Among scholars of Jewish Studies, the process, history, and literature of exiting one’s native religious community is increasingly recognized as a new area within the field which, ironically, has a history stretching back to antiquity. By presenting scholarship from a diverse range of disciplines—including history, sociology, psychology, and gender studies—this volume deepens and broadens readers’ understanding of the complexity of the topic of taking leave of the Orthodox community in which one has been raised and establishing a different kind of life that is outside of its borders.

Piety and Rebellion examines the span of the Hasidic textual tradition from its earliest phases to the 20th century. The essays collected in this volume focus on the tension between Hasidic fidelity to tradition and its rebellious attempt to push the devotional life beyond the borders of conventional religious practice. Many of the essays exhibit a comparative perspective deployed to better articulate the innovative spirit, and traditional challenges, Hasidism presents to the traditional Jewish world. Piety and Rebellion is an attempt to present Hasidism as one case whereby maximalist religion can yield a rebellious challenge to conventional conceptions of religious thought and practice.

Published in 1911, and then expanded and republished in 1922, Mosquito consists of 36 poems ranging in lengths from six lines to over one hundred and fifty.  It contains Akhmet Baitursynov’s most overtly political poems, aimed at the yet-to-exist Kazakh nation: to his people, to his kin, and to the many future sons and daughters of Kazakhstan. His intentions with the collection are clear, as we see in the opening lines of the poem “Author’s Note”: to buzz around the sleeping Kazakh populace in hopes of awakening them with a rallying cry.

Published in 1911, and then expanded and republished in 1922, Mosquito consists of 36 poems ranging in lengths from six lines to over one hundred and fifty.  It contains Akhmet Baitursynov’s most overtly political poems, aimed at the yet-to-exist Kazakh nation: to his people, to his kin, and to the many future sons and daughters of Kazakhstan. His intentions with the collection are clear, as we see in the opening lines of the poem “Author’s Note”: to buzz around the sleeping Kazakh populace in hopes of awakening them with a rallying cry.