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Magazine Explores Hipsters Intrusions Into Insular Hasidic Community

By Howard M. Friedman

This week's New York Magazine carries an interesting article titled Clash of the Bearded Ones: Hipsters, Hasids and the Williamsburg Street. The lengthy article focuses on Williamsburg's Bedford Avenue bike lane as a symbol of the intrusion of modern hipsters into the insular New York Jewish enclave of Satmar Hasidim. These excerpts give the flavor of the article:

For a full year, the city seemed to ignore the hipster-Hasid war. Then, on December 1, 2009, came a sudden announcement. The Department of Transportation?under Janette Sadik-Khan, the bike-friendliest commissioner it?s ever had?was going to rip up "a small portion" of the lane.... Just about everyone?s assumption, including that of more than a few Hasids, is that Michael Bloomberg had needed the Satmars?who tend to vote enthusiastically and in a single block?in the upcoming election and that this was an easy bone to throw them.

On December 1, a crew of municipal workers descended on Bedford, sandblasting the lane and its stenciled biker figures off the asphalt. The next day, a group of three bike activists ... hit the street with aerosol cans and handmade stencils. According to Ben, more than a few Satmars saw them paint. "As they walked by, I made sure I said hello, explained to them that we?re not vandalizing the street, and asked if they wanted to help," he says. "At first, they were a little standoffish, but a couple of guys had a sense of humor about it."

.... Baruch Herzfeld, 38, is a classic macher and motormouth with a foot in both the Hasid and hipster worlds.... His real bread and butter is some sort of telephone-card business, which finances his largely nonprofit bike shop with the awesome name Traif Bike Gesheft?Unclean Bike Business. For South Williamsburg?s Hasids, Traif Bike Gesheft functions as a semi-secret window onto the larger world and a clubhouse of mild transgressions. Herzfeld rents bikes to Hasids at no cost, just to get them to venture beyond the neighborhood....

Full post as published by Religion Clause on April 15, 2010 (boomark / email).