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Hasids vs. Hipsters: A Williamsburg Story
Apr. 20th, 2010 09:48 pmIn Brooklyn, a gentle clash over unkosher food and bike lanes.
By BARI WEISS
Williamsburg, Brooklyn, is home to two of New York's most devout, and sometimes conflicting, religious sects. Inhabiting the South section of the neighborhood are the Hasidim. Often referred to as simply the Satmars, the name of their particular religious sect (which began in Hungary), they represent one of the largest communities of ultra-Orthodox Jews in New York. Their modest dress—black pants, white shirts, fur streimel hats even in the summer—is straight out of 18th-century Eastern Europe. The men keep sidecurls, the women cover their hair, and everybody prays. Yiddish is spoken; knishes are eaten.
No less diligent in their ritual garb are the neighborhood's newer émigrés: the hipsters. The Artisten, as the Hasidim call them, obediently don their skinny jeans, fanny packs and granny glasses. They smoke Parliaments and drink Pabst Blue Ribbon while they bop, understatedly, to indie music. Irony is studied as carefully as the Talmud.
Stroll down Broadway, the unofficial divider between the two factions, and evidence of their strange co-existence abounds. Kiki's Pet Spa sits next to the offices of Der Yid, a Yiddish newspaper. A yuppie butcher shop butts up against an Orthodox chapel. And outside Peter Lugar's steakhouse, a group of well-heeled bankers seem oblivious to the Hasidic men walking by at their characteristic clip. Most of the time, these neighbors don't seem to much notice each other.
But for the past six months a turf war—or shtetl feud—has raged between the two factions. At issue is a 14-block stretch of bike lane that runs along Bedford Avenue. The Hasidim long complained of being distracted by the female pedal pushers; the bikers made the point that the street is a major artery and that the lane makes everyone safer. But the Department of Transportation sandblasted the lane markings in December, and the consensus among both factions is that its removal was intended as sop to the Satmar community just before Mayor Michael Bloomberg's re-election.
( Read more... )
By BARI WEISS
Williamsburg, Brooklyn, is home to two of New York's most devout, and sometimes conflicting, religious sects. Inhabiting the South section of the neighborhood are the Hasidim. Often referred to as simply the Satmars, the name of their particular religious sect (which began in Hungary), they represent one of the largest communities of ultra-Orthodox Jews in New York. Their modest dress—black pants, white shirts, fur streimel hats even in the summer—is straight out of 18th-century Eastern Europe. The men keep sidecurls, the women cover their hair, and everybody prays. Yiddish is spoken; knishes are eaten.
No less diligent in their ritual garb are the neighborhood's newer émigrés: the hipsters. The Artisten, as the Hasidim call them, obediently don their skinny jeans, fanny packs and granny glasses. They smoke Parliaments and drink Pabst Blue Ribbon while they bop, understatedly, to indie music. Irony is studied as carefully as the Talmud.
Stroll down Broadway, the unofficial divider between the two factions, and evidence of their strange co-existence abounds. Kiki's Pet Spa sits next to the offices of Der Yid, a Yiddish newspaper. A yuppie butcher shop butts up against an Orthodox chapel. And outside Peter Lugar's steakhouse, a group of well-heeled bankers seem oblivious to the Hasidic men walking by at their characteristic clip. Most of the time, these neighbors don't seem to much notice each other.
But for the past six months a turf war—or shtetl feud—has raged between the two factions. At issue is a 14-block stretch of bike lane that runs along Bedford Avenue. The Hasidim long complained of being distracted by the female pedal pushers; the bikers made the point that the street is a major artery and that the lane makes everyone safer. But the Department of Transportation sandblasted the lane markings in December, and the consensus among both factions is that its removal was intended as sop to the Satmar community just before Mayor Michael Bloomberg's re-election.
( Read more... )
