The Pious Ones: The World of Hasidim and Their Battles

Many recent books, particularly memoirs, have taken aim at modern Hasidism, and with great justification.  An often hostile and insular world, many Hasidic communities stifle freedom of expression, use economic and social pressures to force conformity, abuse government social services, fail to punish sex offenders in their midst, among other things.

Certainly, this is all true.  But in The Pious Ones: The World of Hasidim and Their Battles with America, by Joseph Berger, the author tries a middle road in his treatment of the many branches of Hasidism.  Unlike the recent, harsh memoirs, or the idealized portraits of Hasidism by the likes of Elie Wiesel, Berger treats Hasids as real people, warts and all.  

The biographical portraits he presents are of people who more or less "fit" into the Hasidic; for some Jews, Hasidism works.  Berger tells their stories with compassion and understanding.