Distant Sisters: The Women I Left Behind [Hardcover]

Yehudit Rotem (Author), Judith Rotem (Author), Nessa Rapoport (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1996

The growing fascination with the hardships of women in other cultures makes this insider's look at the harsh lives of ultra-orthodox women a relevant and intriguing read. Judith Rotem, divorced her religious husband and his way of life, interviewed dozens of women to give this insight to the women she left behind.National Jewish Book Award Winner.

Editorial Reviews

From Kirkus Reviews

A solid but simplistic depiction of the life of ultra-Orthodox Jewish women. Rotem was herself a member of the ultra-Orthodox, or haredi, community in Israel for most of her life, but after 20 years of marriage, she divorced her husband and left the community along with her six daughters. Here Rotem gives the reader a glimpse into the world she abandoned, and into the difficult and restrictive condition of haredi women. As Rotem notes, she is referring specifically to ultra-Orthodox of the misnaged tradition (of Lithuanian descent), not to the somewhat more familiar Hasidic community. The distinction is an important one, because while Hasidic men usually support their wives and families, among the more intellectually oriented misnagdim, the reverse is true. The most respected men of the community study sacred texts all day (for which they receive minimal stipends), while their wives work, take care of the home, and raise their usually large brood of children. They are, as Nessa Rapoport writes in her introduction, ``the female infrastructure that upholds'' the haredi world. Women take great pride in their spouses' accomplishments, and men's learning is valued above material possessions in the community at large. (Women, however, are not encouraged--in fact, not allowed--to study). Rotem talked to a number of these women and tells their stories (anonymously, because they do not want to risk the community's censure or to ruin their children's chances of a good arranged marriage). The accounts are interesting, although most people who are at all familiar with the ultra-Orthodox will find little new here. Also, Rotem's analysis of what she sees is completely banal: She writes that ``anyone who has no choice but to remain trapped in a wretched situation is not free'' and ``social phenomena are never as simple as they appear.'' Rotem offers limited access and little guidance to this unique community. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Hebrew

Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Jewish Publication Society of America; 1ST edition (December 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0827605838
• ISBN-13: 978-0827605831
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #132,432 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #8 in Books > Religion & Spirituality > Judaism > Women and Judaism

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A sometimes uplifting, sometimes depressing look at Haredi, July 24, 1998

By 

Sarah B., [e-mail] (Silver Spring, MD) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Distant Sisters: The Women I Left Behind (Hardcover)

Rotem travels back to the Haredi (Ultra-Orthodox) Jewish community she left behind to interview its women. She paints a portrait of an insular life that is sometimes uplifting and sometimes depressing. Rotem strives to find out what the women think about every aspect of their day-to-day existence in the Haredi community, a community where women are often expected to be the sole breadwinners and childrearers of their large families. Unfortunately, the book is not superbly organized; it doesn't really flow. Rotem does not try to hide her contempt for some aspects of the Haredi lifestyle; her "oh, let's feel sorry for the poor Haredi women" song gets old after about the fifth chapter. Rotem cannot seem to help imposing her values on a community that does not share them. Despite this minor criticism, I do recommend this book for anyone curious about Haredi Jews. It is an excellent glimpse into a very secretive world.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Author gets in the way of a good book, September 16, 2000

By 

Marcy L. Thompson (Sammamish, WA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Distant Sisters: The Women I Left Behind (Hardcover)

This book provides an intriguing look at the lives of women in the misnaged haredi community (what most Americans would call ultra-Orthodox Jews) in Israel. It is translated from the Hebrew, and was originally published in Israel. The author did a good job of getting haredi women to talk to her about their lives. She tells several stories about women who were raised in less stringently observant families who chose to become part of the haredi community, and she manages to portray the motivations of these women sympathetically and warmly. She also provides details of haredi lives that I have never before seen in print, and she mostly manages to provide these details from the reports of her informants, rather than from her experience many years ago as a haredi wife.

However, the author herself used to be haredi, and she is extremely ambivalent about the lifestyle, about the women who choose it, and even (I suspect) about having left it. The narrative keeps switching back and forth from a very good report on her research among these women to a discussion of her own values, which differ from those of the women she is supposedly describing. To her credit, Rotem makes no secret that she is not objective about this topic. However, she also fails to clearly describe her own opinions or to tell us how she arrived at the values she has. She does talk about specific parts of her experience as a haredi wife, but she fails to tell the more general story of what happened to change her.

As a result, this book can't decide whether it's an almost-objective sociological study or whether it's a memoir. The two books don't live together cleanly inside the book the author wrote, and this distracts from the very interesting information she presents. What's worse, the memoir is not as good a book as the sociological study, so its presence just detracts from the value of this otherwise interesting and useful book.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Fascinating Look at a Secret World of Jewish Women, August 20, 2001

By 

Helene Hoffman (Long Beach, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Distant Sisters: The Women I Left Behind (Hardcover)

I really enjoyed this book. The author, who has a unique perspective of having been raised Haredi, interviews a varied group of women who currently live that ultra-Orthodox lifestyle. She demonstrates that some love it, others hate parts of it, while still others are somewhere in the middle. Having been raised somewhat modern Orthodox myself, I am amazed that these women were willing to be interviewed at all, and even more amazed that they were as frank as they were. It demonstrates that the author possesses a unique sensitivity and understanding of this "closed" community. This book is a great revelation of this devout group of Jewish women. In particular, what will "shock" many is the strict proscription against the Haredi women from knowing the non-Haredi world, which includes a prohibition against the reading of secular materials. Another is the women's "sacrifice" of their own personal goals to ensure that their children do not suffer any prejudice in their communities. An example is one mother who enrolled in college, even though she knew that this action may prevent her daughter from making a good "shiduch", or marriage, in the Haredi world. The only criticism I had of the book is that I truly wished that the author had related, in detail, why she herself divorced her Haredi husband and left this world. Her personal story would probably rival any she related in her book.