Washoe County Library System

"Magnificent insights into the lives of biblical prophets and kings, Talmudic sages, and Hasidic rabbis, from one of the world's most honored and beloved teachers. From a multitude of sources, Elie Wiesel culls facts, legends, and anecdotes to give us fascinating portraits of notable figures throughout Jewish history--from the Kingdom of Israel in the ninth century B.C.E. to nineteenth-century Eastern Europe. Here is the prophet Elisha, the beloved...

As a member of the strictly religious Satmar sect of Hasidic Judaism, Deborah Feldman grew up under a code of relentlessly enforced customs governing everything from what she could wear and to whom she could speak to what she was allowed to read. Yet in spite of her repressive upbringing, Deborah grew into an independent-minded young woman whose stolen moments reading about the empowered literary characters of Jane Austen and Louisa May Alcott helped...

A former Skverer Hasid and the founding editor of Unpious openly documents his harrowing loss of faith, which forced him into a life of deception, while providing a thought-provoking look at one of the most insular Hasidic sects in the U.S.

"An arranged marriage is expected for Raizl, but she's not like the other young women in her Hasidic sect in Brooklyn. Raizl has a college scholarship to study accounting, a part-time job that supports her family, and a hidden computer making it all possible. That's where she finds the porn, through the slippery slope of an innocent Google search. As Raizl dives deeper into the world of porn at night, her daytime life begins to unravel. The porn is...

"New York City tabloid reporter Rebekah Roberts knows almost nothing about the mother who abandoned her as an infant. Aviva Kagan was just a teenager when she left her Hasidic Jewish life in Brooklyn for a fling with a college boy from Florida - and then disappeared. When Rebekah hears about a young Hasidic mother found dead in her bathtub in upstate New York, she thinks there might be a story in it. And as she looks closer, she discovers that the...

Investigating the murder of a Hasidic Jewish woman who because of religious laws will be buried without an autopsy, journalist Rebekah Roberts intercedes to prevent the woman's killer from getting away with the crime.

Traces the author's life as an independent young woman and single mother searching for an authentic and personal Jewish identity, describing how after leaving her Hasidic community she pursued healing in a circle of like-minded outcasts and misfits.