Ultra-Orthodox Matchmaking Meets Jane Austen: Barbara Bensoussan Talks Jewish Romance
Barbara Bensoussan’s Pride and Preference talks ultra-Orthodox romance and matchmaking. In this interview, we probe further.
According to her bio on the Mishpacha magazine website, Barbara Bensoussan is “the quintessential Jewish dropout who never finished her Ph.D. but went on to teach English and Introductory Psychology at the University of Michigan.” She has been writing full-time for over 20 years and has penned multiple books and multitudes of articles.
Barbara Bensoussan’s latest book Pride and Preference, invites the reader into the world of ultra-Orthodox Jewish matchmaking. In this Austen-inspired adaptation, we meet the Bennett family, who are on a quest to find good matches for their five daughters in Flatbush, Brooklyn. “Good matches” for the Bennett girls are boys positioned for long-term Torah learning, and those boys often come with the hefty price tag of financial support from the girls’ family. The Bennets challenge? They don't have much money.
As Shaina and Aliza, the oldest of these daughters, struggle to maintain their good spirits despite the pitifully few marriage suggestions they receive, they wonder if their mazal (luck) will ever change. Matters come to a head when a promising shidduch (match) for Shaina is derailed and a family scandal nearly destroys any hopes for the girls’ future. Will the Bennetts ever marry off their daughters?
In our interview with the author, we'll learn more about what inspired her to bring this story to life in an Orthodox Jewish context.
What made you decide to do an Austen spinoff, and Pride and Prejudice specifically?
This book emerged from my experiences marrying off four daughters (and two sons) within the shidduch system. Austen’s Bennett family had five daughters to marry off.
Like Austen’s Bennetts, my husband and I were more or less genteel but certainly not wealthy, and considerations of support and yichus and reputation loomed large as people read our children’s resumes and checked into us. Austen’s character Lydia was perfect to transform into “Liora,” a girl who pushes the limits of frum (religious) propriety, and I loved replacing the plain, realistic Charlotte with Aliza’s older, single friend Charna. The whole thing slotted so nicely into the characterizations and themes of Pride and Prejudice that doing a frum version was simply irresistible!
Is it hard to write romance for a frum audience?
That was my biggest challenge! In the Austen classic, the men and women meet freely at parties and dances, and I wasn’t able to include any of that. The meetings had to be by chance or with a chaperone present, and the dating had to be arranged by a shadchan (matchmaker). It took a certain amount of plot gymnastics on my part to work it all out.
Do you think Jewish stories lack depth because the romance has to be kept so “kosher”?
There’s a certain authenticity, color, and humor that are often edited out—not just regarding romance, but issues like showing proper kavod to rabbis. I wasn’t allowed to portray Rabbi Bennet as snoring, for example, or mention that Mrs. Bennet had a double chin (it might offend heavy people). I found that a little hypersensitive, but maybe I’m the one who needs to work on herself!
It would have been more true to life to write in greater depth about the romantic feelings of the main characters. On the other hand, an editor explained to me that if readers object to a book’s content, or a rabbi says it’s not kosher enough, the bookstores return all the books and the publisher loses money, so I understand their point of view.
What made you decide to publish Pride and Preference as an e-book?
Menucha Publishers graciously accorded me the rights to publish it as an e-book. In that form it’s much cheaper to buy, and I hope to shamelessly promote it to a wider public!
Most of the frum publishers believe their readers reserve their reading time for Shabbos and it doesn’t pay to publish e-books. But as a happy consumer of e-books myself, I beg to differ! I also believe there are many non-frum and non-Jewish Austen lovers out there who would be intrigued by an Austen adaptation in an Orthodox Jewish setting. A Catholic college friend of mine read it and loved it!
What books have had the biggest influences on you as a writer?
I like writers who are excellent with characterization and description and have a dash of humor. Our frum writing gets better and better–Dov Haller and Gila Arnold, for example, do a great job–but I read quite widely and would love to be able to write as well as people like Allegra Goodman, Elizabeth Strout, Maggie O’Farrell, Amor Towles, even Liane Moriarty! (Frum alert: some of those books, despite having a largely literary focus, contain material a frum publisher could never publish and many readers wouldn’t touch.)
What advice would you give to an aspiring writer? Read widely and at a high level, educate yourself in writing techniques and options (there are lots of free online resources), and keep writing!
You can purchase your own copy of Pride and Preference here.
Have a great week, and keep reading,
Arty
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Check it out on Amazon! It does start "It is a truth universally acknowledged, in Orthodox Jewish circles, that a single young man possessed of an aptitude for Torah learning must be in want of a wife."
Such an interesting read!!