The internet contains scores of Hasidic-dominated Yiddish sites, including chat rooms, blogs, bulletin boards and a separate version of Wikipedia, the collaborative online encyclopedia. Reading one of the Yiddish bulletin boards, I came across the following dismissive comments of an anonymous critic: "Give a look and you'll see that nowadays all [ultra-Orthodox] Yiddish newspapers and journals, weeklies and monthlies have a 'thrilling story in installments.' Such stories, or mayses, have no hands and no legs, don't make any sense and are, generally, absurd."

I decided to read some of these "thrilling stories" to see for myself. But rather than look for them in the press, I went to a bookstore in the heart of the Boro Park section of Brooklyn and bought two heavy volumes published last year: "The Unknown Action" by Ya'ir Vayinstock (who published "A Well-Considered Action" in 2002) and "The Stormy Challenge" by Y. Vays. After investing many hours getting "thrilled," I can agree with the anonymous critic that at least some of contemporary ultra-Orthodox Yiddish belles-lettres are, essentially, nonsensical.

Granted, the Hasidic writers' plots are no more nonsensical than mainstream thrillers — say, for instance, "Casino Royale" — but we are speaking about two varieties of fictional nonsense. People who read and watch James Bond's exploits are those who function in an environment with a wide range of cultural productions, which are often judged by the same (for example, Oscar) standards. As for the dwellers of ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods, who are not supposed to have access to printed, visual and audio material produced outside their milieu, these "thrilling stories" may well be their only belletristic reading. It's tempting to compare the writings by Vaynstock and Vays with shund, popular Yiddish literary productions that were widely read a century ago or before then. Nonetheless, while shund writers usually tried to connect their parochial readers with the outside world, the Hasidic belletrists do their best to scare off their audience from any contacts with outsiders.