The men are also austerely attired, in black hats and long black coats. To discourage men from engaging in errant behavior, women wear long-sleeved blouses and skirts and wigs under turban-like head coverings. Young men are forbidden to gaze at women prior to marriage. Women and men are strictly segregated, even having to walk on opposite sides of the street. Hasids pay absolute obeisance to a rebbe, the dynastic spiritual leader whose word is law. Residing in villages such as Kiryas Joel and New Square, their first language is Yiddish, a form of German that first appeared in medieval Europe, and their English is heavily-accented. The Hasidim, who encompass several, sometimes competing, sects, are improbably ensconced in New World versions of Eastern European shtetls, in exclusively Jewish enclaves in parts of Brooklyn and in Rockland and Orange counties in Upstate New York. It seems like a small but important concession to his years-long struggle to reconcile faith and reason in the ultra-Orthodox world of Hasidim, or “the pious ones,” whose roots date back to 18th-century Europe. At the conclusion of All Who Go Do Not Return, an often wrenching memoir of lost faith, Shulem Deen acknowledges that his truth “was not the only truth” and that others he writes about might see things differently.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |