Naomi Ragen's The Sisters Weiss is a fascinating portrait of an insular community living by ancient laws in a modern metropolis--and of one woman's insatiable hunger for a life of her own. Beloved by their ultra-Orthodox parents, Rose and Pearl Weiss grow up sheltered but safe in their 1950s Brooklyn community. But when Rose makes a new friend and develops a secret passion for photography, she is shamed and banished to a distant neighborhood. Longing to reconcile with her parents, she agrees to an arranged marriage, but flees on the eve of her wedding, breaking off all contact with her family.
Forty years later, Pearl's daughter, Rivka, discovers the truth about her aunt Rose's break with her family and community. Feeling similarly stifled, naïve Rivka embarks on a reckless, rebellious journey of her own, which will have far-reaching consequences for Rose, her daughter, Hannah, and Pearl.
The Sisters Weiss is a sensitive look at a painful dilemma: the agonizing choice between freedom and family, between loneliness and an often stifling community, between a world of opportunity and a rich but demanding heritage. Ragen (The Saturday Wife) skillfully captures the paradoxes inherent in the lives of Orthodox Jewish women, who receive far less education than men, but must run their households and work to support their families while their husbands study the Torah. The choices of the Weiss women--Rose, Hannah, Rivka and Pearl--reverberate through their lives in surprising and empathetic ways. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams