Orthodox

• Last year, after a 15-year campaign, her abuser, Malka Leifer, who had fled to Israel, was tried and sentenced, convicted of 18 charges of sexual abuse against Erlich and her sister, Elly.
• (She was acquitted of charges involving a third Erlich sister, Nicole.)
• But when her need was most acute, Erlich could not have contacted any of these services.

Adass Israel ‘evokes 19th-century Europe’

• As with most ultra-Orthodox Judaism, Adass Israel originated in 19th-century Europe as a conservative reaction to liberal secularism.
• The cut of the men’s black silk coats worn with white shirts, and their mink hats, come from that time and place.
• The Australian congregation was only formed in 1939, but the tiny enclave within East St Kilda and Ripponlea where Melbourne’s Adass Israel community lives effectively evokes 19th-century Europe.

• Her parents had joined a generation later, as converts to Orthodoxy after emigrating from England.
• She notes that as a result, “my mother was on a mission to prove her worth to the Adass community”.
• Erlich writes that from a young age, she realised her mother’s rage “had no rhyme or reason, no trigger we could predict”.
• The children were punished by being deprived of food and even the ability to go to the toilet at night.

• Marriages are arranged via matchmakers, and couples have few meetings before their wedding.
• Erlich writes that the first time she had an unsupervised conversation with her former husband, Shua Erlich, was on their wedding day.
• Such is the fear of contamination by gender, unrelated girls and boys do not mix after they turn three.

‘It was just a woman’

When Dassi Erlich was in year nine, in December 2002, a new principal was appointed to the girls’ school. Malka Leifer had come from Israel with excellent references and appeared to be everything this devout congregation could desire. Erlich writes of “the respect and awe” the schoolgirls felt in the presence of this charismatic woman, who exuded authority.

• Her mother was flattered when Leifer offered to give her daughter private lessons out of school hours, to advance her religious education.
• Erlich wrote of these “lessons” that “I never found my words” to object to the continuing assaults on her body.
• The account of her inability to escape is hard to read, but is also hard to stop reading.
• It is hardly surprising the Adass community reacted to the news of the principal’s criminal behaviour in the same way.

• Her religion controlled every aspect of her life, but could not save her from being raped.
• It was just a woman.”

  Read more:
  Holy Woman's fleshy, feminist spiritual pilgrimage is a warning against religious coercive control

Unrestrained power, control and authority

• When Erlich becomes suicidal after the birth of her daughter, her husband’s liberal Jewish father pays for her admission to the Albert Road psychiatric clinic.
• The end of her marriage was inevitable, as were her many missteps on the way to freedom.
• In enclosed sects, whatever their complexion, those who leave and speak out against misbehaviour are shunned, often losing all contact with their families.

• The response of the Orthodox Jewish community to the truths exposed by Erlich and her siblings was as expected.
• In 2016, a year after the judge in Erlich’s civil case ruled that “Leifer’s appalling misconduct […] was built on this position of unrestrained power, control and authority that had been bestowed on her by the Board”, Adass Israel was the subject of a television documentary, Strictly Jewish.

Global quest for justice

• Instead, she was released from custody, feigning a mental illness that had turned her into a zombie-like state.
• The book details the behaviour of Israeli medical, legal and political figures in their efforts to prevent Leifer from facing trial.
• Jewish politicians, both Liberal and Labor, led their colleagues in supporting the sisters’ quest to bring Malka Leifer to judgement.

• Erlich’s account of how her predator was eventually brought to justice shows how well these siblings learnt to work with the once unfamiliar outlet of social media.
• After their Facebook group was trolled by Leifer’s supporters, they established a Twitter thread, #bringleiferback.
• Although the extradition, trial and conviction of Malka Leifer was a group effort, full credit for bringing her to justice must go to the sisters – Dassi Erlich, Elly Sapper and Nicole Meyer.
• This is a very self-aware memoir: Erlich and her sisters know they need to take control of their own narrative.

Joanna Mendelssohn has in the past received funding from the Australian Research Council

• Writings that didn’t make it into the Bible, on the other hand, are often called “apocrypha,” a Greek term that refers to hidden or secret things.
• There are hundreds of apocryphal Jewish and Christian texts that, for one reason or another, were not included in different versions of the Bible.
• Just because a text was deemed apocryphal, however, does not mean that it was unpopular or lacked influence.

Enslaved to God

• The Shepherd urges self-control and fear of God, trying to instill obedience and avoid allowing emotions like fear or doubt to overcome believers.
• My own research on the Shepherd focuses on how the text depicts believers as enslaved to God, as is true of some other early Christian literature as well.
• The writer imagines that God’s holy spirit is able to enter loyal believers’ bodies and possess them, urging them to do what God wills.
• Instead, readers find a story about an otherwise unknown enslaved man named Hermas experiencing visions and talking with divine beings in the Italian countryside.

‘Useful for the soul’

• The Shepherd became one of the most popular texts among Christians for the first five centuries C.E.
• The Shepherd is even included in what scholars consider one of the oldest and most complete Bibles in the world.
• The Codex Sinaiticus, however, a fourth- or fifth-century manuscript now held at the British Library, ends with the Shepherd.
• Even figures who did not include the Shepherd among New Testament texts thought it was too important to be discarded.

An open Bible

• As the Shepherd helps demonstrate, whether a religious text is included or excluded from the Bible is not necessarily an indicator of its popularity or significance.
• While scholars often lament that the Shepherd is boring, pedantic or too long, its style likely made it ideal teaching material for early Christians.
• In religious communities, the idea of “canonical texts” can be especially limiting, determining what believers can or can’t read or believe.

• This is because Russian history has swung back and forth between chaos and autocracy, which have become mutually reinforcing symptoms of the same historical condition.
• Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin has come to symbolise a new cycle of this history taking place in Russia today.
• Whether or not Prigozhin may have exposed Putin’s vulnerabilities, history suggests that what is to come could well be worse.
• By referencing the smuta Putin was reminding Russians of the profound dangers of dissent – and of his mandate to suppress it.

The gathering of the lands

• The campaign, begun under his predecessor Ivan III (“Ivan the Great”), is known as the “Gathering of the Lands”.
• Ever since, Russian leaders have perpetuated the idea that Russia must dominate its peripheral lands as a defensive act of national survival.
• The terror he wrought on his people, economy and lands through years of war and repression sowed the seeds for the smuta to come.

Boris Godunov

• Boris Godunov was inspired by a period of crisis that forms the bedrock of Russia’s national mythology.
• Pushkin’s play tells the story of Boris Godunov, a Russian nobleman who came to power at the end of the 16th century during the “Time of Troubles”, the first period of smuta – a succession crisis that began in 1598 with the death of Tsar Fyodor I, the last of Russia’s founding Rurikid dynasty.
• When Fyodor died childless with no appointed heir, his brother-in-law Boris seized the throne, becoming Russia’s first non-Rurikid Tsar.
• Pushkin’s play ends as Boris, haggard in the face of increasing dissent, dies as a result of foul play.

Smuta

• Otrepyev was crowned Tsar Dmitry I, but his reign lasted less than a year.
• Over the following eight years a brutal struggle for sovereignty took hold.
• The smuta thus ended with the founding of a new autocratic bloodline that would rule and expand the Russian Empire for the next 300 years.
• It has been used to justify the absolutism and revanchism of Russian leaders from Tsars through to Soviet Commissars and modern-day politicians.

Divine right

• Russian Tsars were legitimised by the myth of divine right, meaning their power and authority as “Guardian of Holy Russia” was derived from God, rather than the Russian people.
• The General Secretary of the Communist Party was vested by the laws of History to lead Russians and their Soviet comrades along the true path to their glorious future.
• Putin has made it his spiritual mission to shield the Russia from the chaos of democratic and liberal freedoms.
• Read more:
  'Today is not my day': how Russia's journalists, writers and artists are turning silence into speech

The roots of Russian silence

• All he asked for in return was “unity”, which in Russian is a byword for passivity and acquiescence.
• The passivity of the Russian people often baffles the Western world, particularly in response to the war in Ukraine, which is being waged in their name.
• Pushkin describes the narod – the Russian people – as “obedient to the suggestion of the moment, deaf and indifferent to the actual truth, a beast that feeds upon fables”.
• The truth is that the Russian ruler’s prerogative as tsar-batiushka or “Father Tsar” can only hold sway over an acquiescent, even infantilised realm.
• An old question arises: will the Russian people remain silent?

As a scholar of modern Jewish history, religion and politics, I am often asked to explain the differences between Judaism’s major denominations. Here is a very brief overview:

Rabbinic roots

• After the Romans destroyed the Jerusalem Temple in 70 C.E., one main group, who called themselves “rabbis” – sages or teachers – began to dominate.
• What we now know as “Judaism” grew out of this group, technically called “Rabbinic Judaism.” Rabbinic Judaism believed that God gave Jewish teachings and scriptures to Moses at Mt.
• This corpus became the foundation of rabbinic literature.

Historic turning point

• For example, starting in the Middle Ages, a Jewish group called the Karaites challenged the rabbis’ authority by rejecting the oral Torah.
• Still, Rabbinic Judaism remained a more or less united religious community for some 1,500 years – until the 19th century.
• Meanwhile, thousands – eventually millions – of Jews moved to the United States, which likewise offered equal citizenship.

Three major groups

• Each group claimed that they followed the best or most authentic traditions of Judaism.
• The first modern denomination to organize was Reform – first in Germany in the early 19th century, but soon in America as well.
• Orthodox Judaism soon organized in reaction to Reform, rallying to defend the strict observance of Jewish customs and law.
• In practice, most Conservative Jews tend not to be strict about even major rituals, like observing Sabbath restrictions or kosher food practices.

From Orthodox to ultra-Orthodox

• Of all the Jewish denominations, the Orthodox groups are perhaps most misunderstood.
• They all share a commitment to Jewish law – especially regarding gender roles and sexuality, food consumption and Sabbath restrictions – but there are many divisions, generally categorized on a spectrum from “modern” to “ultra” Orthodox.
• The ultra-Orthodox, on the other hand – sometimes called “Haredim” or Haredi Jews – advocate segregation from the outside world.
• Not only has Orthodox Judaism innovated many rituals and teachings, but people today have greater awareness that other types of life are available – creating a firm break with the traditional world Orthodoxy claims to perpetuate.

Becoming a nation

• Inspired by nationalist movements around them, they claimed that Jews constituted a modern nation, rather than just a religion.
• Reform Jews and even some early Orthodox Jews worried that defining Jews as a “nation” would undermine their claim to equal citizenship in other countries.
• Still, most ultra-Orthodox Jews today continue to oppose Zionist ideology, even as they hold right-wing political views on Israel.
• Either way, Orthodoxy is going to continue to play a very important role in Jewish life for many years to come.