Author Archive

Every revolution needs a bus ride, and the Hasidic world has now had theirs. But can a revolution ever come to the Hasidic world?
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Isabel is now afraid. The man takes her to his house. Maybe he will call her Papi to come pick her up, but it has been so long and she is feeling hungry.
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Musings on Lamentations.
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When is our relationship to books and ideas so intense that we want to burn them?

I dreamed that I stood near a large bonfire and watched the flames consume my once-favorite book. Piles of the same book were stacked one on top of the other and the fire spiraled around the pile, browning...
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The room is quiet. I bubble in an answer on my sheet from the booklet of the SAT Reasoning Test. The test administrator stands next to the chalkboard, a young woman in her twenties. She checks the time and…

Do ex-Hasidim serve themselves well by establishing a vibrant community? Or does such community only amplify the narrative of struggle and displacement, inevitably confining them to the fringes?

Samuel Katz, a student at Stony Brook University, examines some of the ex-Hasidic community's unintended consequences.

It was a typical “night seder” in Yeshiva, the last period of a long day. I stood with one foot on the floor and the other on the footrest of my shtender, rocking back and forth as my elbows pressed…

Every Yeshiva boy learns about Nafkeh Mineh L’kedushin at some point. Nafkeh Mineh L’kedushin is used to justify a perpetual Talmudic argument that has no practical implications. For example, if two guys are arguing as to what was the reasoning…

A year and a half ago, I went to part from my Rosh Yeshiva at the end of the semester and told him I won’t be coming back. He wished me well and all the usual. When our brief encounter…