Correspondence:
Rebels with a Cause
To the Editors:
Congratulations for putting out such a superb collection of articles, reviews and even an interview. May it be a great experience for the readership and contributors for many issues to come.
Call it bashert (meant to be) or a mere coincidence but the only time I visited Penn Hillel prior to Kedma’s launch was together with Hella Winston as a guest at her book reading. When the wind blew me once again into the Hillel for no particular reason, I found the second floor abuzz with a party for the new journal, and was pointed towards the journal’s review of Unchosen: The Hidden Lives of Hasidic Rebels by someone who remembered me from the bookreading. As a Hasidic rebel, I feel the urge to disagree with the critique of the reviewer. Aryeh Zuber’s harsh criticism of the book and Winston’s “own views regarding feminism and Hasidism” is mistaken, and I shall try to point out why.
Claiming that “Winston even goes so far as to link the more fanatic Hasidim with Nazis (although obviously indirectly)” is by far a stretch of what was written there (no, this is not a diplomatic “it was taken out of the context” divergence). As a sociologist, Winston tries to explain what caused the dysfunction of the great original Hasidic idea, and how ironic it is that the very same who suffered from “stigmatization and ostracism that have, throughout history, characterized the treatment of Jews by the outside world” are unnoticeably, at best, doing the same to their own brethren. This kind of stigmatization that I have been privy to on many occasions, even in the United States of America, is what I can see happening in the Shuls (synagogues) and at the Shabbos tables in our community. There was no comparison to the killings and torture many of our forefathers suffered, neither any mention of the Nazis.
It should be noted that this book is in no way a book about Hasidim and their reclusive lives, but as the title suggest it’s a book about “Hasidic rebels” and their struggle with life within the community or breaking out of its grip. If the experience these people had is negative and angry it still cannot be concluded that “she focuses on the negative side of Hasidism rather than the positive” because Hasidim are not the focus altogether.
The review is practically begging for correction—“Tell me I’m wrong, but the peer pressure of the Satmar community sounds eerily similar to social situations in our so-called ‘liberal’ denominations of Judaism as well.” It asks, and boy is it wrong. It is very easy for one who attends a school for higher education to see similarities everywhere but try telling that to a Satmar boy who has no chance of obtaining the same education. Worse yet, while Jews are known to value education, most of my friends don’t even want to educate themselves. I have never heard anyone complain about the lack of education, about how little they have in common with their neighbors. In fact, it is a source of pride and of pleasure that we are so secluded, so different.
How exactly can the fact that my parents would sit shiva for me if they only knew my true thoughts be compared with the social pressure that a kid in a “so-called ‘liberal’ denomination” has from his parents? Take a Hasidic man who would dare trim his beard or change the color of his socks and you have a social upheaval. The mikvas (ritual baths) would be full of bearded faces with crossed eyebrows, shaking their heads in denunciation of the person who just got caught with a TV at home. The shul would not quiet down during the prayers, being too concerned with the new gossip that someone just bought himself a shiny red convertible sports car (I can assure you that this never happened in reality, there are no such cars in Hasidic Williamsburg) or that his wife, God-forbid, was seen driving around his old car, gasp!
Oh, how can you compare a “liberal” denomination with an “ultra- Orthodox” one? One way to find out if there’s any resemblance can come from talking to the people who tried to change, to leave, to live their own lives.
Alternatively, one can buy the book and see for one’s self.