Defenders of the Faith
Inside Ultra-Orthodox Jewry
by Samuel C. Heilman
(New York: Schocken) 394 pp.
Paperback edition February 1993
finalist for National Jewish Book Award, 1992
“This book offers an arresting portrait of the ultra-Orthodox world … The picture that emerges is
insightful, sensitive, illuminating, and full of surprises … Gripping reading for anyone interested in
Jewish life or contemporary Israel.” – Irving Greenberg
“Professor Heilman has written an absorbing and profound book which gives us an interior view of
ultra-Orthodox Jewish life … This book should be widely read by thoughtful people because of its
importance for religion and social theory.” -
Roy P. Mottahedeh, Harvard University
Ultra-Orthodox Jews, or haredim, as they are currently called, seem to be the embodiment of the Jewish
past. Those who stumble upon their neighborhoods to find men in caftans and black hats, women in
kerchiefs, and people speaking Yiddish everywhere feel they have found the lost world of their European
grandparents. But this picturesque group, which conjures up images of Roman Vishniac’s photographs of
prewar Poland, is not a relic of the past; ultra-Orthodox Jew are very much part of the contemporary
landscape and are playing an increasingly prominent role in the Jewish world and in Israeli politics.
In this first in-depth portrait of ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel today, Samuel Heilman introduces us to a
community that is very much aware of and responsive to modernity, even though it rejects much of it. The
ultra-Orthodox have deliberately fashioned a complete counterculture to withstand and oppose the
onslaughts of secular society.
Defenders of the Faith takes us inside the world of this contemporary fundamentalist community, its
lifestyle and mores, including education, religious practices and beliefs, sexual ethics and marriage.
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Heilman probes into the reasons why this group is more militant and extreme that its pre-Holocaust
predecessors, and provides insight into the world-view of this small but influential sector of modern Jewry.
“A readable and original account of the ultra-Orthodox Jews of today. Heilman understands that this is a
twentieth-century subculture and not the world of our ancestors unchanged. A learned and entertaining
performance. – Arthur Hertzberg
“Heilman’s book is the first on a subject many are greatly curious about, but about which they cannot find
authoritative sources … Instructive, and marvelously readable. It will endure for years to come.” – William
F. Buckley, Jr.
“Heilman offers a warm, insightful portrait of today’s haredi Jewry. His well-trained eye probes the thick
veil with which this community has surrounded itself, producing a documents of particular importance in
this age of increased stereotyping and dehumanization.” – Arthur Green, Reconstructionist Rabbinical College |
