WEBVTT 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The dictionary definition of trauma is: 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Severe emotional shock and pain, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 caused by an extremely upsetting experience. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 There is no set way to process trauma. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But, in "Unorthodox," we see how two different communities, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 one in Berlin, and another in Brooklyn, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 cope with the tragedies that have shaped them. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And, in turn, we learn ways to deal with our trauma. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 In Brooklyn, trauma forms 19 year old Esty's, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and her community's, identity. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The action follows the secretive Satmar community 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 of Hasidic Jews. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Established by a rabbi who had fled Satu Mare, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in present-day Romania, during the Holocaust. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The Satmar community does not mix with others. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 In "Unorthodox," 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 at the head of the sex-segregated table, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 for Pesach dinner, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 an annual commemoration of the Jews who escaped slavery 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in ancient Egypt, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Esty's grandfather gives his reasons why. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [Grandfather] We tell ourselves 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the story of Passover 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to remind us of our suffering. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [Narrator] The show celebrates 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the strong bonds of family and tradition, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 within Esty's community, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 where religious customs and prayers 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 can take place safely, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 while deadly attacks 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 on synagogues, and other venues frequented by Jews, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 rise, across the world. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 This community defies anti-Semitism, by living devoutly. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 We also see, in this scene, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 how Satmar Jews draw on past trauma, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to make members scared of the big, bad outside. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [Grandfather] When we trusted 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 our friends and neighbors, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 God punished us. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 When we forget who we are, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 we invite God's wrath. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [Narrator] The Holocaust 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 caused PTSD in its survivors. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Its impact lives on. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 As Auschwitz survivor, chemist, and writer, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Primo Levi puts it: 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "Auschwitz is outside of us, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but it is all around us, in the air. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The plague has died away, but the infection still lingers, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and it would be foolish to deny it." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 This generational trauma grows from the roots 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 of Esty's family tree, and shapes Esty's personal identity. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 She is discouraged from exploring passions 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that contradict the community's values. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Her piano lessons are so frowned upon, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 she must take them in secret. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Her teacher, Vivian Dropkin, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 is derided as 'a shiksa,' or non-Jew. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But interestingly, though the show never mentions it, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Dropkin is a secular Jew. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Despite her faith, her choices are not Jewish enough 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 for Esty's devout community. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Many Orthodox Jews believe that the way 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to undo the trauma of the Holocaust, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 is to repopulate. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 2013 research for the Pew Center 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 shows that Orthodox Jews have a birth rate of 4.1, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 as opposed to the U. S. national average of 1.8. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Esty totally believes what she's been taught to believe, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 later insisting, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "We are rebuilding the six million lost." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Jews killed in the Holocaust. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [Grandmother] So many lost. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But, soon, you'll have children of your own. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [Narrator] Six million is no small sum. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So, alongside the housework needed to keep her home tidy, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and her husband, Yankee Shapiro, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 well fed and in perfectly ironed suits, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Esty's job is to have as many children as possible. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [Woman] You will have no leverage in this marriage, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 until there is a baby. Understand me? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [Narrator] She is told that sex will give her husband pleasure, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 which, in turn, will give her exactly what she wants: 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 what she has been told she wants... a baby. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The problem with this way of dealing with trauma, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 as we see it through Esty's eyes, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 is, it creates a domino effect. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 There is a field of academic study 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 called epigenetics, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 which deals with the concept 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 of trans-generational trauma.