*In leaving a Haredi male is involved in a clearly dialogical process he needs to decide to whom to listen. It may be the authoritative voice of the Yeshiva structure or it may be another structure. A dialogue then emerges between the... more
*In leaving a Haredi male is involved in a clearly dialogical process he needs to decide to whom to listen. It may be the authoritative voice of the Yeshiva structure or it may be another structure. A dialogue then emerges between the Haredi as a member of this community of authority or one who knows the time has come to leave. In any event, there seems to be no emerging male who sheds his coat and hat while recuperating a lost secular soul that has been denied him by virtue of his being Haredi. There is something different that emerges, someone who remains in a dialogical process constantly in conversation with different external and internal voices, not so much competing for hegemony but negotiating with each other for a voice. Deconversion, involves critical engagement and disengagement in or from a very demanding religious system without clear reattachment to another. The impetus for leaving may stem from theological loss of faith. However the act of leaving the Haredi world goes beyond religiosity. It represents a very critical reaction to the fundamentalist religious life in which the young man was raised and to which he was taught to adhere. The departing young man identifies the demand for certainty in fundamentalist religion as monologic, and deficient in the need for language (see Holquist, 1990, 53). He introduces dialogue and discourse, where there was essential only a monologue, with many participants. This critical approach to the world in which he lives is agentic action by a social actor who is committed not only to simply leaving the Haredi world but to maintaining a clearly critical and dialogical approach to his past as well as to his present.
*Note: Haredi Judaism works for many of its followers, some of whom may have criticisms of their society and some who may not. There are those for whom Haredi Judaism does not work, not as a cultural world and/or not as a religious system... So they leave. My research tries to look at that aspect. While writing or lecturing about the stories of people who leave a reader might get an impression of negativity about Haredi Judaism. That impression I hope, is not conveyed by my work. Haredi Judasim works and works well for many of its adherents and for others it does not. Some of them decide to leave.
