Ayala Fader of Fordham University will investigate the impact of new media technologies on skepticism and protest within ultra-Orthodox religious communities. The project analyzes the practices of a community of ultra-Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn who privately question whether the Torah is the word of God, yet remain within their stringently religious communities. At the same time, these ultra-Orthodox individuals anonymously critique their communities online and secretly explore the secular world online and offline. Over the past decade, communal authority figures have increasingly blamed the Internet for this conflict, calling the current moment a "crisis of emune (faith)" and even claiming that the Internet may prove more dangerous to Jewish continuity than the Holocaust. Fader will conduct research from three perspectives: that of communal leadership who try to strengthen faith; ultra-Orthodox individuals who secretly use digital media in multiple languages (Yiddish, English and Yinglish); and in civil child custody cases when one parent has left his/her religious community. Data collection will draw on methodologies from cultural and linguistic anthropology and include online materials, audio-recordings made in ethnographic interviews, participant observation and transcription with community consultants.
The project contributes to research on conflict and change within ultra-Orthodox religious communities in the digital age. The focus is the consequences for those who lose faith in a nonliberal religious belief, yet simultaneously reject secularism. In a world increasingly polarized by religion, the project interrogates a case study, which blurs the boundaries between belief and doubt, morality and immorality, the secular and the religious.
The project aims to provoke conversations between the academy and the public about contemporary religion, morality and digital media. Dissemination and pedagogical impact will include student training, conference presentations, publications and presentations to local community groups.
