In fact - and here numerous others buttress his account - the tightknit Skver Hasidic community exercises enormous political power to create a world within a world, where the rebbe’s dictates are law.ĭeen begins his story in the middle - the night he is ordered to leave New Square under threat of excommunication. “Fiddler on the Roof,” which in its original serialized novel form was a sharp satire of religious life, is a good example.īut as Deen describes, in passage after passage, this is myth, not reality.

Unlike far-right Christian or Muslim fundamentalists, Jewish fundamentalists are often depicted as cuddly, harmless and quaint. Today, Hasidim dress like 18th-century Poles. Practices ossified, authority was centralized, innovations were prohibited, and any accommodation to modern life was rejected. With the threats of emancipation and assimilation looming, Hasidism turned sharply conservative in the 19th century. Centered on personal spiritual experience, devout prayer (think Pentecostals in Jewish garb) and charismatic leaders (known as rebbes), Hasidism revolutionized Jewish life, especially among less-educated, less-urban populations.īut it quickly changed its character. Although shunned by the religious authorities of the time, it became enormously popular, sweeping throughout Eastern Europe. Hasidism - literally, the way of the pious - began in 18th-century Europe as a movement of Jewish spiritual revival. These details come not from an outside investigative reporter - but from a heretical ex-Hasid, Shulem Deen, in his astonishing new memoir, “All Who Go Do Not Return.”

New Square, N.Y., home of the extreme Hasidic Jewish sect known as the Skver Hasidim. Private lives are micromanaged: Matches are arranged, books are banned, and the slightest details of personal appearance are carefully monitored, with uniformity enforced by authorized thugs. Accounts detail welfare fraud, educational fraud and even gang violence. (RNS) Just a few miles north of New York City, an all-powerful religious leader controls every aspect of his followers’ lives. Book cover of “All Who Go Do Not Return,” by Shulem Deen.

All who go do not return by shulem deen