This year, one newcomer stood out on the increasingly crowded shelf of memoirs written by Jews who have left the ultra-Orthodox world. “All Who Go Do Not Return,” by Shulem Deen, distinguishes itself with its mesmerizing lyricism — which is all the more remarkable when you consider that Deen’s rigid upbringing in the insular Skverer…
My first visit to a public library was at age 24 where I discovered, in the children’s section, a set of World Book encyclopedias. This was my first encounter with such a vast amount of general knowledge, and I immediately sought out the “J” volume; I wanted to see if there was an entry for…
Shulem Deen // Photo by Pearl Gabel (JTA) — Shulem Deen, the former Skverer Hasid who for years blogged under the pseudonym “Hasidic Rebel,” has just published a memoir, “All Who Go Do Not Return” (Graywolf Press). Deen, now 40, describes his sheltered life in New Square, the virtually all-Hasidic village an hour north of New…
All Who Go Do Not Return By Shulem Deen Graywolf Press, 288 pages, $16 Family and God are the essences of a Hasid’s life. From cradle to death, one is taught to love, fear and obey God, and to cherish and respect family and all the customs, traditions and quirks that are the hallmarks of…
A young father in the insular Skverer sect, Shulem Deen took the one job available to him: teacher. In an exclusive excerpt from his forthcoming memoir, “All Who Go Do Not Return,” which chronicles his painful journey from 18-year-old newlywed to being expelled from New Square as a heretic, he recounts how the need to…
Photo copyright George Baier Books by and about Jews who leave Orthodoxy have been around for years now — centuries, really — but in 2014 they reached a critical mass. With new memoirs by Leah Vincent and Deborah Feldman, an academic study by Lynn Davidman, and scores of essays, articles, films, profiles and trend pieces,…
When she was 17 years old, Leah Vincent, a young Orthodox woman from Pittsburgh, found herself living alone in a tiny basement apartment in Brooklyn. She was estranged from her parents and 10 siblings, socially isolated, and living on a low-wage diet of grilled cheese sandwiches and ketchup. Desperate for company, she sought the friendship…
“The genius of the Satmar rebbe,” Williamsburg-based artist Michael Levin says of the late Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum, the post-Holocaust leader of Williamsburg’s Satmar Hasidic community, “was to say that if you wear a shtreimel and long peyes, everyone will be freaked out and hate you and stay away from you. But in the end, they’ll…
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