Hutterite
member of Hutterian Brethren, Anabaptist sect that found refuge from persecution in Moravia and the Tirol; it stressed community of goods on the model of the primitive church in Jerusalem. The community, which acquired the name of its charismatic leader, Jakob Hutter (tortured and burned as a heretic in 1536), still survives, mostly in the western sections of the United States and Canada with a population of about 20,000. In colonies of 60 to 150 persons, they operate collective farms (Bruderhof) and, not unlike the Old Order Amish, remain aloof from outside society, taking no part in politics. Children are educated inside the colony until age 14 or until a minimum age decreed by state or province.
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The Bruderhof is a christian sect that started in Germany in the 1920s before moving to Paraguay in the 1930s to avoid Nazi rule. From there it moved to the United States. Internal conflicts have led to many defections, and ex-members critical of the authoritarian leadership of the sect have formed a group called the Peregrine Foundation.

The Bruderhof, self-proclaimed as the good guy, denounce their critics as the demonic enemies of faith and adopt a complex legal, public relations, and extra-legal strategy to quiet their those who disagree with them . The courts become the tool to punish those who disagree by costly litigation and SLAPP suits intended to intimidate critics. Alternatively, KIT apostates, self-proclaimed as the good guy, denounce the Bruderhof as a "destructive cult" and attempt to discredit them in the court of public opinion. In the escalating conflict of dialectical opposition, the exercise of free speech and academic freedom is held hostage.

Rubin is the author of ''The Other Side Of Joy: Religious Melancholy Among the Bruderhof,'' a book published earlier this year by Oxford University Press - only after a $15.5 million defamation suit against him by the Bruderhof's corporate arm was dismissed and the book had been vetted by Oxford's English and American lawyers.
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