I had the pleasure to talk to Nathaniel Deutsch about his new book on Hasidic Williamsburg.

Nathaniel Deutsch is a professor of history at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where he holds the Baumgarten Endowed Chair in Jewish Studies. He is the author of a number of books related to Hasidic history and culture, including The Maiden of Ludmir: A Jewish Holy Woman and Her World, The Jewish Dark Continent: Life and Death in the Russian Pale of Settlement, and most recently (with Michael Casper), A Fortress in Brooklyn: Race, Real Estate, and the Making of Hasidic Williamsburg. He is currently developing The Minhag Project: A Crowdsourced Archive of Hasidic Customs.