It’s hard to shed light on the circuitous debate surrounding the Haredi draft exemption, but Yosefa Fogel Wruble approaches the debate from the angle of another well-known “exemption”: that of women from many mitzvot, like Talmud Torah and certain time-caused commandments, which has contributed to an internal religious posture impacting the entirety of religious society. Can this parallel help explain Haredi society’s attitude toward draft exemption—and what might produce a shift?

You can't go home again—or can you? Tuvia Tenenbom left the insular streets of Bnei Brak for the bourgeois boulevards of Berlin. But he later decided to spend a year in Jerusalem within the cloistered and narrow alleyways of one of the city’s most reclusive Hasidic communities. Will they let him stay in their community? What will he find?  Ben Rothke review’s “Careful, Beauties Ahead!,” and shares the surprises he found in its pages.