Brooklyn Pesach
Brooklyn has many neighborhoods, and many of them are shaped along ethnic lines. On the extreme end of this spectrum of ethnic exlusivity is the sprawling and growing Chasidic neighborhood around Crown Heights. The ultra-ultra-orthodox community here has the honor of being the fastest growing Jewish group in America. For the vast majority of Americans, a drive through the neighborhood would be quite a shock. Most of the residents speak Yiddish, and all of them are dressed in ultra-orthodox fashion. The signs on streets and shops are all in Hebrew script. The women, in observance of ultra-orthodox religious law, walk separately, away from men, keep their heads covered and/or wear wigs. The men, without exception, dress in a distinctively archaic fashion , somewhat like the Amish. They wear identical black overcoats which go down to near the knee, white hose on their legs, and black shoes. White shirts and white prayer shawls on fridays and saturdays. All the men have long forelocks and beards, and wear either black hats or these enormous round fur hats which look almost exactly like an expensive cat bed. Young boys all have their heads shaved, wear a skullcap and have forelocks. Among the more distinctive features, and the surest sign that you have entred the ultra-orthodox area, is the omnipresence of barred windows. Every window, even if it is on the 20th floor, is covered with massive metal security grills. Even high balconies are enclosed in bars and metal plates. Many areas are surrounded by high fences, walls, and endless coils of razorwire.
Among American ethnic groups, the ultra-orthodox community is uniquely insular, and almost completely closed to outsiders. Non-orthodox people who pass through, even in cars, are constantly observed, and with extreme suspicion and hostility. There is a very palpable air of hyper-vigilance, as if everyone is constantly on the look-out for threats. Unless you were a sort of undercover photographer, with a stealth camera, I would say it is impossible to get permission from anyone for portaits. If you try to stop to take pictures of signs or architecture, people will approach you and demand to know what you are doing, or make gestures telling you to leave. To insiders, there is undoubtedly a great deal of comfort and a sense of security in this posture, but to outsiders the neighborhood feels like a sort of hysterically nervous neon sign that says "GO AWAY!"
In its extreme isolation, the neighborhood has crystallized along different rabbinical lines, with at least eight major ultra-orthodox sects, each with their own rabbis and their own inter-sect feuds. (Interestingly, one such sect, the Satmar, is intensely anti-Zionist and advocates the dismantling of Israel). Each sect has begun to develop its own unique religious customs and mannerisms, some of which have led to conflict with local authorities. Among the biggest and wierdest political issues of the last Mayoral election involved an ancient form of ritualistic circumsision that is observed only among this community, in which the ritual circumsicion specialist - the mohel - sucks the blood from the infant's penis. After some local infants died and suffered brain damage from contracting Herpes through this procedure, the Mayor made the fatal mistake of recommending that the practice be stopped as a public health risk. In response, Chasidic leaders sent busloads of Jews into the city to protest wearing Yellow stars - like those the Nazis forced Jews to wear - at Bloombergs capmpaign appearances. A politically powerful Ultra-Orthodox rabbi issued a statement declaring "There is no compromise on this issue." Christopher Hitchens hacked "I'll trade him his stupid [smoking] ban if he states clearly that it is the government's business to protect children from religious fanatics." In the end, quite predictably, the Mayor - a secular Jew - was forced to back down, after which he recieved endless glowing praise for his great religious sensitivity.
The untouchability of the Chasidic community has grown exponentially since 1978, when 2000 rioting ultra-orthodox Jews besieged the New York Police Department's 66th precinct headquarters, injuring more than 60 NYPD cops. The Precintct has been jokingly known as "Fort Surrender" ever since, based on the common understanding that the Ultra-Orthodox Community can fix any problem with a phone call. Still, furious Chasids attacked NY cops in 1999 after one of their officers shot an ultra-orthodox man who attacked several officers with a hammer. More Chasidic rioting took place this week - hundreds of chanting ultra-orthodox jews surrounded the precinct, set fires in the streets, and a police car was torched after an NYPD cop dared to issue a traffic summons to an ultra-orthodox man.
Obviously this community is diverse and not well-represented by these violently retarded prima donnas. I just mention some of these things because they illustrate the peculiarly untouchable status enjoyed by the Chasidic community in NYC.
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Last thursday morning, driving through the neighborhood, there were mobs of people gathered on every streetcorner around big fires. Barrciades were erected around them, with signs like these, which say "no aerosol cans, no glass bottles."
As an outsider it was very odd. Every streetcorner, one after another for miles, barricaded areas mobbed with ultra-orthodox men and boys around open fires. Overhead, air-raid sirens were going off. Later in the day, when all the pyromania was over and i was taking this photo, two orthodox girls stopped me to demand to know who i worked for, what magazine, why was I taking these pictures, what is my connection to the Jewish faith, am I a journalist, what am I doing in this neighborhood? I told them that I had seen all the fires that morning and wanted to take a picture of one of the signs. They explained that religious custom requires burning everything in your kitchen before Passover (Pesach). I asked about the air raid sirens. They said that the local Fire Marshall, in conjunction with religious authorities, turns on the city's air defense emeregency sirens to announce when it is time to put the fires out.
...
By way of explanation, the creepy treatment of this photo arose in response to two images: the streets full of cordoned off burning areas, mobbed with Jews, under the drone of air raid sirens; and the second, the same neighborhood, later in the day, streets empty of people.
Brooklyn Pesach
Brooklyn has many neighborhoods, and many of them are shaped along ethnic lines. On the extreme end of this spectrum of ethnic exlusivity is the sprawling and growing Chasidic neighborhood around Crown Heights. The ultra-ultra-orthodox community here has the honor of being the fastest growing Jewish group in America. For the vast majority of Americans, a drive through the neighborhood would be quite a shock. Most of the residents speak Yiddish, and all of them are dressed in ultra-orthodox fashion. The signs on streets and shops are all in Hebrew script. The women, in observance of ultra-orthodox religious law, walk separately, away from men, keep their heads covered and/or wear wigs. The men, without exception, dress in a distinctively archaic fashion , somewhat like the Amish. They wear identical black overcoats which go down to near the knee, white hose on their legs, and black shoes. White shirts and white prayer shawls on fridays and saturdays. All the men have long forelocks and beards, and wear either black hats or these enormous round fur hats which look almost exactly like an expensive cat bed. Young boys all have their heads shaved, wear a skullcap and have forelocks. Among the more distinctive features, and the surest sign that you have entred the ultra-orthodox area, is the omnipresence of barred windows. Every window, even if it is on the 20th floor, is covered with massive metal security grills. Even high balconies are enclosed in bars and metal plates. Many areas are surrounded by high fences, walls, and endless coils of razorwire.
Among American ethnic groups, the ultra-orthodox community is uniquely insular, and almost completely closed to outsiders. Non-orthodox people who pass through, even in cars, are constantly observed, and with extreme suspicion and hostility. There is a very palpable air of hyper-vigilance, as if everyone is constantly on the look-out for threats. Unless you were a sort of undercover photographer, with a stealth camera, I would say it is impossible to get permission from anyone for portaits. If you try to stop to take pictures of signs or architecture, people will approach you and demand to know what you are doing, or make gestures telling you to leave. To insiders, there is undoubtedly a great deal of comfort and a sense of security in this posture, but to outsiders the neighborhood feels like a sort of hysterically nervous neon sign that says "GO AWAY!"
In its extreme isolation, the neighborhood has crystallized along different rabbinical lines, with at least eight major ultra-orthodox sects, each with their own rabbis and their own inter-sect feuds. (Interestingly, one such sect, the Satmar, is intensely anti-Zionist and advocates the dismantling of Israel). Each sect has begun to develop its own unique religious customs and mannerisms, some of which have led to conflict with local authorities. Among the biggest and wierdest political issues of the last Mayoral election involved an ancient form of ritualistic circumsision that is observed only among this community, in which the ritual circumsicion specialist - the mohel - sucks the blood from the infant's penis. After some local infants died and suffered brain damage from contracting Herpes through this procedure, the Mayor made the fatal mistake of recommending that the practice be stopped as a public health risk. In response, Chasidic leaders sent busloads of Jews into the city to protest wearing Yellow stars - like those the Nazis forced Jews to wear - at Bloombergs capmpaign appearances. A politically powerful Ultra-Orthodox rabbi issued a statement declaring "There is no compromise on this issue." Christopher Hitchens hacked "I'll trade him his stupid [smoking] ban if he states clearly that it is the government's business to protect children from religious fanatics." In the end, quite predictably, the Mayor - a secular Jew - was forced to back down, after which he recieved endless glowing praise for his great religious sensitivity.
The untouchability of the Chasidic community has grown exponentially since 1978, when 2000 rioting ultra-orthodox Jews besieged the New York Police Department's 66th precinct headquarters, injuring more than 60 NYPD cops. The Precintct has been jokingly known as "Fort Surrender" ever since, based on the common understanding that the Ultra-Orthodox Community can fix any problem with a phone call. Still, furious Chasids attacked NY cops in 1999 after one of their officers shot an ultra-orthodox man who attacked several officers with a hammer. More Chasidic rioting took place this week - hundreds of chanting ultra-orthodox jews surrounded the precinct, set fires in the streets, and a police car was torched after an NYPD cop dared to issue a traffic summons to an ultra-orthodox man.
Obviously this community is diverse and not well-represented by these violently retarded prima donnas. I just mention some of these things because they illustrate the peculiarly untouchable status enjoyed by the Chasidic community in NYC.
...
Last thursday morning, driving through the neighborhood, there were mobs of people gathered on every streetcorner around big fires. Barrciades were erected around them, with signs like these, which say "no aerosol cans, no glass bottles."
As an outsider it was very odd. Every streetcorner, one after another for miles, barricaded areas mobbed with ultra-orthodox men and boys around open fires. Overhead, air-raid sirens were going off. Later in the day, when all the pyromania was over and i was taking this photo, two orthodox girls stopped me to demand to know who i worked for, what magazine, why was I taking these pictures, what is my connection to the Jewish faith, am I a journalist, what am I doing in this neighborhood? I told them that I had seen all the fires that morning and wanted to take a picture of one of the signs. They explained that religious custom requires burning everything in your kitchen before Passover (Pesach). I asked about the air raid sirens. They said that the local Fire Marshall, in conjunction with religious authorities, turns on the city's air defense emeregency sirens to announce when it is time to put the fires out.
...
By way of explanation, the creepy treatment of this photo arose in response to two images: the streets full of cordoned off burning areas, mobbed with Jews, under the drone of air raid sirens; and the second, the same neighborhood, later in the day, streets empty of people.