Holy Rollers and the Williamsburg Hasidim
By Raanan Geberer
Managing Editor
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
BROOKLYN — Last weekend, I saw the movie Holy Rollers, about a Hasidic young man from Williamsburg who gets involved with Ecstasy smugglers, eventually forsakes his religion-centered way of life and is disavowed by his family.
He recruits other young Hasidim as couriers, telling them only that they're smuggling in ''medicine for rich people.'' Eventually, they all get busted, and our friend is sentenced to a federal ''boot camp'' while turning state's evidence.
Of all the neighborhoods in Brooklyn with heavy Hasidic populations — Crown Heights, Borough Park and Williamsburg — the Williamsburg Hasidim are the most fervently observant and the most insular. Crown Heights is dominated by the Lubavitcher Hadism, who have a massive outreach program to draw unaffiliated Jews into the fold.
The Williamsburg Hasidim, on the other hand, want as little to do with outsiders as possible, including Jewish outsiders. Most of them still speak Yiddish, a language that otherwise basically died slowly after the Holocaust, in daily speech.
Many of the Williamsburg Hasidim's customs are bewildering to observers, including many Jews. For example, the Satmar Hasidim, members of the largest Hasidic sect in Williamsburg, don't recognize the state of Israel. This isn't because of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as many might think, but because they believe that a Jewish state has no right to exist until it is established by the Moshiach (Messiah) himself, as was promised by Biblical prophecies.
The rather old-fashioned-looking clothes worn by women are a result of Biblical and Talmudic rules about ''modesty'' – and these ultra-cautious folks think of even half-sleeves on women's blouses as ''immodest.'' The men's black clothing is merely a custom — it apparently dates to medieval Poland and Lithuania — but their side curls are worn because of a Biblical verse about ''not rounding the corners of the head.''
I myself have a fairly strong, although non-Orthodox, Jewish background, probably go to synagogue more often than most other Conservative-affiliated Jews, and have taken quite a few adult classes about Judaism and Jewish culture. However, there were things that even I was surprised to learn about the Hasidim. For example, it wasn't until I was in my late 30s that I found that at Hasidic weddings, the men and women sit separately, separated by a curtain. I always knew this was the case for daily prayers, but weddings was a new one for me.
This sense of insularity and apart-ness can lead at times — and I'm not saying always or most times — to a kind of dishonesty, especially where dealing with government bureaucracy is involved.
When I was working as an assistant manager for the Section 8 program in the early 1980s and one of my territories was Williamsburg, so many Williamsburg Hasidim came in and, with a straight face, told me that they were supporting a family of six on an income of $8,000 a year that the higher-ups (mainly Jewish, I might add) held a special meeting about ''what to do about the Hasidim in Williamsburg.'' Interestingly, you didn't see this behavior with those Section 8 clients who were Hasidim from Crown Heights. Whether this had to do the influence of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, who lived in Crown Heights and stressed ethical behavior, I don't know, but it seems likely.
Still, there have been signs of some modernity among the Williamsburg Hasidim, while keeping the hard core of religious observance and belief. For example, many Williamsburg housing developments constructed by Hasidic-oriented social service groups, even in my time, have included several minority tenants. The fact that they living side by side with minorities is making them more tolerant and accepting. Also, years ago, many of the Hasidim in Williamsburg were horrified by the arrival of kosher pizza stores — not because they weren't kosher, but because they somehow were perceived as somehow alien. Today, there's no problem. I also read a recent article that said that in at least one gym in Williamsburg, Hasidim and ''hipsters'' work out side by side
