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Reporting, Reviews, & Opinion

Op-Ed: Why Is New York Condoning Illiteracy?, The New York Times, April 4, 2018

How Hasidic Judaism Still Manages to Thrive, Forward, July 1, 2018

Jews in New York: A Legacy of Liberalism and Shifting Demographics, Forward, January 21, 2018

Is it Possible to Leave Orthodoxy and Remain Culturally Hasidic?, Forward, September 29, 2017

An Architecht Turns His Genius to Scheming in an Isaac-Abraham Reboot, New York Times, July 7, 2017

Breaking Away: Former Hasidim Find Fulfillment in the Secular World, Contact, Winter 2017

Yiddish Harvest: Life on a Yiddish Farm, Contact, Winter 2016

Op-Ed: Chasidic Schools Ensure Ignorance and Poverty, The Jewish Week, September 17, 2015

Op-Ed: Faigy Mayer’s suicide is a Jewish tragedy, not just an Orthodox one, JTA, July 24, 2015

It’s Just Not True that Hasidic Women Choose Not to Drive, Haaretz, June 17, 2015

What ‘Felix and Meira’ Gets Right About Leaving Hasidic Life, The New Republic, April 20, 2015

Who Says Hasidim Have Dead Eyes?, Forward, June 18, 2014

Online and Unabashed: Orthodox Rabbis on the Internet, Tablet, April 11, 2014

In Death of Ex-Hasidic Mother, a Mirror for Trauma of Many, Tablet, October 2, 2013

And Now, Shlomo Carlebach the Musical…, Lilith, Fall 2013

The Secret Genius of Hasidic Fashion, Forward, July 25, 2013

Williamsburg Bike Wars Provide Family Drama, Forward, July 22, 2013

Ex-Hasidic Mother Loses Custody of Children, Unpious, May 20, 2013

How Many Sins Can One Hasid Commit, Forward, February 27, 2013

Interview with Michael Jenkins, Unpious, May 26, 2011

Ex-Haredi Artists Grapple With Their Pasts, Forward, April 27, 2011

Essays & Personal Narrative

Your Reader Is Not Your Therapist: And Other Thoughts on Memoir Writing, Paper Brigade, Winter 2017

The Chosen: Encountering Danny Saunders, Crush, March 2016

ASK BIG QUESTIONS: When Do We Say No?, Jewish Book Council, April 16, 2015

Making My Own MFA, Jewish Book Council, March 5, 2015

What We Talk About When We Talk About Hasidim, Jewish Book Council, March 2, 2015

Can an ex-Hasid Fit In, Without Ever Hearing Nirvana or Watching Cartoons?, Forward, July 14, 2015

How Purim, Judaism’s Boozy Rejoinder to Halloween, Shook My Faith, The New Republic, March 5, 2015

Men Pushing Baby Strollers? Only Goys Do That!, Forward, July 20, 2015

My Craigslist Roommate Seemed Perfect — Until Tragedy Struck, Narratively, Jan 7, 2015

Why I Am Not Modern Orthodox, Zeek, July 2, 2013

Hasidic Fathers Fret About Providing, Forward, March 22, 2013

The Sound of Sin, Salon, April 19, 2012

Ex-Hasid At Rainbow, Sh’ma, December 1, 2011

It’s Hotter Under the Hasidic Collar, New York Daily News, August 3, 2011

A Raizel by Any Other Name, TribeVibe, August 3, 2011

Too Cool, Tablet, June 22, 2011

What is Really Happening in New Square?, Forward, May 30, 2011

A Person of Prominence, The Brooklyn Rail, March 1, 2011

My Heretical Year: The Hebrew Calendar of a Non-believer

Introducing: My Heretical Year, Forward, September 24, 2015

What I Learned From an Act of Shoplifting, Forward, October 19, 2015

How I Kept My Faith in Faith, Forward, December 1, 2015

When My Hasidic Past Rediscovered Me, Forward, January 5, 2016

Why We Want Our Plantings to Be Like Us, Forward, January 31, 2016

What We Can Learn From Hillary Clinton, Mark Twain — and a Hasidic Master, Forward, February 21, 2016

Purim and Encounters with Bigotry — Including Our Own, Forward, March 20, 2016

We Were Aliens In Egypt — And I Still Am One Today, Forward, April 16, 2016

Why I Love Israel But I Am Not a Zionist, Forward, May 15, 2016

Why Talmud Is the Way To Be Jewish Without Judaism, Forward, June 9, 2016

How Tammuz Helped Me Find Meaning In a Godless Universe, Forward, July 9, 2016

Why We Cannot Transform A World Without Transforming Ourselves , Forward, August 13, 2016

Why I Remain Connected to the Family of Jews, Forward, September 18, 2016