9782829/p_11768604/


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