More in ‘Hasidic Jews’

When Yiddish journalism came into its own, just over 100 years ago, its writers and editors used the forms of reportage they found in the general press. For the first time, Yiddish readers, many of whom could not read anything but that language, were treated to editorials, cartoons, crime blotters, sports reports, and human interest pieces about their own community.

Just a few weeks after shooting had wrapped on Night of the Living Jews, Oliver Noble, the film’s 20-year-old writer and director got the kind of publicity many young filmmakers wait half their careers for: a mention in the New York Times, albeit in the Home and Garden section. The September 2006 article centered on ...

Late in Ushpizin, an Israeli film about the penury, barrenness, and public humiliation endured by a Breslov Hasidic couple in Jerusalem during the holiday of Sukkot, Moshe Bellanga runs to a forested area and beseeches, “Master of the Universe: I don’t want to be angry!” His plea for grace recalls the impish prostitute in Fellini’s ...

Stephanie Wellen Levine
When Stephanie Wellen Levine befriended seven teenagers at Bais Rivka, a Lubavitch girls’ high school in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, she wanted to test Carol Gilligan’s theory that contemporary culture silences girls as they grow older. In Mystics, Mavericks, and Merrymakers: An Intimate Journey among Hasidic Girls, Levine, a Gilligan protégé who teaches at ...