Separation from Hasidic community įeldman said that the birth of her son was a turning point regarding staying in the Hasidic community: "I saw my future all mapped out. She entered an arranged marriage at the age of 17, and became a mother at 19. Denied a typical American education, she hid books prohibited by the community under her bed. Like all children in the community, Feldman was raised to be pious, spoke Yiddish, and was prohibited from going to the public library. She was raised by her grandparents, both Holocaust survivors, after her mother left the community and came out as lesbian, and her mentally impaired father was unable to raise her on his own. Her mother was born in Manchester to refugees from Germany, and upon researching her mother's family, Feldman discovered that one of her mother's grandfathers was of non-Jewish (Catholic) German ancestry on his father's side and had attempted to integrate fully into Gentile society. She has written that her father was mentally impaired, and that her paternal family had arranged a marriage for him to her mother, whom Feldman described as an intelligent woman who was an outsider to the community because she was of German Jewish origin.
Feldman grew up as a member of the Hasidic Satmar group in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York City.
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