Doubting the Devout: The Ultra-Orthodox in the Jewish American Imagination (review)

Many readers and viewers have been intrigued by the plethora of American and Israeli novels, films and television programs portraying shades of Orthodoxy in painstaking detail. Once considered too esoteric a topic for an audience more likely to relate to Jewish mother jokes than to talmudic dictums, ulta-Orthodox Jews in particular have for several decades become the subject of materials on every brow level, from philosophical dazzlers to Jewish romances. These haredi Jews, previously seen by more liberal co-religionists as a reactionary link to European poverty, ignorance and pariah status, have emerged as a delectable subjects. Nora Rubel's study, Doubting the Devout: The Ultra-Orthodox in the Jewish American Imagination, analyzes how and why this has come about.

Rubel insightfully sketches several patterns in the depiction of ultra-Orthodox Jews and links those portrayals to their social-historical contexts. She shows that haredim are sometimes portrayed positively, as authentically spiritual in their countercultural rejection of Western, materialistic success. She helpfully demonstrates that presentations of ultra-Orthodox characters are often divided by gender. Haredi men are depicted as "muggers in black coats" (p. 109): hypocritical, manipulative chauvinists, exploiting the patriarchal power granted them by rabbinic law for their own purposes, kidnapping the system—and sometimes people. In contrast, haredi women often play sympathetic roles, beginning as oppressed victims but throwing off socioreligious shackles with heroic creativity.

Rubel accuses the creators of this phenomenon of "hostility" toward their subjects. She argues that pervasive fear of frumkeit (religiosity) is a primary motivator of much of the close attention haredi Jews receive in novels and films. Her proof is that piety intimidates many characters, from the bewildered secular parents of Anne Roiphe's Lovingkindness, who are afraid that their children have been brainwashed and effectively stolen by a Jerusalem yeshiva, to the modern Orthodox mothers who worry: "Even if your kitchen is kosher, it might not be kosher enough for your own children." Not least, Rubel speculates that cultural expressions of negativity toward haredim are fueled by political and emotional reactions to the "Who Is a Jew" controversy, stirred up by the efforts of representatives of the ultra-Orthodox Israeli rabbinate to narrow definitions of Jewishness and exclude numbers of persons of Jewish heritage whose halakhic (Jewish legal) status is uncertain.

Rubel's accusatory approach sometimes lacks subtlety. She shows great sympathy for characters who "return" to traditionalism and become ba'alei teshuva—and very little understanding of authors who explore both the appealing and the disturbing aspects of religious choices. This is unfortunate, because by schematizing her discussion so that she can condemn those who "doubt the devout," Rubel sometimes misses or ignores the nuance and ambivalence in the delicately balanced narratives she discusses. In Roiphe's novel, for example, merciless satiric energy is directed at the ideological rigidity and cluelessness of Annie, the secular, feminist protagonist, while the rabbinic mentors who adopt Andrea, her drug-addled daughter, are portrayed as warm, wise, compassionate people. Annie herself comes to understand where she and her assimilatory, individualistic parenting style have failed, and she cooperates with the hasidim, alien though they seem to her, so that her daughter can remain in what she hopes will be a wholesome and happy marriage.

Fictional portrayals of deeply Orthodox Jews (like other human beings) have incorporated both positive and negative elements since long before "Who Is a Jew" became a slogan rather than a philosophical and legal question. These caveats aside, Rubel has tackled an important topic that is not often analyzed in such a careful, systematic way. Her discussions are lively and engaging, filled with juicy examples. Both general and academic readers will find her discussions useful and intriguing.