Customer Reviews

Distant Sisters: The Women I Left Behind

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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.

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.

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.

Imagine the headline, "Ultra-Orthodox Housewife Tells All!" There, but for Judith Rotem's grace and warmth, is the gutter where this book might have ended up.

How easy it would have been for Rotem to write an exposé in this style! She could have approached it with the bitterest revenge motives, or perhaps just a willingness to "cash in" on her insider's edge. But don't worry; she doesn't.

Instead, she relies on candid interviews with women who are currently part of that world, rather than on her own fading and admittedly subjective memories.

One reviewer suggests that Distant Sisters "waffles" between sociological study and memoir. Actually, this book accomplishes both, with an admirable even-handedness belying Rotem's charedi past (and future; her son did not "leave the fold" with her). The distinction between "academic" and "personal" is perhaps more of a male distinction, and as a woman, I find that Rotem's mix of intellectual and emotional elements creates a fuller, more satisfying book.

Her observations about Jewish religious life were keen throughout. She led me to examine more closely the tenets of my own (much more moderate) lifestyle of Jewish observance and the many religious families in my community. Yes, it's sometimes depressing. But even those who reject traditional observance will emerge from this book with a clearer understanding of the observant mindset.

The book allows the reader a little glimpse inside the daily lives of charedi mitnagdim women. She always refers to her former life as a member of this group. But the reader is left in the dark as to why she left it or what was it that finally made her leave. The ending left me wondering if there was more. It didn't seem complete in the end and just leaves you hanging. One can't tell if she's glad to have left the charedi world or if she wishes she was back in it. The author goes back and forth a lot. I agree with one reader that the author herself got in the way of what could have been a terrific book.

It seemed obvious to me that she left the charedi world because of her daughters. She absolutely did not want them to go through the "shidukh" (matchmaking) process.

I've studied theology/Judaism at an University for 5 yrs. I think this book is a very important one since it focus on the life and role of haredi women. Before I read it we knew hardly nothing of these womens life of today.