Welcome
back, my Lovely Readers! Today, I warn you, you are in for more of a
rant than a true review. But y'all need to know.
So one night,
hubby and I were doom scrolling, like ya do, and he shows me this
meme... That sends us to Amazon to check out this book someone says
they'll read one hundred
times this year. For four dollars, I now own the Kindle version of one
of the
worst books i have ever read.
I don't know exactly what I
expected. As far as I am personally aware, "Sender" is an androgynous
name, so I really had no idea. I was hoping for a Jewish romance
novel. As a long- time romance reader, I've stumbled onto lots of
Christian romance. I have read so much romance, in fact, that,
statistically, I should have stumbled on a non-Christian romance
accidentally by now. I have not. So, i was hopeful.
Our tale
opens with an attack on a school bus full of young ladies being taken
home from a local Jewish school. As the girls cower from their
attackers at the back of the bus, our "hero" appears on the scene
brutally kicking ass like the Hebrew Hammer. Nineteen-year-old Talmud
prodigy Yitzak Schwarz brutally incapacitates the attackers with a
nearby fire extinguisher. (How the one dude is still alive after the
attack baffles me). Then, like Batman, Yitzak leaves the scene before
the cops show up, but he hangs around closely enough to see one of the
cops finish the job on the one clinging to life.
Later
our handsome, Hasidic vigilante is relating the incident to a friend
(confessing to attempted murder) when said friend asks Yitzak why a
handsome Hebe like Yitzak isn't drowning on eligible daughters. My
understanding (please correct me if I'm wrong) is that the Hasidic
community likes their young people to wed well... young. The whole "be
fruitful and multiply" thing, plus hormones being hormones. This is
believable.
Yitzak goes home to question his parents as to why
the matchmakers haven't been around. Finally, Yitzak's parents confess
that he is adopted (this should have happened before Yitzak's Bar
Mitzvah, according to the articles listed below), but that he was "a
full, kosher Jew."
Yitzak's birth mother, his adoptive
mother's sister, was denied a religious divorce by her legal ex-husband.
This puts her in a tough spot when she falls in love and bears a child
by a man she believes to be 100% of Italian ancestry. When it is
discovered that Yitzak's biological father is in fact half Jewish
genetically, it seals Yitzak's fate. As his birth father is half Jewish,
and more importantly, half from the maternal side, which confirms his
status as a mamzer. That means he's a special kind of bastard, born from
a mother who might have been legally divorced from her spouse, but
hadn't received a religious one, or a Get, yet, to a man who isn't her
husband who is a member of the Jewish people. He reports his findings to
his rabbi, which ensures his whole community will know. This means he
can only marry a convert to Judaism. According to the novel, any
naturally born "kosher" (author's chosen repetition) Jewish girl he might
marry would join him in mamzer status, and their children would be
considered mamzers as well. But according to the novel, if Yitzak
married a convert, their children would not be mamzers.
A
lightning-fast series of events results in Yitzak becoming a literal
overnight millionaire, in search of a devout Amish girl on her
Rumspringa. That's right, folks. This boy is planning to convince a very
devout girl to leave not only her community and her family, hut also
her God to be his wife.
Yitzak leaves his home in Williamsburg,
Brooklyn, New York for Lancaster County, PA, the heart of Amish
country. He goes "undercover" as Isaac, working in the fields of an
Amish farm. That's how he finds out where the Amish teenagers go after
dark.
At the local hangout spot Yitzak learns of another
gathering happening later in the week. And that's where Isaac meets his
17-year-old Rebecca. To Sender Zeyv's credit, what we see isn't a
physical attraction, per se. We are told that Isaac finds Rebecca
beatiful, but this is totally chaste. Because of Yitzak's Hasidic
beliefs, the pair don't ever even so much as hold hands. They go on
two dates where the conversation consists largely of religious debate,
Good Old Jews vs Christians. Much of these multiple debates are
credited to Rabbi Tovia Singer, either his book or his YouTube channel.
Supposedly, not Rebecca nor anyone else has figured out that Issac
isn't really Amish. The pair decide they are engaged after the second
date.
On an extremely flimsy pretext, Isaac convinces Rebecca to
go on a trip to Montreal and a Hasidic community there. He has
convinced this girl to love him, but he still has to convince her to
change her whole life, and this trip to Montreal is key to his plan.
This
is a früm or devout romance, and there is plenty of that. My conclusion
is that Sender Zeyv is male because so much of this book reads like an
InCel's dream. Over and over again we hear arranged marriage praised,
and that the woman's primary duties are inside the home.
While I
am aware that arranged marriages can work, like so many of our other
systems, it is inherently beneficial to the men. Especially in a
religious community, leaving an unhappy union can be next to impossible.
We see examples of unhappy women stuck in arranged marriages from Leo
Tolstoy's Anna Karenina to Talia Carner's Jerusalem Maiden. And that's
just in literature. How many women have un-alived themselves because
their very strict religious community would never allow a divorce. Get
(Jewish religious divorce) refusal isn't just a plot device. (See links
below)
In addition, we only see an emotional connection from
Rebecca's end. From Yitzak we see admiration, respect, and definite
possessiveness over her, but nothing that really reads as love, more
like he's protecting a potential livestock investment. In fact the whole
relationship feels predatory. Yitzak even admitted in narrative, if
only to himself, that what he is doing is an act of manipulation. My
husband pointed out that if Yitzak were three to five years older, he would be
considered a groomer. The method employed to get Rebecca across the
Canadian border is reminiscent of human trafficking documentaries.
I
also take issue with Yitzak's contradicting behavior. He keeps
repeating that he mustn't let on to anyone that he is Jewish, yet he
gives himself away all over the place. He is constantly entering into
these religious debates with Amish people, dialog supplied by Rabbi
Singer of YouTube fame. He is obvious in his prayer and personal
habits. And he is dumb enough to confess his plan to every
hassidic person he crossed paths with.
All of that pales,
absolutely pales, to what has me really upset about this story. What has
me hopping mad is the myopic view this book gives of Judaism and Jews,
and the way it seems to play right into the hands of harmful
stereotypes, and even seems to encourage practices taken on by groups
harmful to Judaism.
As a Jew by conversion, I do not claim to be
an expert. My synagogue belongs to the conservative reconstruction
movement of Judaism, so that is what I know best. A little internet
research confirms what I thought. " Upon the date of the bar (or bat)
Mitzvah, the child must choose whether or not to accept Judaism. Once
the adoptee has consented to the values and responsibilities of becoming
a Jew, he or she is considered a full member within the Jewish
community" (links below). According to my research this is when Yitzak
should have been told he was a mamzer, and either accepted he will
always be a second-class Jew, or decided against it. But the rabbi had
assured his adoptive parents everything was okay, so they didn't??
With
all of this information, I am unsure if the sub plot we get involving
Rebecca's DNA test results is based on anything at all or if it is just
for literary tension. After all, once she converts her racial makeup
wont matter, right? She will be a Jew, even if her sperm donor gave her
Jewish genetic markers, right?
Regardless of Rebecca's
genetics, according to a Brandeis University blog piece (link below), if
one is a mamzer, it doesn't matter who you wed. Your child will carry
the stigma of being a mamzer, even after ten generations.
In
conclusion, I don't know who Sender Zeyv is, and I don't know his
community. What I do know is that this is a book for super conservative
religious men, most likely those who are already anti-christian
evangelicals. This book just shows how any flavor of religious orthodoxy
tends to see its women as little more than brood mares. This is made
even worse by the vibes given off by all of the married women, which are
just a little closer to Stepford Wives than I am comfortable with. ( read the
articles under the "Arranged Marriage" heading below.)
I do not have
words to express how upset this book left me, and it was supposed to be
some kind of love story. What I feel like I got is a conservative man's
manipulation of a girl so that she will do what he wants, Pick Up
Artist style. (He doesn't insult her clothes, but her faith, and by
extension her community) I feel this book is a gross misrepresentation
of
both communities. I recommend this no one, and I am actually concerned
about anyone who could read this one hundred times, i had a hard enough
time reading it once.
0/5 stars
LINKS:
Why Orthodox Jews Tend To Marry Young
When Jews Adopt a Non-Jewish Child
Depression in Arranged Marriages
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