Brooklyn Odyssey: My Journey Out of Hasidism

by Schneur Zalman Newfield

Growing up in Crown Heights, Brooklyn as a member of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic Orthodox Jewish community, Zalman Newfield was raised in an atmosphere of strict gender segregation, rigorous religious education, and nearly all-consuming ritual practices. Trained to be a Lubavitch emissary, he traveled around the world doing Jewish outreach to help usher in the messianic redemption. However, after exposure to the wider world, he abandoned the faith of his youth.

Brooklyn Odyssey is Newfield’s poignant and hopeful memoir about exiting Orthodoxy. He recounts asserting his individuality and taking the radical step of shaving his beard. Reflective about his upbringing, Newfield is open to and curious about a world beyond Brooklyn while also maintaining his profound bond with his family and Jewish tradition. He writes candidly about his emotional, intellectual, and social experiences in and out of the Lubavitch community.

From pivotal moments of devastation, including the illness and death of his younger brother and of his revered spiritual leader Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, to moments of joyful resolve, including the decision to pursue a doctorate and marry a non-Orthodox Jew, Newfield takes listeners on his moving and impactful journey.

The book is published by Temple University Press. The audiobook is published by University Press Audiobooks.

Genres: Jewish, Memoir, Nonfiction, Judaism

282 pages, Paperback

First published February 13, 2026

Reviews

[Gittel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brooklyn Odyssey was a fascinating and deeply engaging read. As someone who grew up Hasidic but not within the Lubavitch world, I found the book especially compelling. So much of the cultural landscape felt familiar, yet the Lubavitch perspective and experiences Newfield describes offered a window into a world that ran parallel to mine but wasn’t quite the same. That made the book all the more interesting.

What made the reading experience even more meaningful for me is that later in life I actually found myself growing closer to a Chabad community, though outside of New York and very much “out of town.” Reading this story through that lens added an unexpected layer of reflection. There were moments that felt almost like standing between two worlds, recognizing pieces of my upbringing while also seeing them reframed through a different path within the broader Hasidic universe.

Newfield writes with honesty and sensitivity, and the book never feels one dimensional. It is thoughtful, searching, and deeply human. The questions of identity, belonging, faith, and personal growth are handled with nuance rather than easy answers, which is part of what makes the book so powerful.

For readers with a background in the Hasidic world, it offers a particularly rich and layered experience. But even for those unfamiliar with it, the story stands on its own as a compelling exploration of a life shaped by community, belief, and the complexities of finding one’s own way.

I found it brilliant, thought provoking, and very hard to put down.

[Jay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book. Related to it a lot

[Sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

A tremendously thoughtful look at a rarified community and what it takes to leave it.

[Leib Mitchell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book Review
Brooklyn Odyssey
4/5 stars
"Generally good, loses one star on plausibility"
********
Verdict: Recommended at the price of less than $10

1.This guy missed his calling on Broadway.

a. He seems to burst into tears more than any man that I have ever read about (pps 60, 79, 221, 211, 188, 241, 248, 252, 256. And that's not even a complete listing).

Maybe he could take a side gig acting in Massengill commercials.

b. He calls his mother "Mommy," which I've never known any male over the age of about 9 to do.

2. There is a certain amount of shit-that-just-don't-go-together in this book that actually bears resonances to lies told by the (now infamous) Jason Arday.

a. (p.93) "The trouble was that I couldn't sign my name in English. It was the only language I spoke at home but I could barely print it. I was 15." (p.97) "By the time I started going to Yeshiva in South Miami beach, is 16, I still hadn't read a single English book in my entire life."

b. (p.167) "By now I had read several hundred books on various topics....." I know that he used the device of time contraction, but there was not that much time contraction. How do you go from reading picture books to "several hundred books"  just a few pages later?

c. (p.140) [In China] "Rabbi Rubin handed me a wad of American bills. 'Use this to buy whatever fruits and vegetables and other stuff you need'." (This seems very unlikely. I have never seen US currency being used as legal tender anywhere in China, even after living there for 11 years.)


Of the book:

-261 extremely easy pages. Whole thing can be read in one day
-a small smattering of sources
-no index
-words are defined parenthetically as they show up
-average chapter is about 16 pages.
******
"Autobiography, if there really is such a thing, is like asking a rabbit to tell us what he looks like hopping through the grasses of the field. How would he know? If we want to hear about the field on the other hand, no one is in a better circumstance to tell us—so long as we keep in mind that we are missing all those things the rabbit was in no position to observe." (Arthur Golden).
I think the best uses of this book (once you subtract out all of the authors overwhelming emotional anguish and incessant bursting into tears) are three:
1. As an inside look at Chabad--especially the messianism. (And truth is honestly stranger than fiction. MM Schneerson has been dead over 32 years, and the Mesichists are still going strong.)

2. As religious churn into and out of Orthodoxy (and this is extremely common - - between natural birth increase, people entering, and people exiting..... They manage to stay about 12% of all Jews.)

3. Mental illness / problems with parents and apron strings.

Quotes

(173) "I told you when you take a shower not to turn the water on all the way. You have to let the water just drip on to you. I've been hearing it turned on full force...(175) Zalman, you need to be more judicious with your toilet paper use. One or two squares is plenty."

(23) Not only did most Lubavitchers not interact with their black neighbors, but there was intense negativity toward them.

(25) The Rebbe's insistence on staying in crown heights does seem to echo the prayers of his predecessor a century and a half earlier...... During the Napoleonic wars he beseeched God to intercede in favor of Czar Alexander to preserve the piety of Jews. Under Napoleon, he reasoned, the material condition of Jews would improve and they might forget about Gd
(56) The police also discovered that [pedophile] Uriel wasn't actually Jewish; his real name was Peter King, and he was a fugitive of the FBI hiding in our yeshiva.

(57) Over the next few years, I ended up having several breeds sexual encounters with Lubavitch boys my age.

(68) Orthodox law states that wants to do his deceased, he is not supposed to be touched by a non-Jew.
(73) Our class. Started at 7:30 a.m. and ended at 8:30 p.m..... sports were a distraction from study of Torah and potentially led to focus on the physical body, something they can only lead to vice....... When Tommy Hilfiger came out with white chairs decorated with white buttons adorned with a streak of color on the back of each button, a scandal erupted. The rabbis outlawed them.

(78) Someone in need of the Rebbe's advice would write a letter and place it randomly into a volume of the Igros. He would then open the volume and read the rabies epistle that was printed on the page he chose, searching for some connection between his question and the printed answer of the Rebbe.... A woman wants to know who to marry..... The Rebbe's letter is about setting up a Yeshiva in Australia. She decides that means she must marry an Australian.

(81) In my last year of yeshiva, at 20, we read a passenger by the man who fell off of a roof, landed on a woman, and accidentally had intercourse (Bava Kamma 27a).

(85) Out back in the hotel pool area, yes, apparently exclusively gay men, would have sex, which we could see from the second floor balcony of the yeshiva. The rabbis in the Miami Yeshiva were so oblivious to their own surroundings they were apparently unaware of what was happening in their next door neighbor's pool, so they never tried to prevent us from seeing it.

(91) A gay Latino man in his 30s visited the Miami yeshiva. He wanted to convert to judaism, and the rabbis told him he couldn't convert as long as he was gay. The visitor bemoiled his failure to change his sexual orientation through conversion therapy.
(111) 450,000 other Jews served in the Russian army during World War I defending Mother Russia.

(131) The Rebbe proclaimed that owning a television was like bringing inside the home the church, the priest, and the cross.

(135) Too smart is a heretic, too pious is a priest, too generous is an adulterer.

(147) The stereotype of Jews as smart is prevalent in China.

(198) "Like doctors playing golf, they're still doctors but they're not practicing medicine. So, too, liberal Jews are fully Jews but what they're practicing isn't Judaism." I was only starting to overcome this deep hostility to liberal forms of Judaism.

(206) "Zalman, I'm so angry with you I don't want to see you again. I want you to take your stuff out of the house on Sunday when I'm not home and I don't want you to come back. You want your own life - - mazel tov, you've got it. Good luck with your new life." [This was because he decided to shave his beard.]

(215) My college years were spent trying to lose my virginity.

(221) Samantha was not Lubavitch but observed Orthodox Jewish law (although she was flexible on the sex before marriage bit).
(236) Lubavitcher is the world overused the exact wording of all for paragraphs of the Hebrew text of the wedding invitation from the rebbe's marriage in 1929 in warsaw, poland. They even keep the time of the wedding as stated in the original - - 5:00 p.m. --and use an asterisk to note the actual time if it differs.
(243) Every parent has dreams about who their children will become. The more clearly defined those dreams are, and the more starkly the reality differs from those dreams, the more intense the grief.
(249) Religion is not inherently reactionary or progressive; it is a tool that can be used for different purposes and in different ways.

(250) The past is never dead. It's not even past.

(251) My mother and sister that if we came for Shabbat or holidays I wear my black fedora and kapote. Jenny was required to wear long sleeve blouses and long skirts to cover her shoulder length brown hair completely.
(256) [Gibran on children]
You may give them your love but not your thoughts
For they have their own thoughts
You may house their bodies but not their souls
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

[Dina Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating read that brings you along on Newfield’s evolution from devout Lubavitcher to secular, atheist. It’s a story told with gentle care and humor that respects everyone, both inside and outside the community. This book is a primer for those of us intrigued by Chassidic life and a lesson in humility, self reflection and personal growth. Plus, it’s a fun read.

[Ben Rothke · Rating 5 out of 5]

Newfield’s previous book Degrees of Separation: Identity Formation While Leaving Ultra-Orthodox Judaism, while not a parenting book, there is a lot, in fact, that parents can learn from it. There, Newfield (assistant professor of sociology at the City University of New York) interviews 74 former members of the Lubavitch and Satmar communities who left their communities and observance (he terms it exiting) to understand why and how they left, and the nature of their transition.
In Brooklyn Odyssey, he tells his story of his life growing up in the Chabad stronghold of Crown Heights. While Chabad is known for its openness and welcoming of all Jews, Newfield felt stifled in such an environment.
The problem many teens face is that the box of Orthodoxy is often quite rigid. For those who want to think or be out of the box, they may find themselves castigated. That is the situation Newfield found himself in.
An avid reader of secular literature, he wanted to understand the world more than was available in the sacred Lubavitch texts. Often having to do so serendipitously and often being caught doing so, Newfield found himself in an environment that didn’t meet his spiritual needs.
While raised in a cloistered and confirming environment, as a Chabad shliach (emissary), he traveled around the world, including going to China, Russia, Ghana, and other locations, doing outreach to bring Jews closer.
In a way, he was Schrödinger's shliach, both bringing those closer to Judaism, while simultaneously distancing himself.
One particularly chilling line in the book is when he writes about his high school experience, “the lackluster English curriculum taught by bored and clueless teachers seems designed to keep the students uninterested”.
As to how to raise children, King Solomon said about 3,500 years ago, in 5 Hebrew words in Proverbs 22:6: “Train children in the way they each ought to go.” Newfield wanted to go in many ways, all of them ostensibly acceptable according to Hslacha, including wanting to go to Touro University, yet was stifled in that regard.
He also writes of parental wrangling and notes, “Why couldn’t Mommy understand that I had changed. That I was not the same naïve boy she had sent off to yeshivas across America and around the world. I’d grown up. I needed different things now.”
Newfield is a sensitive individual who couldn’t find his way in the world he was brought up in. He writes of being left in tears when hearing the masses scream the messianic Yechi to their dead leader, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson (who died when Newfield was 11), which he felt was an affront to his memory, and also when accused of trying to take the easy way out by a family rabbinic mentor.
The term “off the derech” means “off the path”, describing someone who has left a religiously observant, traditional lifestyle to live a secular life. The problem is that the term derech implies there is but one path. The reality is that there are many paths, and the role of parents and educators is to know that.
Perhaps one of the best books on Jewish outreach is the one by someone who left. But did Newfield really leave? The book opens with a picture of him, his Jewish wife, and his two daughters, both named Jewishly, at his daughter’s bat mitzvah.
Many memoirs of those who leave Orthodoxy are angry tirades full of blame and condemnation. Brooklyn Odyssey is a rare OTD memoir written with personal insights and sensitivity. While this insightful book is titled Brooklyn Odyssey, perhaps a more appropriate one would be: Newfield on Proverbs 22:6.

[Lori · Rating 3 out of 5]

I always find it difficult to rate someone’s memoir. I have read several books about others leaving the Orthodox Jewish faith and this book peeked my interest. While the book is extremely well written, I think the title is a misnomer. I think he journeyed out of the Chabad world in Crown Heights, although it was a long journey and he didn’t really make a break until over 150 pages into a 250 page book. Not only did he continue to live in Brooklyn, he seemed to want to have one foot in the door of his religious upbringing by pleasing his mother and continuing to do exactly as she asked to be able to visit his family until his wife finally put her foot down about wearing a wig.

Zalman makes it clear that his education in yeshiva schools was subpar with no secular subjects taught. His father had to sign his son’s name on practice paper so Zalman could sign the form for a passport, having never written it in English. Yet, he wanted to learn more and started reading secular books, often secretly hiding the books under the bed. As the author notes, “Even though at that point I had read many books in English, reading and writing are two different skill sets that can develop separately.” While he taught himself to read by sounding out words, he was never taught to write in English. The book never bridges the gap between this email sent on December 2, 2000, and how he became an assistant professor.

dear jeff and Katheryn,
It’s bean a while since I heard from you. I whant to late you know that I resev the pakag that you seant me and have wread some of it, but still don’t understand how ther could be a scenario wher somwon can lose the total popular vote but still win electoral college, I think it has to do with the big stats smwol stats,

I understand he went to college and graduate school, but how was he able to write essays?

Newfield makes it clear that education is the key. He clearly had the inherent ability and intelligence to matriculate without any secular schooling. In the last chapter he laments that he wished he still believed in God which would have helped him get over difficult patches in life. However, “Instead of all that, I have the freedom to think any thought, read any book, listen to any piece of music, wear any clothes, watch any film, visit any temple or shrine, and befriend and break bread with any one from any walk of life. It is a freedom I cherish and cannot live without.”

Let’s hope those freedoms are not diminished further, especially the ability to read any book. I just wish this book had focused more on his current life instead of dwelling on all the yeshivas he attended and all the outreach he did with the Lubavitchers in other countries. I think it would have made for a more compelling and inspirational read.

[Avidor Auden · Rating 5 out of 5]

Newfield's memoir is tightly written, focused, and incredibly colorful. Far from being bitter or resentful, a tone that is common amongst memoirs that are focused around 'leaving' extreme groups, the book is incredibly full of life, and follows Newfield on journeys all over the world and introduces the reader to a variety of unusual and fascinating characters.

He has a skill for painting his experiences with nuance, careful to never condemn his characters as irredeemable or evil. In some places, this makes the book a much lighter read, lending to an optimistic and wistful tone which focuses on the good in the world. As the story is filled with plot beats that are on the zany side - Befriending a magician, hosting Jewish holidays in China, and listening to Bon Jovi in Yeshiva - This combination makes for many chapters which read more like an adventure than a memoir, bringing the reader along through a series of emotions and event that can feel larger-than-life.

In the dark moments, though, this nuance is just as effective. Because he is so careful not to announce which moments or characters were 'bad', moments in which bad things happen give the reader a sense of dread, discomfort, and confusion, as if we, too, are not at any point entirely certain whether or not this is supposed to be happening. I found the events around the character of Uriel Ben David particularly unnerving, though I won't say more here so as not to spoil the story.

Newfield's background as a sociologist is obvious in his memoir. He is able to simultaneously express his deepest feelings around his history, while also having the educational background to be objective about the Lubavitch movement. The result is story which manages to be, more than anything, deeply compassionate, both to the Lubavitch world he left behind and to the outside world that he gave it up for. A feel-good read that's not in the least bit shallow, but comes from a genuine place of wonder and hope. A strong recommendation to anyone with an open mind!

[Heather Marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brooklyn Odyssey: My Journey Out of Hasidism is a thoughtful and moving memoir that offers insight not only into the author’s Hasidic community, but into the deeply personal reasons he ultimately had to leave it. The book carefully traces how his pursuit of education—initially a source of hope and curiosity—became increasingly painful as it distanced him from his world and those he loved. The gradual unraveling of each familial relationship is unpacked with nuance and care, making the emotional cost of departure unmistakable. Importantly, the memoir is not written from a place of shame or condemnation; rather, it thoughtfully explains why this community could no longer be the right one for him. In doing so, the author makes clear that he did not leave Judaism itself, but instead deeply examined and redefined his relationship to it.

[Kathryn Janus · Rating 5 out of 5]

This memoir will inspire anyone who desires to live an authentic life. Despite many obstacles, Newfield refuses to accept the life carved out for him by his family and religious community. Little by little, slowly and over time, he comes to understand that he is meant to live in a larger and more diverse world. He cannot read enough and even though he reads in secret, he always finds a way to expand his knowledge and understanding of the world.

It is an engrossing read. It is honestly and sensitively told. We find ourselves rooting for him, hoping that he leaves one life only to embrace a life that feels right and good to him. By the last page, I felt inspired by the author’s tenacity and strength of will. He is a kind of miracle!

Highly recommended.

[Debbie Kaufman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brooklyn Odyssey spans the fascinating life of Newfield from childhood to adulthood. He weathered the educational neglect of the Hassidic yeshiva system only to read his way to world literature, philosophy, religion, and sociology and ultimately earn a PhD. It’s like an against-all-odds story of an academic but it is also intensely human. Zalman’s relationships with his friends, parents, siblings, and teachers reflect his deep sensitivity and honesty. I highly recommend this memoir. It is a story of self discovery that manages to be inspirational without showing off.

[Hollis Glaser · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a welcome addition to the micro genre of Jews leaving chasidism. Newfield offers a compelling and heartfelt picture of his upbringing and what lead him to leave his community. I've read a number of these books. What Newfield brings to the table is a deep dive into the intense education of the Lubavitchers and also an interesting twist in that his parents were not born into Lubavitch. His story reveals an open, honest, soft heart and a keen and voracious intellect. It's wonderful to join him on his Brooklyn Odyssey.

[Sharon · Rating 5 out of 5]

A thoughtful memoir together with a better understanding of Lubavitch life. Many aspects I wasn’t familiar with all the outreach by youngster to travel . His change to leave that world is clearly developed. Fascinating journey

[Sammy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book about someone completely changing their life, well written and engaging.