ABSTRACT
This chapter develops an approach to literacy which moves beyond assumptions that the secular and the religious are necessarily discrete categories. Conceptualizing literacy as a series of interconnected signifying practices and signs interpreted by semiotic ideologies problematizes easy assumptions of what constitutes religious or secular literacy, orality or literacy, and ultimately, even modernity and tradition. Attention to socialization of literacy shows how non-liberal girls were taught to understand texts, interpretation, rote repetition, ritual performance, affect, entertainment, comprehension and the 'true', Jewish meanings waiting to be redeemed from secular and Gentile texts and cultural forms. The chapter suggests that Hasidic literacy socialization practices are part of a broader non-liberal project of denying that modern civilization should be secular. In Hasidic communities this has meant reading and writing online in Yiddish and English in a variety of media: on iPads, iPods, computers, and smart phones.
