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Guter yid: do you need her to be a liar? as far as im concerned every word of it could be true and i wouldnt care because she sees it one way and i see it another way. she sees nothing but oppression, and i see beauty in judaism, why do YOU need her to be a liar?
if she lied id like to see it. i asked for a list because i was genuinely interested and curious. if you have instances where she lied please list them in a coherent manner rather than ranting about how my level of torah observance must be questionable.
Naisberg: you want attention? here. have some attention.
mytake: thank you, i really am curious. by the way i know quite about chassidim, but her book is specifically about satmar in williamsburg…not all chassidim, and i only know about chassidus in boro park.
also what you said about the conversation…in memoir it is acceptable to reconstruct a conversation from memory even if it isnt word for word. she prints that disclaimer before the book.
“So much time and effort is spent on kirov, How about trying to keep those already there”
Project Chazon
by the way…for those of you who may have forgotten…heres what i originally write about the matter
get drunk. pass out. wake up in a pool of vomit.
thats not from dressing up…thats from those girls being stupid…
does she know how to make a kugel?
“Forgive me. Possibly Im not as smart as all of you who are shocked. Only Hashem knows if this question should be considered shocking.”
everyone has bechira and a chezkas kashrus, therefore discriminating against people who may or may not go off the derech is wrong and disgusting. we all may go off the derech. yochanan kohen gadol became a tzeduki after 80 of service.
heres what it boils down to. im not sure which interview it was but i remember her using the term ambivalent to describe her feelings toward judaism. the term ambivalent describes a condition where a person feels strongly both ways about an issue. the way i see it shes someone who suffered, became terribly disenfranchised, and felt a strong need to lash out, which she did in the form of her book.
as far as she is concerned right now she never wants to have anything to do with judaism again, but that term ambivalent is telling–it means that she has feelings either way. therefore i conclude that rather than trying to vilify her, we should be trying to show her the beauty that judaism has to offer–the beauty she never saw as a child.
i cant even blame her for writing the book; why should she not write a book being negative about judaism if she never experienced anything positive in judaism?
she never once mentioned experiencing a shabbos…not ONCE! shabbos is one of the most beautiful parts of judaism and she only ever mentioned it to refer to the day of the week. she grew up in a system–satmar in williamsburg. systems fail. in her case it failed wherever and whenever possible. what do you expect from someone like that? positive feedback? how?!
we all know that there IS beauty in judaism; we’ve all experienced it. so why should we keep it all to ourselves? why not share it with this person who unfortunately had difficult life?
no one’s defending her, we’re just not interested in people being called liars without any kind of substantiation to the claim. there’s a difference.
which she heard from her husband–take that up with him. yoy just said there are other lies in the book, please point them out. i understand your displeasure with the book, and im right there with you, but if youre going to accuse someone of lying it would seem prudent to have citations ready
thats not good enough. i HAVE read every post in this thread. i want you to list her lies.
im with feif on this un
how was she lying
actually she said she had never worn that much makeup. she said that until then she had only used cheap blush and foundation.
a mamin: having a specific agenda doesnt make you a liar. i read her book, did you? i didnt see any lies in it. in fact the entire time i was reading all i could think was: what shes saying is technically true, its just a crying shame that thats how she saw it all.
i dont understand…how are women supposed to vote and be in the kitchen at the same time?
Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.
even if it IS bolted down just bring drill
actually oomis she did that for the benefit of everyone watching and, i suspect, to be disrespectful. at her book release she pronounced all of her “ches”es properly.
as to how you lear to write as well as she did…i learned how to write as well as i did on my own in 3 years with lots of practice
“almost every review I’ve read actually says the book is very well written, and very engrossing.”
one of the best books ive ever read
do you know if the report is available anywhere online?
PARAGRAPH BREAKS, PEOPLE; THEY MATTER!!!
if state police were involved then there would be a report…which presumably would be available to pretty much anyone…wouldnt it be easy enough to verify?
was it really verified to be false? can you please source that? id like to see it
oh, here we go. mods allow us to post links to threads.
http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/coffeeroom/topic/soliek-im-writing-this-book
why was my post not allowed? i simply wrote what my book is about…
yep. i exchanged contact info with her publicicst/agent/manager dude thingy.
also i made an awesome contact there…if he pans out. some guy overheard me talking about my book with the publicist/agent/manager dude thingy and told me hes a psychiatrist and that hed review and offer commentary on my book, that he knows publishers he could hook me up with once im ready, and thyat he knows the EIC of Ami and has some pull…soliekyea
beautiful
A Woman outside bklyn: oh i got there a half hour early so i managed to get a seat after standing around for 15 minutes. the crowd was actually mostly frei jews i would say…i eavesdropped. to non jews its a book displaying amazing courage, and to frei jews it was basically a soap box upon which to stand when criticizing the backwards unevolved monkeys that satmar jews apparently are. (that was a quote…i dont think of jews that way)
yeah i got the impression that she missed the point and glossed over what would really have been important: the dysfunction in her family and the way her near rape and family’s problems of mental illness and in general how stigma was so feared. It all gets something like a total of 4 pages throughout the 250 page book.
so i went to her book release, got a tentative promise for an interview, bought the book and im half done. i agree with rr6527.
constantly she talks about feeling apart because of her parents. im glad i was right in my initial assessment, she is the product of bad childhood.
someone close this thread?
Last I checked I’m a man so meeting up is a bad idea Butliekyea…I’m going because I think its gonna be interesting
“The book should be renamed: “The Protocols of the Elders of Satmar.”
omg that was actually funny 😀
“sugar onion carrots”
whats a sugar onion carrot? more to the point…whats a sugar onion…or whats an onion carrot? AM SEW FUZZLED
today is the release at The Corner Bookstore in the city, feel free to go and voice your grievances in the Q&A (just be civil about it).
JaneDoe18: which is why i specifically never mentioned the fact that it was only satmar she bashed. much in the same way that im sympathetic toward her because a jew is a jew, i must condemn what she wrote because a jew is a jew. doesnt matter if the book is about satmar and were not satmar, they are jews and so are we and therefore we should all be offended whether or not it pertains to our specific sect
well said
zeeskite: your zeal is noted, we get the point. per past doesnt excuse it, it explains it. it explains why she did it…not because she woke up one day and had something against satmar…but because her life was very difficult.
somebody, or several somebodies, said that shes doing it for the money. you dont understand why writers write. when i showed my Ami article to my grandmother she told me that i did it to get paid. she also said that every writer who writes for every magazine does it for the money. its true…i was paid for my article…but ididnt do it for the money. the other writers in ami dont do it for the money. Devorah Feldman didnt do it for the money.
you have no idea what goes into writing a book; the emotional stress in reliving your life in a very short span of time, the nitpicking over every draft, losing sleep over word usage, placement, and tone, fighting the urge to throw your work in the trash. this isnt about her specifically, this is about every writer to have ever written. people dismiss what we do because they dont understand it and because words are so readily available to the general public, but why dont you try writing a book. its not easy; not in craft, and not emotionally.
it just really annoys me when people dismiss writers as gold diggers. that only applies when a book is ghost written, and even then only in certain cases.
oomis: yeah i know im not her, and i would never do what she did, i just know where shes coming from. i know her nisayon.
if whatever you tell yourself makes you happy, keep saying it.
oh i know im not her. i would never do what she did. but i DO understand why she did it and therefore i cannot judge her like everyone else seems so quick to do
take a lesson at Beep Beep Auto School 😀
Zeeskite: i try very hard never to pull godwins on people because the argument is usually invalidated, but in this case i think its appropriate.
after world war 2 many jews renounced their judaism and cursed hashem for what happened to their families. many spent the next X years of their lives espousing their hatred for hashem and judaism and how it ruined their lives. would you dare judge them? would you dare write them off? would you dare presume to claim that you have any authority in the matter? i sincerely hope not.
al tadin is fine when someone YOU know is involved, but not good enough when its someone you dont know? suppose she was your sister and you lived her life but turned out differently, would you judge her? i doubt it. youd believe that shes wrong, but would you be such a kanai “l’shem shamayim.”
but she IS your sister. shes a jew who suffered. she is no different than family.
if she had randomly published a book, for no reason at all, just published a book openly bashing and criticizing satmar after having a perfect life then i agree, she would be completely wrong, and would deserve all the flack shes getting over this. but she didnt have a perfect life–not even close–and therefore yes, she DOES deserve special consideration.
also consider this. suppose she had come over to you with her story a year ago, before it was published, dressed as she appears in that picture, munching on a crabcake; what would your response have been to her? is your problem that she published or is your problem that she feels the way she does? if your problem is that she published then you understand why she feels like she does, you just believe that its unfortunate. and the fact that she published makes her no less unfortunate.
this thread has gotten a bit off point so let me address the title directly. what effect does this memoir have on us? what effect should it have would be a better question. seeing a book like this and reacting with anger is the wrong response. what you should feel when you see a book like this happen is feel sadness. you should feel that the fact that such a book could happen is a tragedy. because behind the book is a person who suffered, and if we could have done something before it turned into the book and didnt…thats tragic.
“And IMO Yiddish Speeches should be BANNED (Unless everyone speaks it)”
OH YES PLEASE!!! and can we PLEASE do away with that ridiculous sing-song tune that the kids read their speeches in!?
chocandpatience: pretty much
oomis1105: she is wrong, and i am the first to admit that she is wrong and that what she did is awful, but i havent written her off as a jew or a person because i know what drove her to it. you all know that im working on a book…and let me tell you it is taking a LOT of self control not to use it as a platform to air my grievances about our community–and i have many. but i know what it feels like to want to, i know where that feeling comes from, and i therefore cannot disparage her for wanting to do that. i can condemn it…and i do…but i havent given up on her as a person.
the world isnt split into good people and frei people.
a mamin: i have no reason to assume that anything in her book is a lie (read the excerpt on the S&S site). she may have spun certain things in an unfavorable way, but i have no reason to assume she lied about anything, least of all her family problems. what she describes actually fits the bill.
by the way, for those of you who are wondering why im so hung up on this, aside from the fact that i experienced something similar, its that your response is precisely what drives people off in the first place. she says in her book that when her cousin was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, her grandfather locked him in a room for 4 months rather than send him to a psychiatric facility. i believe that because i know its happened.
her mother was never addressed, and her father was written off for being mentally deficient. think about your communities and how they WOULD (not should) react to something like that. it destroys the perfect image that we have as a community and in our respective families when someone is diagnosed with a mental illness and everyone knows it. therefore, it is ignored.
not to mention sexual abuse…we all know THAT gets covered up very often, and mentioning it earns you the title of nuchem rosenberg. you mention the fact that domestic violence exists in the community and all you get are a bunch of people telling you to be quiet. if youre a victim, you get told that you either deserve it, or that you should just grin and bear it–that you are over-reacting.
and you wonder why someone would want to disparage the community, why someone would want to shame it to its core? because if thats what it takes then so be it. now thats not my personal opinion, and i dont think that she accomplishes that with this book and her publicity, but i know what it feels like to blame the entire community for your suffering and to want retribution. baruch hashem i got over my problems and am using other methods to further my agenda…but thats why i feel so strongly about this.
because to a certain extent…shes absolutely right.
shkoyach, so it worked for you. why does it have to work for everyone?
i usually dont pull this card…but until youve gone through what shes gone through you cant possibly understand what drives a person to that point. reserve your insults, your claims of mental illness, your claims of mental retardation, your certainty that she is chayav misah…all of it. save it. you could never understand what its like to have that kind of life.
you can thump on your bibles all you want, but she is still a jew, and she suffered. so please…just keep quiet.
A Woman outside bklyn: its on the 15th not the 13th (today) and if you want to reach me…just search google for Our Place NY WordPress and leave a comment…thats how everyone else contacts me
MiddlePath: sounds like what i wanted to say