While the popular memoir about leaving the ḥasidic fold is almost as old as Ḥasidism itself, the past decade has seen somewhat of a boom in this genre. But Schneur Zalman Newfield’s Degrees of Separation provides something these works do not: a measured sociological study of the phenomenon. Moshe Krakowski writes in his review:

[Newfield’s story] is not only novel and fascinating, but inconsistent in significant ways with those often assumed by media and popular literature (including many of the ex-ḥasidic memoirs). Many of Newfield’s respondents hold warm feelings toward their former communities. Abuse and scandal do not dominate their accounts. Their departures from ḥasidic life were not frequently marked by rupture and animosity. The vast majority of his subjects maintain relationships with their families and have been neither rejected socially nor in some way excommunicated formally.

Newfield is admirably honest about his data and writes with balance and empathy. Still, in a few places, the book’s portrait of ḥaredi life feels incomplete. . . . For example, Newfield argues that ultra-Orthodox life is inherently “anti-intellectual.” . . . He presumes that because ḥasidic students are not allowed to question the authority of religious texts and authority figures, their study is not intellectual, but this misunderstands what it means to engage in intellectual study, reasoning, and thinking. The reality is that students in ḥaredi schools, including ḥasidic schools, routinely engage in incredibly difficult and high-level intellectual work.

[Moreover], in leaving one community for another, one can easily see the norms of the new community as, well, normative. In framing the book around the narratives of exiters—looking back at their former communities—Newfield loses sight of the fact that they haven’t just left one community, but they’ve joined another.

On Tuesday, a Hizballah drone attack injured three people in northern Israel. The next day, another attack, targeting an IDF base, injured eighteen people, six of them seriously, in Arab al-Amshe, also in the north. This second attack involved the simultaneous use of drones carrying explosives and guided antitank missiles. In both cases, the defensive systems that performed so successfully last weekend failed to stop the drones and missiles. Ron Ben-Yishai has a straightforward explanation as to why: the Lebanon-backed terrorist group is getting better at evading Israel defenses. He explains the three basis systems used to pilot these unmanned aircraft, and their practical effects:

These systems allow drones to act similarly to fighter jets, using “dead zones”—areas not visible to radar or other optical detection—to approach targets. They fly low initially, then ascend just before crashing and detonating on the target. The terrain of southern Lebanon is particularly conducive to such attacks.

But this requires skills that the terror group has honed over months of fighting against Israel. The latest attacks involved a large drone capable of carrying over 50 kg (110 lbs.) of explosives. The terrorists have likely analyzed Israel’s alert and interception systems, recognizing that shooting down their drones requires early detection to allow sufficient time for launching interceptors.

The IDF tries to detect any incoming drones on its radar, as it had done prior to the war. Despite Hizballah’s learning curve, the IDF’s technological edge offers an advantage. However, the military must recognize that any measure it takes is quickly observed and analyzed, and even the most effective defenses can be incomplete. The terrain near the Lebanon-Israel border continues to pose a challenge, necessitating technological solutions and significant financial investment.