Author Archive

Sermon on the Hotline

July 12, 2010
By Hasidic Rebel
Sermon on the Hotline

Yoshke sat in the swivel chair in his office, and stared at his computer screen. He was thinking about this week’s hotline recording, and he did his best thinking while looking at his…


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Posted in Humor, Readings, Religion, Topics | 12 Comments »

“Punk Jews”: Film, Movement, and Party of the Summer

June 18, 2010
By Hasidic Rebel
“Punk Jews”: Film, Movement, and Party of the Summer

Several year ago, still sporting payess and a more-or-less Chasidic appearance, I met a girl in Greenwich village who stopped me on McDougal Street to tell me, “I think Hasidic Jews…


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Posted in Around Town, Arts & Culture, Movies | 7 Comments »

Leave No Trace

June 8, 2010
By Hasidic Rebel
Leave No Trace

Rievi and I sit on rocks near the shallow stream, the water cascading over tangles of rocks, branches, and fallen tree trunks, seeking its way, as water always does, to the lowest…


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Posted in Essays, Family, First Person, Off the Derech, Topics | 41 Comments »

Square One

May 25, 2010
By Hasidic Rebel
Square One

We all love sex. We like it in the darkness of night when all we can hear are the strange house noises from electrical appliances, during broad daylight with the sounds of bustling crowds around us, or as the birds begin to chirp in the wee small hours of dawn. We like to vary...
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Posted in Essays, Love & Sex, Opinion | 65 Comments »

Anonymous No Longer

May 16, 2010
By Hasidic Rebel
Anonymous No Longer

In June of 2003, I met with a writer for The Village Voice in a kosher café in Midtown Manhattan. Over a diet coke, with the writer’s recorder on the table between us, I spoke about my blog, my views on religion, and Chasidic society. I’d been hesitant, apprehensive about the inevitable publicity following...
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Posted in Essays, Opinion, Reflections | 53 Comments »

Not the Fucking New Yorker

May 3, 2010
By Hasidic Rebel
Not the Fucking New Yorker

Diary of an unpious editor

– I’m not looking to publish on blogs, he says.

– It’s not a blog, I say, it’s an online journal.

– Whatever, he says. It’s not the…


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Posted in Essays, Reflections | 47 Comments »

Submission Contest Update: Finalists

February 7, 2010
By Hasidic Rebel


Get your ballots out because the voting is soon to begin! We received many great entries. And to borrow the contemporary feel-good slogan: All are winners. But it isn’t just a slogan. The…


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Posted in Around Town | 15 Comments »

The ABC’s of Ignorance

February 1, 2010
By Hasidic Rebel
The ABC’s of Ignorance

When I was a toddler, even before my mother started curling my little payess around her finger and brushing it with a bit of sugar-water, she taught me the English alphabet (after I had mastered the Alef Beis, of course). By the time I was enrolled in pre-school I knew that c-a-t spells cat....
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Posted in Essays, Opinion | 78 Comments »

Foreign Lands

January 25, 2010
By Hasidic Rebel
Foreign Lands


He reminded me of myself, back when I’d never been inside a bar, hardly even to a restaurant. It was a spontaneous meetup. He’d been a fan for years, and we corresponded…


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Posted in Essays, Off the Derech, Reflections | 38 Comments »

Be Rid of the Evil in Your Midst

January 19, 2010
By Hasidic Rebel

“Hey, H.! Remember the Tenth of Teves?” N. called to me jovially. He was unpacking a crate of Tuv Ta’am products, babaganoushes, tomato dips, tuna and potato salads, and large containers of sour pickles.…


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Posted in Essays, First Person, Off the Derech, Religion | 21 Comments »

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