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Little Ash, a lesser son of the famed demon king Ashmedai, studies Talmud all day with his counterpart, a forgetful angel, in the synagogue of a tiny Jewish town in the Pale of Settlement. But Little Ash wants to see more than their unnamed shtetl: He convinces the angel to go to America, ostensibly to find out what happened to Essie, the baker’s daughter who hasn’t written since she left Warsaw. Steeped in Ashkenazi lore, custom, and faith, this beautifully written story deftly tackles questions of identity, good and evil, obligation, and the many forms love can take. Queerness and gender fluidity thread through both the human and supernatural characters, clearly depicted without feeling anachronistic.
posted by latkes on Jun 19, 2023 - 5 comments

Loosely based on Deborah Feldman's 2012 autobiography Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots, Netflix's Unorthodox tells the story of a young woman's leaving the ultra-Orthodox community of Satmar Hasidim in New York. [more inside]
posted by Westringia F. on Mar 29, 2020 - 13 comments