Ayala Fader

Ayala Fader, Professor of Anthropology

Professor of Anthropology
(at Lincoln Center)
Email: [email protected]

Lowenstein 403F
212-636-6513
Fax: 212-636-7153

  • B.A., New York University;
    M.A., Teachers College, Columbia University;
    M.A., Ph.D., New York University, 2000

  • Religious worlds, Jewish Studies, gender, language, childhood, and media.

  • My ongoing research agenda ethnographically investigates contemporary North American Jewish identities and languages. My scholarship engages key issues at the intersection of religion, Jewish Studies, gender, and linguistic anthropology, including language and media.

  • Mitzvah Girls - Ayala Fader

    2009. Mitzvah Girls: Bringing Up the Next Generation of Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Winner of a 2009 New York City Book Award by the New York Society Library.

    Winner of the 2009 National Jewish Book Award in the category of Women's Studies

    "Highly Commended" by the Clifford Geertz Prize in the Anthropology of Religion, Society for the Anthropology of Religion and the American Anthropological Association

    2020. Hidden Heretics: Jewish Doubt in the Digital Age. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Hidden heretics, novel by professor ayala fader
    Finalist for the National Jewish Book Award in American Jewish Studies
     
    Finalist for the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature, Jewish Book Council
     
    Finalist for the Jordan Schnitzer Award in Social Science, Anthropology, and Folklore, Association for Jewish Studies

  • 2022 "Religious Orthodoxies: Provocations from the Jewish and Christian Margins" (Vlad Naumescu, co-author), Annual Review of Anthropology, Volume 52:325-342.

    2021 Media, Medicine, and Change in the Ultra-Orthodox World Today. Jewish Quarterly Review.
    https://katz.sas.upenn.edu/resources/blog/haredi-moment-online-forum-part-1

    2020.  Op-Ed, Daily News. Why are some ultra-Orthodox Jews flouting social distancing rules? 
    https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-oped-why-some-jews-flouting-rules-20200409-u6jetgi4ubgtxla4oindag37gy-story.html

    2017. "The Counterpublic of the J(ewish) Blogosphere: Gendered Language and the Mediation of Religious Doubt among Ultra-Orthodox Jews in New York". The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 23(4): 727-747.

    2017. "Ultra-Orthodox Jewish Interiority and the Crisis of Faith". Special section on sincerity and interiority. Hau: A Journal of Ethnographic Theory 7(1):185-206.

    2016. "Secular and Religious Literacies in Multilingual Hasidic Homes and Schools". In Religion as a Mediator of Languages, Literacies and Identities: Critical and Ethnographic Perspectives. V. Lytra, D. Volk, and E. Gregory, Eds. Pp. 176-192. New York: Routledge

    2015. "Occupy Judaism: Religion, Digital Media and the Public Sphere" (with Rabbi Owen Gottlieb). Anthropological Quarterly 88(3): 759-793.

    2014. The Multilingual Jewish Blogosphere. Religion and Its Publics. The Immanent Frame, SSRC. http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/2014/09/16/the- multilingual-jewish-blogosphere/blogosphere/

    2014. Ethnography and History Roundtable Discussion. American Jewish History 98 (1): 1-8.

    2013. "Nonliberal Jewish Inspirational Lectures in Brooklyn: The Crisis of Faith and the Morality of Media." American Anthropologist.

    2012. "Is the Internet the Problem? Sexual Abuse Scandals and Ultra-Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn". (https://wp.nyu.edu/therevealer/2012/11/13/sex-abuse-scandals-and-ultra-orthodox-jews-is-the-internet-the-problem/) The Revealer: A Daily Review of Religion and Media. The Center for Religion and Media, New York University.

    2011. "Morality and Language Socialization." Pp. 343-360 in The Handbook of Language Socialization, edited by A. Duranti, B.B. Schieffelin, E. Ochs. New York: Blackwell-Wiley.

    2009. "The Jewish Child." In Companion to the Handbook of the Child, edited by Richard Schweder. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    2008. "Jewish Spirituality and Late Capitalism." Jewish Culture and History 8(3):39-58. Reprinted pp. 34-51 in New Age Judaism, edited by C. Rothenberg and A. Vallely, eds. London and Portland, OR: Vallentine Mitchell.

    2008. "Reading Jewish signs: multilingual literacy socialization with Hasidic women and girls in New York." Text and Talk28(5):621-641.

    2007. "The Jewish Children's Museum Roundtable Discussion." Material Religion 3(3):405-426.

    2007. "Reflections on Queen Esther: The Politics of Jewish Ethnography." Contemporary Jewry 27:112-136.

    2007. "Redeeming Sacred Sparks: Syncretism and Gendered Language Shift among Hasidic Jews in New York." Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 17(1):1-23.

    2006. "Learning Faith: Language Socialization in a Hasidic Community." Language in Society 35(2):207-229.

    2001. "Literacy, Bilingualism and Gender in a Hasidic Community." Linguistics and Education 12(3):261-283.

  • Undergraduate
    Introduction to Cultural Anthropology; Language and Culture; The Anthropology of Cities; Magic, Science, and Religion; Passages: The Lifecycle in Cross-Cultural Perspective; Language, Gender, and Sexuality; Cultures of New York; Ethnographic Methods; Anthropology of Childhood

    Graduate
    Fieldwork: Ethnic and Religious Communities