Banim Al Avotam / בנים על אבותם מוישה גוטמן

Banim Al Avotam / בנים על אבותם מוישה גוטמן
Moishe Gutman

Everything flows smoothly in the family home in Bnei Brak, a Haredi Torah house. Their relatives and acquaintances know: not many families are so meticulous – the father, the mother, their eight children – in every detail of observing the Torah and the mitzvot, with all the embellishments and reservations. And one day... without any prior warning, they are shocked to discover that one of their sons, the most distinguished of them, has left the yeshiva, the home, the observance of the mitzvot. And has also decided to enlist in the army.

What do they do? How do they cope and continue to live with such news? How will they face relatives and far-off people? And themselves? Should they maintain contact with the person leaving or cut themselves off completely, so that the siblings will hear and be afraid? And what will happen to the eldest of the children, who is already on the verge of a marriage? And what?... And what?... And what?...

With courage and without hesitation – and with an admirable storytelling talent – Moishe Gutman unfolds before us the mask of doubts, pains and torments, angers and disappointments, which are the lot of the Finecritter family. Moti has left. The beloved Moti. Still?

Sons Against Their Father is a fictional story, but the reality behind it is painfully real: not a few Haredi families see with their own eyes how sons and daughters who were raised to fear God, to a life of study and devotion to Torah, leave home and heritage and go out into the secular world.

Moishe Gutman is a veteran Haredi author and holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree in law. His many books, for young and old, are known and loved in thousands of homes of the Haredi community in Israel. Banim Al Avotam is his first book also intended for a non-Haredi audience – a rare opportunity to get an inside look at the lives of Haredi families and to get to know the rift that is tearing apart Israeli society from their perspective.