Yom Kippur post: The Marrying of Chani Kaufman

The Marrying of Chani Kaufman, Eve Harris

Fast Facts

• A recommendation from my extraordinary friend Masha
• Long-listed for the 2013 Man Booker Prize
• Written by half-Israeli, secular Jew who taught briefly at a religious school
• 384 pages
• Exploration of life in a London Orthodox community, from the perspective of its teenage newly weds and their clergy's wife
• Enjoyable and quick read, but not a favorite
  

Unlikely Choice


It is unlikely that I would ever have picked up this book, had it not been so highly recommended by my friend Masha, who is a human marvel.  I have some religious family and friends, but I would not personally choose (and it is hard for me to even imagine) immersion in an Orthodox belief system, community, or lifestyle.  But a window in to this environment piqued my interest, and the timing was perfect - I had a trip coming up with lots of plane time, and needed a new book.


What to Expect


The story opens with Chani Kaufman, a nineteen-year-old Orthodox girl, on her wedding day - wearing the same sweaty dress that her sisters and generations of women in her family before her have worn.  Harris spends a good amount of time describing body odors in the opening passages, and Chani contemplates (read: obsesses) about what her wedding night will be like.


The novel jumps around chronologically, detailing the weeks leading up to Chani's wedding - including 3 dates and a memorably awkward phone conversation - with her soon-to-be-betrothed, twenty-year-old Baruch.  The perspective shifts between Chani, Baruch, and Chani's mentor, a rabbi's wife or rebbetzin named Rivka, and Rivka's son Avromi, whose eye predictably wanders when he attends a secular university.


In the Chani/Baruch story line, Chani and Baruch fixate on sex; on what it means to marry someone with whom you've spent approximately an hour; and then on sex, some more.  There is some romance and even a bit of suspense in the telling of their fledgling relationship, but preoccupation with deflowering is really the focus.


Rivka's story is a little more complex.  Some 30 years before she was tasked with taking Chani to the mikvah spiritual baths and explaining basic reproduction, Rivka was a student in Jerusalem who fell in love with a student named Chaim, and together, they became religious.  Her reproductive difficulties in the present, and her struggling and evolving relationships with both her husband and her faith, are the most poignant parts of the book.


Culture Questions You Can't Get an Answer to on Airplane Mode


From the very start of the book, I wanted to know: is this author a member of an Orthodox community?  Perhaps that is a testament to Harris' level of research, or to my inability to catch her in an error due to my own lack of knowledge.  I couldn't find out for sure until I finished the book, because I started and finished it on a plane.


Now that I know that Harris is not and has never been religious, I find myself wanting to critique the novel even more.  Each character struggles with the Hasidic community that they have been born into or have chosen in different ways, and it seems too easy or simplistic to see Hasidic life as confining and full of struggle, if you're an outsider looking in.  I don't know if my devil's advocate view is somehow tinged with Jewish guilt for not being more observant, but I do wonder - how would I feel reading this if I were Orthodox? 


Would I be frustrated or upset that the novel depicts religious teenagers as far more preoccupied with sex than questions of faith?  That the strongest female voice in the novel, a rabbi's wife who became more observant after falling in love, has grown to resent and seek escape from her community?  That a prominent dramatic point in the novel focuses on the nasty antics of Baruch's mother, who threatens Chani against marrying Baruch because her family isn't wealthy enough?
Particularly pointed (and I'd imagine, offensive) is the critique of Chani's own very fertile mother, who seems to Chani "a stranger, an exhausted mountain of dilapidated flesh, endlessly suckling, soothing, patting or feeding"... "her mother had become a machine whose parts were grinding and worn".  Maybe that's an author grasping for descriptors, but that's a little cruel for my taste.


Worth Reading?


This is a well-paced and enjoyable read, and a fascinating one for anyone curious about particular rituals or cultural elements related to Orthodox Judaism.  Harris provides an interesting narrative, with just enough drama and romance to keep you baited, and a sweet ending.  With some of my misgivings and questions aside, I'd recommend this novel for a quick read - though I wasn't completely in love.