A Fortress in Brooklyn

“With a decade of research going into the book, based in part on numerous interviews with Satmar community members, the authors have written a fascinating and engaging work that captures the remarkable story of the rebuilding of the Satmar community.”—Ben Rothke, Times of Israel

Winner of the 2021 National Jewish Book Award, American Jewish Studies category, sponsored by the Jewish Book Council

Winner of the Saul Viener Book Prize sponsored by the American Jewish Historical Society

Winner of the Jordan Schnitzer Book Awards in the category of Modern Jewish History and Culture: Africa, Americas, Asia, and Oceania, sponsored by the Association for Jewish Studies

“A Fortress in Brooklyn is one of the most creative and iconoclastic works to have been written about Jews in the United States. This book makes you rethink everything you know about American Jewish history and identity.”—Eliyahu Stern, Yale University

“Deutsch and Casper have written a fascinating study of a little known—and even less understood—group and its engagement with gentrification. Anyone who wants to understand the peculiar dynamic that is contemporary Brooklyn needs to read this book.”—Deborah Dash Moore, author of Jewish New York: The Remarkable Story of a City and a People

“A Fortress in Brooklyn sheds light on one of New York City’s most enigmatic subcultures, charting the evolution of Williamsburg from embattled American shtetl to icon of urban chic. Absorbing and well researched, it is a signal contribution to our understanding of Brooklyn in all its richness and complexity.”—Thomas J. Campanella, author of Brooklyn: The Once and Future City

“In this rich, revelatory book, Deutsch and Casper meticulously chronicle how Williamsburg’s Satmar Hasidim were shaped by, and in turn reshaped, the urban landscape of postwar Brooklyn, successively grappling with the challenges of poverty, street crime, deindustrialization, and gentrification.”—Michael Woodsworth, author of Battle for Bed-Stuy: The Long War on Poverty in New York City

“In studying the intersections of religion, race, and real estate in Hasidic Williamsburg, Deutsch and Casper take us beyond the stereotypes to show us life on its gritty, exalted, charged, and ever-changing streets.”—Naomi Seidman, University of Toronto