TY - JOUR T1 - The counterpublic of the J(ewish) Blogosphere: gendered language and the mediation of religious doubt among ultra‐Orthodox Jews in New York JF - Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute Y1 - 2017 A1 - Fader, A KW - Blogosphere KW - Jewish KW - language KW - mediation KW - religious KW - ultra Orthodox Jews AB - While there have always been doubters and heretics among ultra‐Orthodox Jews, access to the Internet over the past fifteen years has amplified opportunities for anonymous expression and connection. An early key platform was the Jblogosphere (Jewish Blogosphere), which flourished between 2003 and 2009. This article focuses on four Hasidic bloggers (three men and a woman) who were part of a growing counterpublic of secret religious doubters. I trace how this counterpublic challenged the authority of the ultra‐Orthodox religious public sphere through gendered digital writing and reading in varieties of Yiddish and English. Linguistic resources for those engaging with the new medium of the blog became proxies for bodies that could not change without risk of expulsion. However, the counterpublic remained almost exclusively for men, reproducing the exclusion of women from the ultra‐Orthodox public sphere. The analysis focuses on dynamics between gendered languages and media/semiotic ideologies in order to highlight a historical moment when the mediation of religious doubt became publicly legible, with implications for religious change for individuals and their wider communities. VL - 23 UR - https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1467-9655.12697 IS - 4 ER -