Piety and power

by Landau, David

With the rare gift of a storyteller, David Landau takes the reader inside the little-known world of the haredim - the bearded, black-clothed Jewish fundamentalists. Decimated by the Holocaust, this sect has enjoyed a dramatic revival that has caused tensions everywhere and a bitter battle for the soul of Israel. Piety and Power describes life in the self-contained haredi ghettos in London, New York, and Jerusalem, where Hasidic rabbis reign supreme and strict rules govern every aspect of life. Landau takes the reader into homes marked by warm family life and strict sexual codes, and into yeshivas, the intellectual core of the community, where young men spend decades as full-time students of the Torah. For many readers, Jews and Gentiles alike, this will be a disturbing book. It depicts an aggressive, assertive fundamentalism in an expansive and self-confident mood, certain of its divine right to win souls and influence the Jewish people and to dictate its views on who is a Jew.