Hidden Heretics: Jewish Doubt in the Digital Age by Ayala Fader (review)

Abstract

chapter of the volume, Newfield considers the strategies that exiters invoke to manage their liminality in maintaining relationships with family members who remain in the ultraOrthodox community. Two of the most complex strategies involve “a conspiracy of silence,” in which exiters, and often their families, deliberately avoid any discussion of changes in practice or belief systems; and “drawing lines in the sand,” moments when there are explicit negotiations about issues that either side determines to be nonnegotiable, such as marrying a nonJew. In these two chapters, the project’s originality, impact, and sense of purpose solidifies. Some areas need more attention in the volume. The most significant of them is the role of gender—how it informs responses to the questions posed by Newfield to his subjects and, indeed, more broadly, how gender plays in the exiting experience overall. Despite this lacuna, the book offers a persuasive and significant interpretation of an increasingly visible phenomenon. Newfield’s overall argument is elegant, powerful, and persuasive: no linear model of religious exiting exists. His research uncovers patterns, gestures, and habits that define and mark shifts away from ultraOrthodoxy even as they illuminate forms of recovering and maintaining earlier practices.