American Studies Faculty and Staff

AB, Brown University
Ph.D. Harvard University (American Studies)

My three main passions are religion/spirituality, educational reform, and creative writing. These interests form the heart of my writing and my teaching. My first book, Mystics, Mavericks, and Merrymakers: An Intimate Journey Among Hasidic Girls,describes my year living among Hasidic Jewish teenagers in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. This deeply spiritual yet fun-loving community included a fabulous array of characters: intense mystics, brilliant rebels, and charming party-lovers all call Crown Heights home. In the book, I also explore the group’s powerful mystical notions, and some impressive aspects of their educational system: the focus on spirituality and personal growth, and the surprising benefits single-sex schooling can offer. This project began as my dissertation for Harvard’s American studies program; I later transformed it into a book aimed at a popular audience.

My second book project, a novel set in a fictional Hasidic community, draws on the rich experiences and emotions I found in Crown Heights. This world inspired me for so many reasons: the spiritual energy, the sense of personal agency (many believed one righteous act by one seemingly ordinary person could bring the Messiah), the community closeness. And yet I realized early on that people who couldn’t or wouldn’t fit in—those who lost faith, or pushed boundaries beyond acceptable limits—endured searing isolation. My novel’s protagonist feels the beauty and the pain with equal intensity. I am currently working to complete that book, rounding out the various adventures and journeys.

I have also begun a third book project, a nonfiction account of my own spiritual quest. Through the years, I have encountered a wide range of groups who claim insight into the divine—some from mainstream religions, others whose views veer radically from any established tradition. I plan to explore many more in the near future. It’s been a deep, juicy ride, with the sorts of characters and ideas that have always inspired me to write.

In the various courses I teach at Tufts, I hope to inspire a similar desire to share ideas, appreciate other viewpoints, and have fun in the process.

Book:

Mystics, Mavericks, and Merrymakers: An Intimate Journey Among Hasidic Girls (NYU Press: 2003, paperback: 2004)

Articles:

               • “God, Gossip, and Going Astray: Naomi Alderman, Shalom Auslander, and        Reva Mann talk freely about loshon hora [slanderous gossip].” JBOOKS.com,         April 2008.
               • Entries on “North American Hasidism” and “Menachem Mendel Schneerson”          in the forthcoming Cambridge Dictionary of Jewish History, Religion, and   Culture          
               • Untitled contribution to NiSh’ma section (an interpretation of a Talmudic      verse), Sh’ma Magazine, 37/638, February 2007.
               • “Mystics, Mavericks, and Merrymakers” in Exponent ll, Vol. 26,No. 24,      2004.
                •  “What Hasidic Girls are Really Like” in Lilith Magazine, Vol. 28.3, Fall        2003.
    • “Hasidic Girls: Daily Lives and Inner Worlds” in Millennium Girls: Today's Girls and their Cultures. Ed. Sherrie A. Inness. Rowman and Littlefield, 1998.

Anderson Cooper 360 (CNN)
Leonard Lopate Show (WNYC)
Miami Book Fair (FL)
92nd St. Y (NYC)
Publishers Weekly Trade Book Forum (American Academy of Religion/Society of Biblical Literature 2004 Conference: San Antonio, TX)
Museum of Jewish Heritage (NYC)
Harvard University Coop (Cambridge, MA)
Brown University (Providence, RI)
Wesleyan University (Middletown, CT)
The College of St. Catherine (St. Paul, MN)
Brandeis University (Waltham, MA)
Wellesley College (Wellesley, MA)
New York University (NYC)
Simmons College (Boston)
And numerous additional talks through television and radio stations, bookstores, universities, academic conferences, synagogues, churches, book clubs, community centers, libraries, and other venues throughout the U.S. and Canada

ENG0002 - Differences

AMER0198-Senior Special Project

Mystics, Mavericks, and Merrymakers won the 2004 Moment Magazine Book Award for Nonfiction.
It was also selected for the 2005-2006 Hadassah Book Club (Hadassah is a national Jewish women’s organization).