Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“This book’s findings should temper our estimation of the freedom we have to change ourselves.”

Degrees of Separation: Identity Formation While Leaving Ultra-Orthodox Judaism by Schneur Zalman Newfield

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CBR15Bingo: North America (the book focuses mainly on the Satmar and Lubavitch communities in New York and New Jersey.) I really enjoyed Degrees of Separation, which examines the experience of leaving Ultra-Orthodox Judaism (specifically the Lubavitch and Satmar communities) and how those who leave form their identities during and afterwards, as well as the long-term ramifications. This is an academic text and so there is a lot of sociology terminology to work through, but Newfield did this study based on interviews so there are a […]

Two Takes on Religion and Politics

Life On the Fringes by Haviva Ner-David

Take This Bread by Sara Miles

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                                                        CBR15Bingo: Politics (feminism, inter-community politics, personal politics) Both of these texts engage with what religion means to the writer and how they engage with their religious communities with a more radical and transformative mindset. Reading them in close succession was an interesting look into how feminist, progressive religious women struggle to find their place within structured organizations. However, they are coming from two very different faith traditions and two very different personalities as well. As someone who reacts strongly with the personality of the […]

Incisive and Interesting Essays on Orthodox Jewish Childhood

Artifacts of Orthodox Jewish Childhood by Dainy Bernstein (editor)

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Artifacts of Orthodox Childhoods is a book of personal and critical essays that cover a historically under-researched topic. The book is inclusive of a wide range of viewpoints and backgrounds, and it benefits from the thought that went into the editing of the essays and the impulse to widen instead of narrow the people who contributed. I appreciated that this book didn’t retread the same familiar ground we see in the media of the triumphant escape from the backwards evil of Ultra-Orthodoxy. Instead, the collection gave […]



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