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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The Four Sons, Szyk Haggadah, 1934.

Freedom Tales

An enslaved people, brutalized, voiceless except for groans and cries, comes into possession of a voice of their own: no wonder the tale itself sometimes seems to embody the whole meaning of the Exodus.

Master Illustrator  Eve M. Kahn,  New York Times.  A new, annotated edition of Arthur Szyk's Haggadah brings back a long-neglected Jewish artist.  SAVE

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Moshe Feinstein.

Halakhah for Americans

Asked in a 1975 New York Times interview how he had acquired his standing as America's most trusted authority in Jewish religious law (halakhah), Rabbi Moshe Feinstein (1895-1986) replied: ''If people see that one answer is good and another answer is good, gradually you will be accepted."

Rabbi Moses Feinstein  Norma Baumel Joseph,  Jewish Women’s Archive.  Many of Feinstein's rulings responded to and profoundly affected the lives of women. (With an extensive bibliography of secondary works.)  SAVE

Responsa and the Art of Writing  Mark Washofsky,  An American Rabbinate.  Occupying a middle ground between formalism and realism, the legal writings of Moshe Feinstein are examples of intuitive interpretation anchored in a literary text.  SAVE

So That One May Live  Moshe Feinstein, Moshe Tendler,  JLaw.  A summary translation and annotation by Feinstein's son-in-law of his 1977 authorization of surgery to separate infant Siamese twins, sacrificing one.  SAVE

Our Ethiopian Kin  Shmarya Rosenberg,  Failed Messiah.  In a 1984 responsum on the halakhic status of Ethiopian Jews, Feinstein expresses anguish that some have refused to embrace them because of their skin color.  SAVE

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