Deborah Feldman on Failed Messiah

Did anyone see this on Failed Messiah yesterday? I'm wondering what the truth really is, as I thought that people on this site stated that they knew Deborah's mother left her around 5th grade? Or was that only when she started Satmar school?

http://failedmessiah.typepad.com/failed_messiahcom/2012/02/deborah-feldman-lies-again-123.html

http://failedmessiah.typepad.com/failed_messiahcom/2012/02/another-feldman-lie-123.html
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Diamond Member Joined: Oct 19 2011 Posts: 2700

I look forward to the comments on this thread. Let's see if the posters who normally hate Failed Messiah suddenly like it.
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Platinum Member Joined: May 22 2005 Posts: 13795

Kind of funny. The Failed Messiah can't get behind her and is calling her out as a liar????

Platinum Member Joined: Dec 27 2007 Posts: 7253

he is pretty objective fyi, most of his posts are articles or videos.

Platinum Member Joined: Aug 17 2011 Posts: 5987

At least I now understand how she took classes at Sarah Lawrence. It makes sense she was not matriculating. I also don't have a problem with when her mother and father actually split up. The event that one person defines a final split could very well be different than when another person preceives it. I don't have a problem with these inconsistencies.

I just received the book today as a gift. All the publicity is not hurting book sales.

Diamond Member Joined: Nov 30 2006 Posts: 2595

He's selective in what he posts, so it's not quite as simple as "unbiased." But yes, most of his material is reposts.

I'm neither pro nor anti-Shmarya. I did get a sense that he had something personal against her. There've been a LOT of FM posts on her. I wouldn't call him objective on this, but that doesn't mean no reason, either. I've read some of the comments and it seems she's not popular. I would surmise that there are OTD "circles" and she's got enemies there.

The Sarah Lawrence thing makes sense. I was wondering how she got from Satmar to there. It's a good college, but Satmar doesn't prepare you for that and it's as far from Orthodoxy as you can get, almost, in terms of student body and attitudes.

Senior Member Joined: Oct 17 2011 Posts: 231

All I can say is that I was kind of disgusted by Failed Messiah's coverage of this whole thing... Shmarya hates Chabad (fine, it's his right), but he clearly hates women, too... which is possibly more problematic. Reading his bits, as well as the comments, I was just struck by the mysogynism in the *way* that she was called a liar, demonized, ridiculed... I don't really have any particular opinion about her, other than that she appears to be a bit ego-centric and to have exaggeraged. Fine. But Shmarya really took it too far, in my opinion. It was just blatant, awful mysogynism.

Where in the articles was anything about Sarah Lawrence mentioned? I was also curious about that.
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Silver Member Joined: May 22 2008 Posts: 971

I don't hate FM. I think he's carrying a chip the size of Antartica + the ice on his shoulder!
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Actually, in the book she makes it very clear that she was accepted into Sarah Lawrence's adult education program, not into a regular degree program.

I have a lot of problems with DF's book, and unlike a lot of people who have a problem with the book, I've actually read it.

I think FM is not doing a good job with this. The story of the falsified murder is one thing; it can be independently corroborated. The uncle saying, "No, she liked him," is something else altogether. That's simply "He said, she said." It means nothing.

She also says in the preface of the book that she has altered things to protect people's identities, changed timelines, compressed multiple events into a single event, etc. So people have to read it with that disclaimer in mind.

That being said, I think it's a terrible book and I think she is going to regret writing it when/if she grows up a little bit. Quite frankly, it makes her look a lot worse than it makes frum yidden look. She comes across as shallow, petty, selfish, judgmental and mean. She freely admits to lying in the book. She shows no care or concern for anyone but herself. Someone offered her a paycheck, and she took it, even though other people (primarily her family) were going to be hurt.

I understand if she wanted out, but if you move out of a house, you don't have to torch the place on your way out the door. That's essentially what she's tried to do.

Luckily, we as a country have a very short attention span and terrible memories.
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Gold Member Joined: Jan 03 2011 Posts: 1503

Can we all just move on already?
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The word is misogyny and it means hatred of women.

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Senior Member Joined: Aug 24 2011 Posts: 128

FM is definetly right about one thing, I don't want to go into details, but I remember her younger sister...

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