Out of Religion: Leaving Faith as a Form of Migration

Dear Colleagues,

We invite submissions for a Special Issue of Religions titled “Out of Religion: Leaving Faith as a Form of Migration”. In Jewish tradition, ḥazarah be-teshuvah (“return to observance”) is a foundational notion grounded in biblical and rabbinic sources (Doron 2013). Only recently has scholarship begun to theorize its conceptual opposite—yetziah le-she’elah (ex-Haredi trajectories), along with their distinctive challenges (Berger 2015; Engelman et al. 2020; Velan & Pinchas-Mizrachi 2019). Meanwhile, this phenomenon is growing: in Israel alone, over a thousand young people are estimated to leave ultra-Orthodox communities each year, often with minimal family support and wide cultural gaps to bridge (Horowitz 2018).

This Special Issue will present an integrated framework that treats Jewish disaffiliation as a migration-like passage across social and cultural borders, aligning with Religions’ focus on boundary-crossing religious change and the reconfiguration of belief and belonging. We welcome interdisciplinary contributions (from across religious studies, sociology, anthropology, psychology, migration studies). Carefully framed comparative analyses are encouraged when they clarify general mechanisms (e.g., Amish, Jehovah’s Witnesses, LDS/Mormon, and ḥozrim be-teshuvah as a form of “return migration”), while keeping the Jewish case as the anchor (Engelman et al. 2020; Velan & Pinchas-Mizrachi 2019).

Original research articles and reviews are welcome, with the following topics being of particular interest:

• "Push–pull" dynamics, goal attainment, and post-exit well-being;
• Acculturation and liminality;
• Mental and sexual health vulnerabilities and risk during transition;
• Loss of social capital, stigma, and strategies of reintegration;
• Support infrastructures (NGOs, peers, policy) and their effectiveness;
• Spatial/urban relocation and “internal migration” pathways in Israel and the diaspora;
• Life course and gendered exit trajectories and methods foregrounding exiters’ voices;
• Comparative perspectives in the study of religion, including return trajectories (ḥozrim be-teshuvah).

Submission: Please email a 200–300-word abstract (including the provisional title, question, methods, and expected contribution) to the Guest Editors or the Assistant Editor of Religions before submitting a full paper. Abstracts will be screened for scope and fit; accepted manuscripts will undergo double-blind peer review.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Bibliography

• Berger, Roni. “Challenges and Coping Strategies in Leaving an Ultra-Orthodox Community.” Qualitative Social Work 14(5): 670–686.
• Doron, Shlomi. ha-Mehalkhim ben ha-‘olamot: “ḥazarah bi-teshuvah” ve-“ḥazarah bi-sheʾelah” ba-ḥevrah ha-Yisreʾelit [Shuttling between Two Worlds: Coming to and Defecting from Ultra-Orthodox Judaism in Israeli Society]. Jerusalem: ʿAmutat “Hillel Ben-Ḥayim”; Bnei Brak: Ha-Kibbutz Ha-Me’uḥad.
• Engelman, Joel, Joshua B. Grubbs, Glen Milstein, and Irvin Sam Schonfeld. “Examining Exit: The Roles of Push and Pull in Leaving Religion.” PsyArXiv (preprint, Oct 13, 2020). https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/ax5bg.
• Horowitz, Neri. Yetsi’ah be-she’elah: Sikun, sikuy u-mediniyut ḥevratit [Haredi Disaffiliation: Risk, Potential and Social Policy]. Jerusalem: Out for Change. (Hebrew).
• Velan, Baruch, and Ronit Pinchas-Mizrachi. “Health Concerns of Young Israelis Moving from the Ultra-Orthodox to the Secular Community: Vulnerabilities Associated with Transition.” Qualitative Research in Medicine & Healthcare 3: 32–39. https://doi.org/10.4081/qrmh.2019.8051.

Dr. Aviad Moreno
Dr. Mordy Miller
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Religions is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• religious disaffiliation
• Jewish ultra-Orthodoxy (Haredi)
• migration theory
• push–pull factors
• acculturation
• liminality
• identity reconstruction
• social integration
• health and well-being
• support networks