Description: Combines powerful first-person accounts with incisive scholarly analysis to understand the phenomenon of ultra-Orthodox Jews who leave their insular communities and venture into the wider world.
Brief description: Ezra Cappell is Assistant Professor of English and Director of the Inter-American Jewish Studies Program at the University of Texas at El Paso.
Review Quotes:
"Off the Derech tells an important story of a growing community of disaffiliated members who are living on the margins of their previous worlds and are building new spaces for themselves with new identities." -- Nova Religio
"An important and eye-opening work for those of us who have been off the derech for ages or who are eyeing an exit ramp. The essays and memoirs reinforce each other beautifully. A true must read." -- Gary Shteyngart
"This is an impressive collection of personal narratives, conversations, and historical and sociological analysis. Its greatest strengths are the diversity of voices offered and the honesty of the contributors. I found it compelling." -- Nora L. Rubel, author of Doubting the Devout: The Ultra-Orthodox in the Jewish American Imagination