Adult Nonfiction

Berwin, Mel, Jennifer Sartori and Judith Rosenbaum.Making our Wilderness Bloom: 350 Years of Extraordinary Jewish Women in America.Jewish Women’s Archive, 2004.
Making Our Wilderness Bloom celebrates 350 years of extraordinary Jewish women with biographies, historical context, primary source interviews and photographs. One segment of the book introduces Jewish women who save lives through medicine and health. This represents the Jewish value of pikuach nefesh—“saving a life”—where the preservation of life overrides all other religious considerations.

Biale, David et al.Hasidism: A New History: Princeton University Press, 2017.
This is the first comprehensive history of the pietistic movement that shaped modern Judaism. The book's unique blend of intellectual, religious, and social history offers perspectives on the movement's leaders as well as its followers, and demonstrates that, far from being a throwback to the Middle Ages, Hasidism is a product of modernity that forged its identity as a radical alternative to the secular world.

Fader, Ayala.Mitzvah Girls: Bringing up the Next Generation of Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn.Princeton University Press, 2009.
Mitzvah Girls is the first book about bringing up Hasidic Jewish girls in North America, providing an in-depth look into a closed community. Ayala Fader examines language, gender, and the body from infancy to adulthood, showing how Hasidic girls in Brooklyn become women responsible for rearing the next generation of nonliberal Jewish believers. To uncover how girls learn the practices of Hasidic Judaism, Fader looks beyond the synagogue to everyday talk in the context of homes, classrooms, and city streets.

Levine, Stephanie Wellen.Mystics, Mavericks, and Merrymakers: An Intimate Journey among Hasidic Girls.New York University Press, 2003.
Mystics, Mavericks, and Merrymakers includes over thirty exclusive interviews with young Hasidic women transitioning from their teenage years to adulthood. While some of the girls are rebels, others strive for higher education and successful careers while remaining rooted in their faith community. The author lived in Crown Heights, Brooklyn for a year in the Orthodox Jewish Lubavitch community.

Stern, Jane.Ambulance Girl: How I Saved Myself by Becoming an EMT.Crown Publishing Group, 2003.
Jane Stern began her second career as an emergency medical technician late in life. For years, she had battled panic attacks, depression, and hypochondria. While her plane was grounded at the Minneapolis airport for 6 hours, she was able to help a young man experiencing a health crisis. This small but satisfying act of helping someone else led her to EMT training. Stern shares her on-the-job experiences which often included emotional and physical challenges. Through all of her hard work, Jane eventually becomes the first woman officer of her department.

Zipora, Malka.Rather Laugh Than Cry: Stories from a Hassidic Household.Montreal, Canada: Véhicule Press, 2007.
Rather Laugh than Cry is a glimpse into the daily life of a contemporary Hassidic woman living in a large urban setting. Malka Zipora is the pseudonym of a Montreal Hassidic woman who has raised a family of twelve children who now range in age between nine and thirty years old. Zipora has taken the unusual step of drawing back the curtain on her life as a Hassidic woman, and what she tells us about her everyday life gives us a very human view into a world that seems very much apart from the mainstream.

Berger, Joseph. The Pious Ones: The World of Hasidim and Their Battles with America. HarperCollins, 2014.
As the population of ultra-Orthodox Jews in the United States increases to astonishing proportions, veteran New York Timesjournalist Joseph Berger takes us inside the notoriously insular world of the Hasidim to explore their origins, beliefs, and struggles— and the social and political implications of their expanding presence in America.