Literature · Living
Born: 17 August 1986 · Age: 40
Deborah Feldman is 40 years old as of October 2026. She was born on 17 August 1986.
American-German writer whose memoir Unorthodox, about leaving her Hasidic community, became an award-winning Netflix series
Did you know?She grew up in the Satmar Hasidic community in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
Deborah Feldman grew up in a closed religious community in New York. She was married by arrangement as a teenager. She secretly read books banned at home. After her son was born, she decided to leave. Her memoir about her escape became a bestseller. A Netflix drama inspired by it won awards. She now writes about identity and freedom from Berlin. She has become an outspoken voice in debates about Jewish life in Germany today.
Deborah Feldman is an American-German writer living in Berlin. Her 2012 autobiography, Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots, tells the story of her escape from a Hasidic Jewish community in Brooklyn, New York, and was the basis of the 2020 Netflix miniseries Unorthodox.
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Profile
American-German writer, born 1986
Deborah Feldman was born in New York City on 17 August 1986.
Her memoir Unorthodox was published in 2012.
It inspired the Netflix miniseries Unorthodox in 2020.
She lives in Berlin and became a German citizen.
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Last reviewed: October 2026