#Hassidic Jewish

[nesyanast]

Some of my favorite Hassidic Purim pictures

[ashes-in-a-jar]

The most romantic story I've ever heard is the Jewish Hassidic story about the king who went to his close friend and advisor and told him that he saw in the stars that next year's crops will be tainted and anyone who will eat from them will lose their sanity.

The advisor told him that they could save up some of this year's crops for themselves so they can remain sane for the next year while everyone else would not.

The king responded that if they did that, they will be considered the insane ones amongst everyone else, despite knowing the opposite.

The king went on to say that, since they can't save up good crop for everyone, they would also eat from the tainted crops but while doing so draw a sign on each other's foreheads so that whenever they look at each other at least they'll know together that they are both no longer sane.

[infiniteglitterfall]

Uggghhh, what is UP with Canada?!

In Vancouver, the Schara Tzedeck synagogue's windows were smashed on April 19th.

In Toronto on April 19, five windows at the Kehillat Shaarei Torah synagogue were smashed with a hammer.

In Toronto on April 26, someone set a sign on fire at Beth Tikvah Synagogue....

....And again on April 28.

In Toronto in May, Jewish community members started escorting a kid to school because he was being bullied by peers who told him, "We're going to do to you what Hamas did to Israel," pushed him, kicked him, threw stones at him, and told him, "we need to kill you." This had been going on for six months. (His family had gone to both the school and police repeatedly at this point and it had only escalated; the kids throwing stones at him on the way to school was new.)

In Toronto on May 17th, Kehillat Shaarei Torah's windows were smashed again.

On May 25th before dawn, two people shot at Bais Chaya Muska, a Jewish girls' school in Toronto.

On May 29th, in the middle of the night, someone shot at the Belz Yeshiva Ketana school in Montreal.

In Vancouver on May 30, someone poured fuel on the doors of the Schara Tzedeck synagogue, then firebombed them.

In an article on June 7, Rabbi Lisa Grushcow of Emanu-El-Beth Sholom synagogue in Montreal said people have yelled “Hitler was right!” and “Jew!” at her congregants as they arrive for Shabbat services and that Jewish kids are being bullied in local schools.

On June 1 in Toronto, a man smashed the window of the Anshei Minsk synagogue with a rock.

On June 3 in Kitchener, someone smashed the front door of Beth Jacob synagogue.

On June 19th in Montreal, three small bullet-like holes were somehow made in the windows of Falafel Yoni. (I don't know, all the articles go out of their way to say they don't know WHAT made the holes.) Falafel Yoni is owned by a Jewish man who was born in Israel, and has appeared on boycott lists despite the owner never having said anything political about Israel.

On the same day, down the street from Falafel Yoni, someone smashed the windows of a nearby gym whose co-owner is Jewish and had also been born in Israel.

On June 30 in Toronto, someone threw stones at the Pride of Israel synagogue, then at Kehillat Shaarei Torah, smashing windows (again) in the latter.

On the weekend of July 27th, a father and son in Toronto were arrested for planning a terrorist attack and murder on behalf of ISIL, which is wild.

On July 29th, someone torched a bus belonging to the Bobov Hassidic school in Toronto.

And smashed the windows of a DIFFERENT Jewish school in Toronto, Leo Baeck Jewish Day School, and set it on fire.

On July 31 in Toronto, guess which synagogue had three signs set on fire? That's right: Kehillat Shaarei Torah.

Plus one sign set afire at Toronto's Temple Sinai Congregation the same night, presumably by the same arsonist, who might even have been the stone-hurler of June 30.

There are probably ones I missed. Just putting this list together took like three hours, though. I kept having to go, "Wait, surely that can't be the same synagogue AGAIN" and "they only mention the closest major intersection, which one was this?!" and "that can't be a different one, how many windows did they smash??" and go look for more sources. Plus a couple of articles were giving conflicting dates for one of the incidents.

And nobody ever gives actual dates, they just say shit like, "Blah blah blah was reported Monday...." so I have to look at the article date and then look at a damn calendar.

I went back as far as April because everything I found was referring to earlier incidents. Back to April. February and March were relatively quiet, at least in the news. Although interestingly, February is when the most hate crimes in Toronto had been reported, at least as of ... oh, I see.

As of March.

On the bright side, I did discover that Kehillat Shaarei Torah consistently has great jokes on its sign.

[wouldyoupleasejust]

Dont get me wrong, I'm glad tiktok is finally discovering the absolute banger mine that is jewish pop, but like. Why that song. It's not close to being the best the genre has to offer. It's not even the third best song called 'yerushalaim'

Now THIS is a song that makes me want to put on a shtreimel and jump around

[determinate-negation]

hassidic jewish guy catcalled my girlfriend dawg wtf is this city

[slyandthefamilybook]

Hello I think it was you who introduced me to Motty Steinmetz and I was wondering if you have any other recommendations because I’m having a great time

As far as Hassidic EDM goes I must admit I'm not that familiar with the genre. But if you're looking for more "pop" Jewish music I can't recommend the Miami Boys Choir enough. All of their albums are banger after banger but I'm particularly fond of Revach

[batboyblog]

I keep having an idea for like a Jewish Percy Jackson book series. Basically the idea that Yiddish/Ashkenazi folklore is/was real and like Percy Jackson's greek gods the dybbuks, Golems, demons and all the rest came west to New York City and they're under the city in the subway tunnels and sewers

And I was thinking of two main characters. There's Josh a very modern teenager, who loves ghost hunters, and super natural podcasts and loves his bubbie's stories of Yiddish folklore. He travels into the subway armed with a camera and ghost hunting equipment and comes face to face with....

Yehudah, AKA Hoodie, a young Hassid from Brooklyn. Hoodie's family from hundreds of years have kept the spirts down, fought monsters, and protected the community, first in the old country and now in New York using folk magic and things

Josh is all about science and trying to understand "okay but how does it work?" and Hoodie is very "it's tradition this how its done, please shut up and stop getting in trouble!" A story of two Bar Mitzvah boys studying Torah, dealing with middle school, each other, and being stuck in the tunnels under NYC in the middle of the night facing the horrors

[girlactionfigure]

Back in the 50s, Danny Thomas was a major TV star who had a successful comedy series on national television (CBS) called ‘Make Room for Daddy’ (Later changed to ‘The Danny Thomas Show’). The son of Maronite immigrants from Lebanon, read that a young medical student, the son of Chassidic immigrants from Ukraine, was struggling to pay his tuition, and donated the shortfall. As a result, countless lives were saved and made better by Rabbi Dr. Abraham J. Twerski.

Rabbi Twerski described the story in an interview with the Pittsburgh Quarterly on November 19, 2007:

“By that time, I had several children, so my dad and some members of the congregation helped me to pay for school. I applied for a scholarship through a foundation, but it didn’t come through, so in my third year, I fell two trimesters behind on tuition.

One day, I called my wife at lunch as always, and she asked, “What would you do if you had $4,000?” I said, “I’m too busy to talk about fantasies.” She said, “But you really do have $4,000!” I said, “From where?” She said, “From Danny Thomas.” “Who’s Danny Thomas?” She said, “The TV star.”

Then she read me an article from The Chicago Sun. Local officials had told Mr. Thomas about a young rabbi who was struggling to get through medical school. Thomas asked, “How much does your rabbi need?” They said, “Four thousand dollars.” He said, “Tell your rabbi he’s got it.”

Rabbi Twerski was a scholar with feet planted firmly in two worlds — the rabbinic world of Torah and Talmud study, and a medical doctor and licensed psychiatrist. It was a rare pairing that earned him respect in both the insular ultra-Orthodox Jewish world and wider American society. He was an expert on addiction and scion of a long line of prominent rabbis descended from the 18th-century founder of Hassidic Judaism, the Baal Shem Tov.

Rabbi Twerski was a prolific writer. He authored dozens of books on a wide array of subjects: from addiction and mental health to religious law for medical professionals and commentaries on Jewish texts. Twerski also collaborated with late “Peanuts” comic strip creator Charles Schulz on a series of popular self-help books featuring Charlie Brown and Snoopy.

May his memory be for a blessing.

Rabbi Yisroel Bernath

Danny Thomas was also the founder of St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital.

[unbidden-yidden-deactivated20240]

Jewish Song of the Day #57: Guf Venshama

Comments:

The algorithm delivered this one to me the other day, and y'all, I burst into tears listening to it. (But like, in a cathartic way)

I don't think I can explain the kavana behind the song better than the artist, so here are his comments:

The Single, 'Guf Venshama’ is the theme song from the first EP album that will be released in a few weeks. The song 'Guf Venshama’ deals with the spiritual connection and the common denominator of every Jew, the recitation of "Shema Yisrael". The song was written and composed by Avi Ohayon, arranged by Matan Dror, and accompanied by a sensitive and moving music video produced by 'OlamMedia'. David Fadida oversees managing the production.

Ever since Simchat Torah, a profound sense of upheaval has gripped millions of Jews globally, leaving them with a feeling of groundlessness. In the footage, the boundless anguish in their eyes is evident, yet amidst it all, one constant remains—the anchoring island of sanity for every Jew in any circumstance, at all times, and particularly in recent months. It is the act of covering their eyes and uttering the words of Shema Yisrael, akin to saying, "Like a lost child, I came back to You."

The album 'Guf Venshama’ marks the initiation of an expansive project comprising a series of EP albums scheduled for release in the coming months. Within each album, Shwekey will showcase an array of musical styles, spanning Hassidic, Israeli, and English genres, featuring captivating duets with various singers. The underlying theme of the project is the promotion of unity across all segments of the Jewish people, a sentiment artistically echoed in the music. Each album will boast its unique artistic direction, contributing collectively to form a comprehensive and harmonious musical mosaic.

"The goal of 'Guf Venshama’ is to make sure that there is no Jewish child anywhere in the world who does not know how to say 'Shema Yisrael'," says Yaakov Shwekey. "With this idea we started this project, and the challenging times that the Jewish people are going through now only strengthened the importance of this message."

[nesyanast]

[spacelazarwolf]

We should also denote that the lines between Jewish movements are often not as hard and fast as people think (they're thinking of Christian Churches) where I grew up the Synagogue was nominally reform, but because it was the ONLY Synagogue for at least 100 miles everyone went and there were a fair number of people who maybe would have been Orthodox if the option was open. I imagine there are lots of Mod-Orthodox Synagogues across America that are very much the same, the one center of Jewish life in the area so everyone is caught and the temple is maybe a little flexible (as ours was) in style and ritual to accommodate people. Also "Orthodox" covers a lot of ground from Modern Orthodox, while we do really like him very much the only Orthodox Jew I can think of to serve in Congress was Joe Lieberman, a moderate to Conservative Democrat, to Hassidic and Haredi, and idk the numbers but those deeply conservative Communities I think are outnumbered seriously by the Mod-Orthodox who by and large look and act like any average Americans on the street and according to polling are split about 50-50 Democrat-Republican (vs overwhelming Democratic majorities among Reform and Conservative Jews in America)

this!!!!!!

[realmoftheacornking]

Brighton Beach Memoirs.

Arlene Gottfried, "Hassid and Jewish Bodybuilder."

[forthegothicheroine]

New-to-me (horror) movies seen in 2023: The Vigil (2019)

@goryhorroor ’s challenge: Horror that takes place in one location

Yaakov is a formerly Orthodox Jew, but you can never fully leave your religion and culture behind. He attends a discussion group with other ex-Hassids, he speaks Hebrew and Yiddish with old-school Ashkenazi vowels, he remembers the Mourner's Kaddish word for word, and he carries the psychological scars of a violent anti-semitic attack. When he is offered a job as a shomer, wherein he will watch over a shroud-covered body the night before a funeral, he reluctantly agrees and takes along some emergency pills.

It's not going to go well.

The deceased was a Holocaust survivor who was followed by a mazzik, a demon, all the way to America. It's still here, making his body writhe and sending Yakov phone calls that aren't what they seem. The only explanations he can get come from a widow with dementia and a video from a dead man, and the only weapon he has is the wherewithal to say the shema when he is in danger. At least in the last respect, I've been there.

Dave Davis as Yaakov has beautifully mournful eyes, which convey the perfect mix of sorrow and fear and even a little hope. The real star of the film, however, is dead before the start. We see a brief video clip of the late Rubin Litvak, and eventually a flashback of the beginning of his possession, but his trauma, history and love hang heavy over everything.

As they say, "you don't have to be Jewish" to enjoy The Vigil. For the duration of the film, though, at least imagine you are. Imagine the community and its loss, falling back on things you no longer believe in just to survive- and then in a mostly happy ending, still not being up for going to services right now. Just think about it, because Yaakov certainly is.

[ace7librarian]

This is Naftali Herman Grosz. He was born in Buj, Hungary in 1897. He fought in world war 1, thinking it would be the last. He was the Husband of Sara, and the father of Evie, my great grandpa Yehuda, and Clary. He was a merchant, and had 4 shoes and leather stores managed by Sara. His daughter Clary died when she was just a baby. He lived in Tótkomlós, and he was an important figure in the town council. He was religious, and wanted to get to Israel someday, but he was well off and busy with business. He sent his children to Jewish schools, and he wasn't too close to them. Before the war, he went bankrupt (since people won't pay their tab to a Jew), and one day a man broke into his house and threatened to kill him if he doesn't leave the town. He took the threat seriously, and the family moved to Budapest. They lived in a small apartment and Naftali tried regaining some of his money as a textiles merchant. They were close to the hassidic Jews in their area, and the children were part of Bnei Akiva. When the war started, he still wanted his children to have Jewish education, but the Melamed he hired was very openly Jewish, and one day he just didn't show up. They later learned that he was murdered in a concentration camp. Yehuda offered the family move to Buj, and Naftali used his status as a war vet to get on the train (where Jews were not allowed). The people in Buj were suspicious of them, so they moved back to Budapest, each family member in a different cart to blend in. After they came back to Budapest, Naftali was sent to a camp. His group was sent to the Hungary Austria border, and they all got Typhus. It's unclear if he died from the disease, or if the Nazis burn the shack they all lived in while they were inside.

יהי זכרו ברוך.

[welldonebeca]

It's a Bad Idea, right? (11)

WC: 1.2k words Warnings: Mafia AU. Secret identity au. Tension. A little bit of angst. All respect to Catholicism, this is just a character.

Masterlist

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Betty tried to look interested as she read the old bible the temple left available for people to read along, moving her fingers over the edges of Luke.

“Beware of the leaven—that is, the hypocrisy—of the Pharisees,” the priest read loud.

She tried not to scoff as she read along.

“There is nothing concealed that will not be revealed, nor secret that will not be known,” the man continued. “Therefore whatever you have said in the darkness will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered behind closed doors will be proclaimed on the housetops.”

Betty glanced up, the sight of the man on the crucifix making her unease.

She attended mass once a month to keep a disguise to keep herself safe.

Betty never took communion, she usually used the time to disappear into the crowd for a while and then sit down, and enjoyed the silence.

It wasn’t safe to be Jewish and be around Hydra. If she wanted to work, the restaurant was the only place that would take her – she had applied around enough times. She had seen the looks and snickering the owners of Mama Stefka threw at the Hassidic people in their neighbourhood, she’d heard Hydra’s words about them.

Their wishes for them.

So yeah, she was hiding. And she was going to hide for as long as she needed to do so.

“I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body but after that can do no more!” he read, emphatic. “I shall show you whom to fear.”

Oh, Betty had to hide behind that bible because her face was probably showing how much she didn’t believe that. But he was free to give up his life anytime he wanted.

She raised her head in surprise when she felt someone slipping to her side, and straightened her face, pretending not to have noticed, but a known hand touched her arm, and she raised her eyes to find Gideon looking at her.

“I need to talk to you,” he whispered. “Outside. Now.”

He stood up, walking off, and Betty followed him with her eyes before looking at the people on the same bench as her, but no one was even paying attention to her.

Dammit. What was the problem now?

She walked out, trying to keep quiet as she walked to the foyer-like room that separated the actual entrance to the… whatever that sermon room was called in English.

Wilfred, Nathaniel, and Gideon were there when she arrived, all three looking tense.

Oh, shit…

"What's going on?" Betty asked, crossing her arms.

The brothers exchanged looks as she waited, and Wilfred poked Nate.

He was the one closest to her.

"What?" she pressed, her impatience mounting.

Nate glanced at his brothers, who were looking at him with that familiar sibling insistence that usually meant they were making him do something against his will.

“We’ve heard rumours,” he spoke slowly.

Betty tensed up, looking into the church again.

Oh, no.

She braced herself for the accusation, already waiting for an explosion of antisemitism.

“Are you going out with Bauer?” Nate asked.

Betty froze, staring at him.

Oh.

Oh, that was what they wanted to confront her about?

She had to hold back her relief.

"Bauer?" she repeated, her voice letting out a with a hint of incredulity.

Who the hell was…

And then it clicked in her mind.

“You mean Steffan?” she asked.

That was his surname? Bauer?

Why would they come to her about this?

“Are you?” Gideon pressed.

Betty frowned.

Two weeks and every Polish in New York knew it already?

“Why are you asking?” she retorted. “What does that have to do with you?”

Wilfred’s expression darkened, his words slipping into Polish.

“Elżbieta, you know the order of things,” he pulled Nate back, standing in front of her. “You know what they think of us.”

She hardened, looking away, shaking her head. They were complaining with full bellies. The Malicks didn't have to hide; they didn't have to pretend to be something they weren't to stay alive.

“Not everyone sees us like trash,” she tried to argue.

“Everyone is Hydra does,” he interrupted her. “Do you think Bauer would have joined it if he didn’t agree with them?”

Betty stood stiffer. What, so they thought they knew everything now?

If he agreed with them, being Polish was the last of her worries.

“You know why he is here?” Gideon asked, growing angrier by the second. “Why he lives in the fucking border of Williamsburg? Because we can’t be there. We are the lowest class in that fucking organisation, we can’t even attend shit that happens in Manhattan!”

Betty looked at the side, feeling a few eyes on them from the congregation, and crossed her arms a little tighter.

Go on, Malick, curse in the holy place.

She clenched her teeth, and could see how Nathaniel and Wilfred were about to come hold their brother to stop him from shouting.

“That’s sound like your problem,” Betty took a step away from them. “Not mine.”

“You don’t know-” Wilfred started speaking, but she didn’t let him finish.

“The things you don’t know could fill this whole church room,” she interrupted him.

Nate pulled him back and Gideon was quick to stand before her, but Betty didn’t let him say anything;.

“You take care of your own lives,” she warned them. “And I’ll take care of mine.”

Betty looked back at the church and then back.

“Fuck this,” she mumbled.

She walked out, leaving them behind.

“Betty!” Nathaniel called her back.

“Elżbieta!” Gideon and Wilfred called.

She didn’t look back at them.

Steffan was the first good thing that had happened in her life since she left school and now they were trying to mess with her head about him.

She walked back home and plopped herself on the couch, emotionally exhausted.

Wasn’t it enough that she played that stupid little role? Good Catholic polish girl, never getting into any mess, just waiting tables while trying to pay for those stupid student loans that gave her a degree that was just useless.

She was so close to just giving up on everything and going back to France. This whole American Dream thing was just bullshit.

Wasn’t enough that she was afraid of Hydra every day for her secret, couldn’t she have one good thing in life?

She tried to spot pouting as she tapped her foot, feeling like a petulant child, and picked up her phone up, finding a text from Steffan.

‘11am?”

They had agreed on a late weekend together, an afternoon in Coney Island and two days in her place, which was why Wanda was spending the night at her boyfriend's place and wouldn't be back until after her Monday shift. Pietro had also found a friend to spend the night with, giving Betty the slightest bit of privacy for anything extra.

They were good roommates.

On one hand, she really wasn’t in the mood to go out to a park.

On the other, she had promised him to go there. Steffan really seemed to like Coney Island.

‘I’m home now’ she typed down.

His answer was very quick.

‘On my way.’

Betty set her phone down and sighed again.

Well, whatever they decided to do, it was probably going to better her day.

He always made her days better.

…

“it’s a Bad Idea, right?” was posted on my Patreon in September 2023. To have early access to it (and lots of other stories), consider subscribe to my page! It’s just $2 a month, and I know you won’t regret it!

…

Bad Idea: @peaceloveancolor

[determinate-negation]

i know new york being the ancestral homeland of jews is a joke but as a jew from europe it literally feels that way. like i cannot imagine like a whole street written in hebrew. like i want to go there just to see that. i dont think jews inthe united states are aware of how good they have it

i do want to note that america is also a settler colonial state and its only because of specific american aims of the settler project and material realities of the economy and the physical land they were trying to settler that theyve had this “melting pot” ideology where jews were incorporated similarly to italian and irish immigrants, instead of continuing to have deeply ingrained religious and cultural antisemitism like europe. there were in some periods of us history more restrictions on jewish immigration and some institutional barriers for jews, especially before and during ww2, but never to the same degree as europe. although american jews were rarely (if ever, i dont know any examples but there could be some) violent genocidal settlers like the anglos and generally migrated later, we were still settlers searching for economic interests provided by american expansion on native land. that being said were here now and have the status of any other american settler (meaning people who arent indigenous or descended from enslaved people brought here against their will) most indigenous theorists and activists maintain that they want sovereignty, reparations, companies to stop destroying native land, etc, not every american settler to leave. i really believe that the united states also must fall, but i dont think this makes us like not belonging, at least any more than the other settlers.

i just want to say this to explain that my love for new york and the east coast us is complex. objectively the multicultural and cosmopolitan aspects of nyc that make it unique are products of american imperialism– for example nyc is the most linguistically diverse city in the world! over 600 languages are spoken here, including languages that arent spoken anywhere else anymore, but think about why that is. and the flourishing of jewish communities and culture in parts of the us was a product of specific historic processes and policies, and we like any other descendants of settler-immigrants have to grapple with that. i think its possible to oppose and fight against american imperialism and settler colonialism and still deeply appreciate the contradictory aspects of culture in america. (which lbr all the dynamic and interesting and worth preserving things about american culture were not created by anglos, but by outsiders and oppressed people) anyways this is all just to say im really not coming at it from a nationalist perspective but a diaspora perspective but yeah, new york is such a jewish city its genuinely incredible. this is why i especially despise tri state area zionists... youre ignoring that you live in the greatest place in the world for jews. literally the most jewish city in the world. like theres a moving company called schleppers here, yiddish words are part of everyones dialect, you can get the best jewish food everywhere from delis that are like 100 years old, we literally have a truck called the mitzvah tank that chabad drives around and asks people on the street if theyre jewish. the only romaniote synagogue in the western hemisphere is here and they have a greek jewish festival every year (which unfortunately is always covered in israeli flags -_-) the whole foods by one of my work sites had a sign up for yom kippur catering because the neighborhood is so jewish.

jewish culture and history and jews in general are just part of the fabric of life in new york. also whatever street youre talking about was probably written in yiddish since thats what most of the hassidic jews speak here! nyc has the largest concentration of yiddish speakers, which isnt surprising, and its the 8th most spoken language in nyc. theres also a big and still growing bukharian community here too. if you ever can, i really recommend visiting new york. theres so much jewish culture and history here. a lot of american jews live much more isolated, so i cant speak for them, but for many parts of the north east i feel that were lucky. antisemitism exists here but idk ive grown up in pretty jewish areas and never really experienced it. europe sounds legitimately shitty. also... fun fact, netanyahu went to high school in the suburbs outside of philly

^my photos in the lower east side, and heres some photography of hassidic williamsburg too

also williamsburg