LES DÉSERTEURS DE DIEU.

There are over a thousand of them per year. They are called the “departers”: ultra-orthodox Israeli men and women that have decided to live a secular life. Living in Israel and member of an association that comes to their aid, Florence Heyman decided to conduct an investigation. The result is this enthralling and pioneering work. Since this is the first study of its kind, this book opens the doors to a fascinating world where we encounter poignant experiences, individuals in search of their own truth, in conflict with their family, and who know nothing about the exterior world. In this completely new and unknown universe, they must relearn everything from scratch.

This painful choice plunges them into the unknown, often without resources. No matter where they may have come from, they all lived a life that was controlled in a precise and unchanging way, where they were subjected to an implacable but reassuring law. Wherever they now go, they are alone and forced to face themselves.

These are the chaotic journeys from one world to another that Florence Heymann has written about through attentive and sensitive fieldwork. The author paints colourful and endearing portraits of dissidents, "out-of-the-closet apostates,” suicidal men and women, dropouts, "pink yarmulkes," thugs – all of them deserters simply claiming the right to choose their own lives. Their tales offer us a peek into a hermetically sealed, ritualized religious world where even sex and telephones have to be stamped kosher. Some coming out of the "ghetto" succeed. Others do not. Learning to be free is a path filled with pitfalls, doubts and questions.

Florence Heymann is an anthropologist and researcher at the CNRS, working at the Centre de recherche français in Jerusalem. She has published Le Crépuscule des lieux. Identités juives de Czernowitz (Prix Wizo, 2004) and, with Dominique Bourel, an edition of Lettres choisies de Martin Buber 1899-1965 (2004).