Hidden Heretics: Jewish Doubt in the Digital Age

Description

A revealing look at Jewish men and women who secretly explore the outside world, in person and online, while remaining in their ultra-Orthodox religious communities What would you do if you questioned your religious faith, but revealing that would cause you to lose your family and the only way of life you had ever known? Hidden Heretics tells t

Ayala Fader is professor of anthropology at Fordham University. She is the author of Mitzvah Girls: Bringing Up the Next Generation of Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn (Princeton).

"Finalist for the National Jewish Book Award in American Jewish Studies" "Finalist for the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature, Jewish Book Council" "Finalist for the Jordan Schnitzer Award in Social Science, Anthropology, and Folklore, Association for Jewish Studies" "[An] absorbing account of how Haredi Jews in contemporary New York use social and other digital media to negotiate religious doubt. . . . It is the personal stories in particular that make Hidden Heretics so compelling."---Giulia Miller, Times Literary Supplement "Engaging. . . . Fader effectively shows how modern apostasy meets hard-line orthodoxy." * Library Journal * "Providing us with a detailed examination of how disbelief occurs on a spectrum, Fader pushes us to understand how staying or leaving a religion does too."---Katie Christine Gaddini, Marginalia "Hidden Heretics provides a view of contemporary ultra-Orthodox life from a series of unexpected angles and tucked-away corners."---Naomi Seidman, Public Books "Fader has written a groundbreaking work that delves into the parts of the Orthodox world that many do not even know exist."---Ben Rothke, Times of Israel "Substantial and riveting."---David Zvi Kalman, The Forward "Ayala Fader . . . unpacks one of the most daunting public secrets confronting Haredi communities: the suspicion, or realistic understanding, that there are members of the community who are experiencing life-changing doubt." * American Anthropologist * "[Hidden Heretics] explores, with great insight and sensitivity, the complex existence of double lifers and the conditions under which they live. [Fader's] engaging style makes this fascinating work appeal both to scholars of contemporary Orthodox Judaism and those who study the relationship between technology and society, as well as to the general reader." * American Jewish History * "Hidden Heretics does indeed reflect the best of anthropology: an incisive, sensitive book that draws novel ethnographic fieldwork together with scholarship on language and semiotic ideologies, secrecy, doubt, media, authority, and ethics." * Journal of Linguistic Anthropology * "Masterfully written"---Oren Golar, Journal of Religion, Media and Digital Culture