Samuel Heilman, Schocken, 1992
Heilman, a professor of Jewish studies at Queens College of the City University of New York, is a well-known commentator on the state of the observant Jewish world. (His latest book, for review once I have read it, is a study of the slide to the right perceived in American Orthodoxy). His comments are deeply considered and based on extensive research and personal experience. ‘Defenders of the faith’ is a study of the Charedi world in Israel in the early 90s. The author spent a great deal of time inside the communities he studied and quotes extensively from conversations and interviews. It is focused almost exclusively on Chasidic communities, although, as the author rightly points out, the dynamic in the Lithuanian communities hardly differs. While he attempts to avoid allowing his personal religious stance to interfere with the study, this is only partially successful. Heilman sees the Charedi world as a collection of paradoxes: risen miraculously from the ashes of the Holocaust, more influenced by modernity than it would care to admit, adhering to a set of rules and norms that seem to become continually stricter, vibrant and growing beyond all expectations. His analysis is interesting, occasionally frustrating, and well worth reading.
Defenders Of The Faith
