Off the Derech

Children laughing, a baby’s muffled cry, the peaceful sounds of a Saturday afternoon, drift through the open window. This is New York – one of the liveliest, most turbulent cities in the world…

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…

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.

Tzomo Lecha Nafshi,

Put away the book. Put it away and listen to Kiddush. Stand up, your father’s waiting. Shhh. Come on.  Nu. Nu!  We don’t talk before grape juice, you’re a…

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…

I push my way out when the pressure in my head becomes unbearable. There are voices, but I can’t really hear them. There is a lot of piety around me in this shul.…

“Zah nisht kan naar!” thundered a voice about fifteen feet away. I turned to see a husky middle-aged clean-shaven man in a ragged suit jacket and mismatched pants conducting a domineering exchange with…

As a child, I was told that God is everywhere. And I would always ask myself, “Is He in the bathroom too?” According to my parents, the bathroom was an impure place, tumeh,…

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…

I lay next to Heshy on the couch, comforted by the warmth of his body. As usual, the bachelor pad that Mendy and Heshy shared was filled with assorted members of the Monsey underworld.…