Degrees of Separation: Identity Formation While Leaving Ultra-Orthodox Judaism by Schneur Zalman Newfield, and: Hidden Heretics: Jewish Doubt in the Digital Age by Ayala Fader (review)

In the Spring of 2020, Netflix released UnOrthodox, the dramatic retelling of Deborah Feldman's exit from Hasidic Brooklyn. In a matter of weeks, Esty, played by Shira Haas (who has been nominated for a Golden Globe for this role), left her family, her home, her religious observance, her wig, and her clothing as she became an ostensibly secular woman in Berlin. This version of Feldman's story obfuscates the years that she spent trying to live within a religious context, despite her misgivings, and as such, the Netflix version reinforces a popular image of leaving a religious community as both abrupt and final. In two recent books, Ayala Fader and Schneur Zalman Newfield present meticulous social science research that complicates the dominant understandings about those who leave ultra-Orthodox Judaism.

Fader and Newfield present nuanced characterizations of their research subjects and about the many ways people struggle with their religious identity. Degrees of Separation draws on interviews with 74 Hasidic ultra-Orthodox Jews who have left their religious communities. Newfield uses the term "exiters," or often refers to his research subjects by the religious affiliation of their youth: Lubavitch or Satmar. These terms reflect Newfield's broader claims about exiting as a process that is ongoing and religious identity as being constantly renegotiated. He writes, "Exiting is an ongoing process of becoming" (4). Elsewhere he refers to exiting as "residing in a liminal state for a prolonged period of time" (30). In Hidden Heretics, Fader presents an ethnographic account of 24 "double lifers," those who practice ultra-Orthodoxy in public (and at home) but violate commandments in secret due to their doubt about the veracity of the religious claims that underlie them. Fader focuses on individuals who have experienced "life changing doubt" but remain significantly tied to their ultra-Orthodox community. These individuals refer to themselves as "hidden heretics," which leads to the title of Fader's book and reflects their own attempts to keep their double lives secret from their families and their communities (2). Taken together, Newfield and Fader demonstrate that religious identity is not a clear category that can be easily discarded.

While one might be tempted to see these two books as existing along a continuum of leaving a religious community, Fader and Newfield reject any classification that indicates an evolution among their research subjects toward secularization. Fader explains that for those in her book, "there were more incremental changes over the years, a process of making ethical compromises … but ultimately remaining in their ultra-Orthodox communities" (14). Fader brilliantly traces how double-lifers are simultaneously engaged with the ultra-Orthodox and secular worlds. First, a young man or woman (often a man, married with a few young children) might begin to question some of the tenets of their religious faith. With access to the internet through a smartphone or a computer, that individual can find the Jewish blogosphere. Fader explains that, beginning in 2002–2003, the Jblogosphere "gave anonymous public voice to a range of private, interior life-changing doubt" (32). These blogs are produced by other hidden heretics who use familiar language and concepts while producing an ultra-Orthodox counterpublic, ultimately threatening rabbinic authority offline. Someone experiencing doubt may comment on these blogs and eventually move over to private Facebook or Whatsapp groups. Hiding behind profile pictures that obscure their true identities but indicate a shift away from ultra-Orthodox norms of facial hair or hair covering, an individual experiencing life-changing doubt may ultimately begin meeting others who share their concerns. Fader's rich ethnographic research allows readers to see how these individuals gather with each other at a...