I Am Forbidden
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Rosalyn Landor
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By:
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Anouk Markovits
About this listen
A family is torn apart by fierce belief and private longing in this unprecedented journey deep inside the most insular Hasidic sect, the Satmar....
Sweeping from the Central European countryside just before World War II to Paris to contemporary Williamsburg, Brooklyn, I Am Forbidden brings to life four generations of one Satmar family.
Opening in 1939 Transylvania, five-year-old Josef witnesses the murder of his family by the Romanian Iron Guard and is rescued by a Gentile maid to be raised as her own son. Five years later, Josef rescues a young girl, Mila, after her parents are killed while running to meet the Rebbe they hoped would save them. Josef helps Mila reach Zalman Stern, a leader in the Satmar community, in whose home Mila is raised as a sister to Zalman’s daughter, Atara. As the two girls mature, Mila’s faith intensifies, while her beloved sister Atara discovers a world of books and learning that she cannot ignore. With the rise of communism in central Europe, the family moves to Paris, to the Marais, where Zalman tries to raise his children apart from the city in which they live.
When the two girls come of age, Mila marries within the faith, while Atara continues to question fundamentalist doctrine. The different choices the two sisters makes force them apart until a dangerous secret threatens to banish them from the only community they’ve ever known.
A beautifully crafted, emotionally gripping story of what happens when unwavering love, unyielding law, and centuries of tradition collide, I Am Forbidden announces the arrival of an extraordinarily gifted new voice and opens a startling window on a world long closed to most of us, until now.
©2012 Anouk Markovits (P)2012 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Abeo Kata lives a comfortable, happy life in West Africa as the privileged nine-year-old daughter of a government employee and stay-at-home mother. But when the Katas' idyllic lifestyle takes a turn for the worse, Abeo's father, following his mother's advice, places the girl in a religious shrine, hoping that the sacrifice of his daughter will serve as atonement for the crimes of his ancestors. Unspeakable acts befall Abeo for the 15 years she is held in the shrine. When she is finally rescued, broken and battered, she must struggle to overcome her past.
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Searing!
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In the Country
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- Unabridged
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These nine globe-trotting, unforgettable stories from Mia Alvar, a remarkable new literary talent, vividly give voice to the women and men of the Filipino diaspora. Here are exiles, emigrants, and wanderers uprooting their families from the Philippines to begin new lives in the Middle East, the United States, and elsewhere - and sometimes turning back again.
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My introduction to Filipino literature and culture
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Summer 1995: Ten-year-old Joan, her mother, and her younger sister flee her father’s explosive temper and seek refuge at her mother’s ancestral home in Memphis. This is not the first time violence has altered the course of the family’s trajectory. Half a century earlier, Joan’s grandfather built this majestic house in the historic Black neighborhood of Douglass—only to be lynched days after becoming the first Black detective in the city. Joan tries to settle into her new life, but family secrets cast a longer shadow than any of them expected.
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Awful narrator
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The Kite Runner
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- Unabridged
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Why we think it’s a great listen: Never before has an author’s narration of his fiction been so important to fully grasping the book’s impact and global implications. Taking us from Afghanistan in the final days of its monarchy to the present, The Kite Runner is the unforgettable story of the friendship between two boys growing up in Kabul. Their intertwined lives, and their fates, reflect the eventual tragedy of the world around them.
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When Ruth Neufeld's husband and father-in-law are killed working for a relief organization overseas, she travels to Wisconsin with her young daughters and mother-in-law, Mabel, to bury her husband. She hopes the Mennonite community will be a quiet place to grieve and piece together next steps.
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I loved this book!
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The Women in the Castle
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Set at the end of World War II, in a crumbling Bavarian castle that once played host to all of German high society, a powerful and propulsive story of three widows whose lives and fates become intertwined - an affecting, shocking, and ultimately redemptive novel from the author of the New York Times notable book The Hazards of Good Breeding.
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Inspired by the extraordinary events of Dr. May Chinn’s life, Angel of Harlem is a deeply affecting story of love and transcendence. Weaving seamlessly scenes from the battlefields of the Civil War, during which her father escaped from slavery, to the Harlem living rooms and kitchen tables where May is sometimes forced to operate on her patients, this fascinating novel lays bare the heart of a woman who changed the face of medicine.
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Really Enjoyed!
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Prudence Eleanor Vilkas was born with a pair of wings molded to her back. Considered a birth defect, her wings were surgically removed, leaving only the ghost of them behind. Growing up in Los Vientos, Florida, Prudence meets her long-estranged Lithuanian grandfather and discovers a miraculous lineage beating and pulsing with past Lithuanian bird-women.
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I'm So Glad I Listened to It!
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Glorious
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Glorious is set against the backdrops of the Jim Crow South, the Harlem Renaissance, and the civil rights era. Blending the truth of American history with the fruits of Bernice L. McFadden's rich imagination, this is the story of Easter Venetta Bartlett, a fictional Harlem Renaissance writer whose tumultuous path to success, ruin, and revival offers a candid portrait of the American experience in all its beauty and cruelty.
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Gruesome violence
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It is 1947, and Beit Daras, a quiet village in Palestine surrounded by olive groves, is home to the Baraka family. Eldest daughter Nazmiyeh looks after her widowed mother, prone to wandering and strange outbursts, while her brother, Mamdouh, tends to the village bees. Their younger sister, Mariam, with her striking mismatched eyes, spends her days talking to imaginary friends and writing.
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Horrible pronunciation
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Orphan Number Eight
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In 1919, Rachel Rabinowitz is a vivacious four-year-old living with her family in a crowded tenement on New York City's Lower East Side. When tragedy strikes, Rachel is separated from her brother, Sam, and sent to a Jewish orphanage where Dr. Mildred Solomon is conducting medical research. Subjected to X-ray treatments that leave her disfigured, Rachel suffers years of cruel harassment from the other orphans.
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Stopped after a few hours
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A Long, Long Time Ago and Essentially True
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The novel opens on the eve of World War II. In the mountain village of Half-Village, a young man nicknamed the Pigeon, under the approving eyes of the entire village, courts the beautiful Anielica Hetmanska. But the war's arrival wreaks havoc in all their lives and delays their marriage for six long years.
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The Old & New Worlds Converge & Transcend Time
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What listeners say about I Am Forbidden
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Amy
- 10-08-12
Not Modern Orthodoxy!
Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?
To learn more about orthodoxy - pretty extreme. Certain facets not covered; like what they lived off of!
Would you be willing to try another book from Anouk Markovits? Why or why not?
Maybe. It didn't draw me in or endear the characters to me. I would have liked to know more about the sister who left and her challenges-
What about Rosalyn Landor’s performance did you like?
Not sure why the British accent - and it's Bubbie and Zayde; not Bobby and Ziedie! Lots of language challenges in the book. Not bad considering that.
If this book were a movie would you go see it?
Probably!
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2 people found this helpful
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- April Michelle Davis
- 01-18-20
Loved
I read the book a few years ago and enjoyed the story but struggled with pronouncing the Jewish words. Being able to hear the words said made it much more enjoyable.
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- jsaleh
- 10-30-20
A Cautionary Tale
I like the story, but it’s a bit bleak and depressing. It seems more a cautionary tale warning the reader about the dangers of literally interpreting religious texts than anything else.
It’s a pretty spare tale that moves quickly through the 70-ish year span it encompasses. I appreciate that, but I still think some scenes or issues wouldn’t have been hurt by a little additional time spent on them. For instance, what was Atara’s life like? She escapes the strict religious life as a teenager, but we don’t see her again until she’s in her 60’s. Her part in the story is so very brief.
I found the description of Hasidic life in both fascinating and horrifying; for the women, at least. While I was listening, I was constantly thinking of the similarities between Hasidim and other insular religious communities that encourage rigorous and strict interpretation of religious law and how limiting and confining they are to women. That’s pretty much what I took away from this audio book. I didn’t think it was a beautiful love story at all. It was a frustrating story about a married couple who, because of religious interpretation and rules and regulations spend their entire lives together physically-but apart mentally and emotionally. A couple who, because of an indiscretion and how the result of that indiscretion might affect future generations leads to family tragedy. Bleak and depressing folks!
It is well narrated by Rosalyn Landor.
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- Debbie
- 11-05-13
The Damning of the Law and by the Law
This audio book is absolutely incredible. The story which goes inside the lives of Hasidic Jewish families brings an onslaught of emotions. I didn't know that the holocaust reached into Romania, until I listened to this book. Then to learn that Hasidic Jews believe and teach that the atrocities that the Jewish people suffered during World War II by the evil Third Reich are somehow a punishment that they deserve . . . oh, my, it is so sad. Yet there is an order, an extreme love of family and tradition in these people that one cannot fail to see and appreciate. Josef's story is haunting and beautiful. And all through the book, I prayed that he would return to the brave Gentile maiden who rescued him and became his second mother, and who revealed to him the only mercy he had ever known in his life, the grace and love of Jesus Christ. This isn't a religious book. It's so much more. It's a book that makes one question things. It is sad, victorious, triumphant, and yet, you will end up, like we all do, knowing that we, human beings, alone, we are not enough. And we CAN NEVER BE GOOD ENOUGH. My heart broke every time that the Hasidic Jews chanted, Come my Messiah, come. They danced and sang. They punished themselves. They tried to keep a pure bloodline. Yet, all the while missing the gift that God send to them. Rejecting joy. Rejecting mercy. Josef's dreams of Jesus were haunting. This tale is beautifully written and the narration is just right.
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7 people found this helpful
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- nursebettyknitting
- 07-02-12
Heartrending
This book is a gem. It is not just a glimpse into life of the Satmar's hasidim, it is full of universal themes - belonging, love, honesty, devotion, interconnectedness of generations. It had a special meaning for me, because I am an immigrant, a Jew, and my grandparents and parents were Holocaust survivors. The pain of leaving one's country (despite persecution), losing loved ones, feeling like you don't belong, being rejected by your own family, by your own people is palpable in the book. Rosalyn Landor did a superb job, as always.
If you are not familiar with Jewish history and Judaism, read about it. Hasidut is a movement in Judaism. To me, their beliefs seem closer to Christianity, with the emphasis on Salvation, Resurrection of the dead in the "world to come", Messiah coming any day,divine holiness of their rebbes who rule like kings.It is a lifestyle, and they are not holier then anyone else. Satmar Hasidim do not acknowledge the existence of the state of Israel. Hypocrisy of their Rebbe, who saved himself by boarding the "Zionist" train, while his community was sent to the ovens thanks to his silence speaks for itself.
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6 people found this helpful
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- Teresa Lukey
- 06-16-12
A look in to Hasidism
I Am Forbidden follows three-generations of a Hasidic Jewish family. Starting in Romania under the Iron Guard movement and finishing in the Satmar Hasidic community established in Williamsburg, New York. Hasidism is a strict religion rooted in the Torah. Their day-to-day lives are lived based on the interpretation of this book and everything is done in such a fashion to ensure that all family members in the same blood line have a place by the messiah's side. There are many activities deemed forbidden in Hasidism and if someone within the religion does something out of line with the laws of the religion, they become forbidden, unable to marry or have any sort of life within the religion.
At the start of the story we are introduced to Josef, who was hiding when his family was killed by members of the Iron Guard, Romania's anti-Semitic death squad. He is found by the family's gentile housemaid and she takes him in as her own. Five years after Josef rescue, he helps Mila, a young girl who has recently witnessed her family's death at the hand of the Iron Guard, escape from countryside by train. Later, Zalman Stern, a leader in the Satmar community learns of Josef, who is the only living son of a prominent family murdered by the Iron Guard and retrieves him from the woman who has taken him as her own son.
Josef has a difficult time fitting back in to the Hasidic lifestyle after being taken in by the Stern family, who has previously taken in Mila, the girl Josef previously rescued. Mila proves to be a comfort to Josef while he tries to adjust to his changed life, but he is quickly sent away to live in the Satmar community in Williamsburg. The years go by and Mila continues to live with the Stern family in Paris, being raised as a sister to their eldest daughter, Atara, while Josef is raised as a highly accomplished Torah scholar.
Atara and Mila are close, but Atara gets a taste of books, which are forbidden. Although Mila is devoted to the religion, Atara decides she wants more from her life and she steals away in the middle of the night. Mila receives a marriage proposal from Josef in America. Mila is thrilled by the marriage proposal and leaves Paris to wed Josef. Josef and Mila are devoted to each other and I really got a strong sense of this while reading about their life together and through their attempts to have children.
This is where the story gets bound up in this severe religion, which could be the demise of the bloodline and the families ability to go on to be with the Messiah. Mila eventually goes on to have Rachael, and she proves to be a devote to the religion as her father Josef. When Rachael's daughter, Judith, is old enough to wed, secrets are revealed that cause tragedy.
Although I cannot imagine being involved in such a strict way of life, this story is presented in such a way that I felt I connected with the Satmar's way of life as if I was completely understanding of the reasoning. Although this is ultimately a sad story, there is beauty in the love and dedication these people have for their beliefs. Previous to this book, I had no knowledge of the Iron Guard. I had not previously realized that Romania, too, was involved in the Holocaust. This story would have received a 5-star rating had it not been for the disjointedness I felt during a couple of periods where the author skipped through time very quickly. If you are interested in understanding more about Hasidism, this is an excellent choice.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Louis
- 05-20-12
Tradition
Where does I Am Forbidden rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
This is my first and best so far!
What other book might you compare I Am Forbidden to and why?
Beloved, Told of a life of intensive love, it was a tradition of the heart with no formal dress. It was the mother usually that was the bearer of said heart that fronted a raw battle daily, every minute of that day, children, the strong belief dictated, were the primary hope for a better life when strict lackof judgements had faded the color barriers and the folks that held them.Then this general tradition would be no more and all can have their share of a good life as promised from heaven in the beginning. Some traditions grow strenght others are brought upon by others who are weaked by hatred and seek power upon the backs of others.Their always is the tradition will be violated by chains and walls of those that don't understand what chains are for and rather sing in groups.Where is the wrong in that.
Which scene was your favorite?
I must review it again after hearing for a second time, all of it is very warm I feel.
If you could rename I Am Forbidden, what would you call it?
Belief of Fathers
Any additional comments?
Glad I spent the time, the reader is surprisingly great.
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3 people found this helpful
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Overall
- DJ Burns
- 11-29-17
not what I expected
although the book had interesting facts about how people in this Jewish community live and view other Jews and gentiles, it was very boring and at some times mundane. the women are very devout to their religion, husband and family, but also simplistic in their views and desires while the men consider themselves learned they are actually quite rigid and formal even when relaxing.
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1 person found this helpful