Breakaway Books

Authored by Jessica Elisheva Emerson; Published September 2024; Fiction

⭐️⭐️⭐️ / 🏖️

Olive Days allows its readers to experience a life that most of us will never live—that of an Orthodox Jewish wife and mother. The insights it gives into this cloistered community fascinated me, depressed me, and exhausted me.

Olive Days follows Rina as she goes through a mid-life crisis of sorts in her small Jewish community in California. She upends her carefully planned life with two affairs but ultimately returns to her family. Reading the extensive preparations that Rina was forced to undertake for every Jewish holiday—the cooking, the cleaning, the endless hospitality—made me feel exhausted and deeply sad for women who struggle against the confines of this life. The author effectively depicted a never-ending series of demands made upon the Orthodox woman, and the unfairness of it all.

Running throughout the novel, underneath virtually every event were the patriarchal demands of strict Jewish law, but also the many many lesser known Jewish customs. I consider myself moderately well-versed, and I was still frequently surprised by the many obligations. It was strange to view them through the eyes of a woman who didn’t really believe in the actual religion of it any more—I couldn’t help but wonder why she continued to allow herself to be tied to this community. I wondered why she had lost her faith in the first place and wish the author had revealed just a little more about that transition, and how she had ended up in this precise situation.

In the midst of these constant demands, Rina falls in love with Will, a gentile, and feels the deeply needed intimacy of being known. To Rina, this is the core of her romance. Feeling ignored and unheard in her marriage, she shares more and more of her inner self with Will and cherishes that he knows her. But with that backdrop, it’s even more baffling to me how Rina refuses to leave her husband, how she resigns herself to living without happiness. And yet, to give up her marriage would be to give up her entire community, and that decision is not an easy one.

Olive Days was an insightful glimpse into an entirely different life, and it made me appreciate the freedom that I have.