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

Abstract

Reviewed by: Degrees of Separation: Identity Formation while Leaving Ultra-Orthodox Judaism by Schneur Zalman Newfield Jessica Lang Schneur Zalman Newfield. Degrees of Separation: Identity Formation while Leaving Ultra-Orthodox Judaism. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2020. 210 pp. The title of Schneur Zalman Newfield's text, Degrees of Separation: Identity Formation while Leaving Ultra-Orthodox Judaism, speaks to the nuance and subtlety with which he explores his subject matter. Newfield identifies and analyzes the many features and facets that inform "exit narratives," the term he offers to describe the process of departure from the ultra-Orthodox community in which one has been raised. The phrase "exit narratives" is one that he applies bi-directionally—as a description of the action according to those who remain in the community, and also as the recounting narrated by the "exiters" themselves. Newfield's book focuses on the narratives of seventy-four exiters from the two largest ultra-Orthodox communities, Lubavitch and Satmar. Both communities are Hasidic; the leadership of both centers on a revered single figurehead, a "rebbe"; both adhere to strict definitions of religious conformity, and both minimize contact with the secular world. Important differences separate these two communities, and Newfield takes care to enumerate them: the Satmar community has more rules governing modest and appropriate dress, especially for women and girls; education for girls is more restrictive; gender segregation is more extreme; and the matchmaking process that leads to marriage is more tightly controlled and on a more compressed schedule. These differences—and similarities—lead to interesting and telling overlaps and distinctions in exit narratives and community explanation and justification. [End Page 443] Importantly, the author was himself raised in the Lubavitch community, learned to read English by himself, and eventually enrolled in Brooklyn College, where he moved away from the practices of the community in which he had been raised. The great advantage of this personal background is that it helps Newfield gain the trust of his subjects. His familiarity with Yiddish, his firsthand experience as an insider within an ultra-Orthodox community, and his own identity as an "exiter," offer his interviewees a sense of ease and possibly gain him greater access to more people and more subject areas. To his credit, Newfield explicitly acknowledges the challenge that this familiarity also presents: that personal biases can be inadvertently intertwined with and influence scholarly analysis. Newfield identifies this danger and stays aware of it; I believe he fully succeeds in avoiding any pitfalls that might be associated with it. Degrees of Separation fills a significant scholarly gap by researching and analyzing the "exit process for those exiting ultra-Orthodoxy" (4). There has been growing interest in the topic, in large part fed by essays published in journalistic venues, online, and in popular presses, and also because of hit miniseries such as Netflix's Unorthodox. Scholarship studying the phenomenon of leave-taking, however, has lagged. One of Newfield's great contributions to the broader field is his carefully worked-out examination of the "patterns among the experiences of exiters, including the ways that the old life continues within the new" (5). Departure and reinvention from the Satmar and Lubavitch communities demand a transformation that is far more encompassing than suggested by a more typical tale of lapsed religious practice, or an anticonversion narrative. In the first chapter of the volume, Newfield identifies three types of exiters, those who feel trapped, "unable to substantially replace the goals and means of their community, despite having exited" (12); those who are hybrid, who "adopt new goals and means while simultaneously incorporating a limited amount of their former community's means and/or goals into their new lives" (12); and those who are disconnected, who seemingly have "replaced all the goals and means of their former community with new ones" but who in fact struggle to maintain that perception (13). Degrees of Separation concentrates on the sustained sense of in-betweenness that exiters experience, which is defined by the influence and incorporation of traits and practices from their upbringing that influence their post-Orthodox lives. The volume offers readers and scholars a great deal; Newfield's richly detailed interviews with a substantial number of exiters...