"This book is an ethnographic description of the experiences of the author at a yeshiva located near his home on New York's Lower East Side, Mesivtha Tifereth Jerusalem (MTJ). Jonathan Boyarin spent a good deal of time at MTJ in the 1980s, before his anthropological training, and returned to it in 2011 when he once again became a regular visitor and participant. This book, in essence, is a portrait of life in this yeshiva. Boyarin introduces the MTJ yeshiva and its place in the wider American Jewish community, then takes up the daily patterns, rituals, and rhythms of the place"--

Jonathan Boyarin is the Diann G. and Thomas A. Mann Professor of Modern Jewish Studies at Cornell University. His books include Jewish Families, Mornings at the Stanton Street Shul: A Summer on the Lower East Side, and The Unconverted Self: Jews, Indians, and the Identity of Christian Europe.