In the Jewish Dark Continent

Most American Jews descend from ancestors who resided in the Pale of Settlement, the territory from the Black Sea to the Baltic in which Jews were confined by the Czars.  A new book describes one effort to chart that territory.

Still Lives  Vox Tablet,  Tablet.  An interview with the authors of a book on newly discovered photographs from the An-Sky expedition. (With slideshow)  SAVE

Of Devils and Dybbuks  Allan Nadler,  Jewish Ideas Daily.  Far more than modern Jews care to admit, demons, imps, and spirits permeate the history, and even the present-day consciousness, of many of their co-religionists.  SAVE

The Weaver  Gabriella Safran,  Jewish Review of Books.  An-Sky the revolutionary hoped that by reminding Jews of their ancestors' lives and crafts, he could make them more creative, more socialist, and less capitalist.  SAVE

Photographic Memory  Jewish Ideas Daily.  Roman Vishniac created a famous book of photographs of shtetl Jews—but left out images that didn't fit his story.  SAVE

The Phonoarchive of Jewish Folklore  Lyudmila Sholochova,  National Library of Ukraine.  The story of the Jewish music archive at the Vernadsky National Library, which contains original wax cylinder recordings from the An-Sky expedition.  SAVE

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Kosher Fiction

Haredi adventure stories are a curious but popular genre. There is the 2005 Yiddish-language film A gesheft ("A Deal"), the story of a Hasid-gone-bad out for revenge on the pious man he wrongly blames for his childhood misfortunes.

Haredi Films  Rachel Leket-Mor,  Association of Jewish Libraries.  The current demand for appropriate entertaining titles in the Haredi community in Israel is reflected, among other things, in the growing movie industry led by Haredi producers and directors. (Audio)  SAVE

Beneath Black Hats  Eitan Kensky,  Forward.  With some noteworthy results, American movies and television are beginning to present Hasidim not as caricatures but as actual individuals; still, there's a long way to go.  SAVE

A Voice of One's Own  D.G. Myers,  Literary Commentary.  What makes American Jewish novelists different from other American novelists—and almost instantly recognizable as Jewish?  SAVE

Lives of the Ex-Haredim  Joshua Halberstam,  Jewish Ideas Daily.  The men and women who leave their ultra-Orthodox communities usually leave the Jewish world entirely. As a result, that world is losing a resource that it can hardly afford to squander.  SAVE

The Great Orthodox Comeback  Lawrence Grossman,  Jewish Ideas Daily.  The resurgence of Orthodoxy is one of the most surprising transformations of Judaism in the past 60 years. Is one single man responsible?  SAVE

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Lives of the Ex-Haredim

"Wherefore art thou Romeo?" Juliet calls out in pristine Yiddish from the heights of her fire escape.  Melissa (Malky) Weisz, who plays Juliet in the recent film Romeo & Juliet in Yiddish, probably asked the same question in a more vernacular Yiddish—and with very different expectations—in her earlier life.

Off the Path  Miriam Shaviv,  Jewish Chronicle.  Dropouts from Orthodoxy are growing in number, but many of them never leave completely; in this there may be a peculiar sign of hope.  SAVE

Self-Fulfilling Prophecies  Samuel Katz,  Unpious.  The comfortable community that ex-Hasidim create often impedes their integration into secular society.  SAVE

A Whole New World  Haviv Rettig,  Jerusalem Post.  Young ex-Haredim discover that their education has not prepared them for the secular workplace.  A volunteer-based organization helps them catch up.  SAVE

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Prague Haggadah, 1526.

Passover & the Repudiation of Idolatry

Asking questions is a trademark of the Passover seder. Prior to it, we can ask another question—this one having to do with a passage in the Haggadah about the second of the four sons.

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