Utilizing the days off associated with Christmas, we took a
mini vocation and drove to New York.
Most people go to New York to visit a museum, to see a Broadway or Metropolitan
Opera production. We went to visit Borough
Park to shop for interesting Kosher items and Jewish books as well as to observe
orthodox Jews.
Twenty something years ago I went to Brighton Beach to see
the Russians in similar fashion. Brighton
beach in 1995 for me looked like a mini-zoo where instead of animals, the big cage
held a village from the Russian/Ukrainian border which was stuck in 1980.
The sales women in the stores could curse you out in Russian and bargained over the
price. People were walking the streets
in sports attire, and the 65+ population was sitting on benches next to their
houses describing the passes by and gossiping.
Many things have changed since my last trip to New York. I will not even mention the toles or other
fees. Yet some of it is still the same
and did not provide any major revelations for me. I expected to see the Hasidim in black, I expected to walk to get to the restaurants where
I was meeting my distant cousins, and I expected to come away with presents I
would treasure for years to come.
The reaction of people still manage to surprise me. And despite of my efforts to the contrary, I
looked like a white crow among them.
I did blog about modesty and the attire for
women before. Regardless of my opinions
about it, I attempted to follow the rules. It did not take long for me to
realize that even coat and boots can be the wrong color in Borough Park. My long ivory coat that had no chance to show
anything immodest when it’s 37F outside, still managed to cause men to look to
the opposite side of the street and for the women to lower their voices.
In the stores, where a head shake and cash basis was the
code of conduct, I was treated like a sucker who can be cheated a little. My
husband will never believe it, but I suspect I was short changed while paying
cash.
We enjoyed the food, we loved the atmosphere of the Shtetel
stuck in 1910. We loved hearing Beri Weber from the stores
and hearing the sound of a wedding in progress from one of the mini Shuls.
Yet the feeling of a Zoo where the animals have no desire
to brake free is somehow back again. For those pondering what it is to be Jewish,
the people were not very friendly or welcoming.
And for anyone else just visiting some questions naturally arise.
At
what personal cost do those families send their boys to the Yeshivah? What life
do those mothers have? What jobs are available for those that live there? I can
go on with many more, but it would be unwise to pose them to the general
reader.
Whatever the case may be, we enjoyed out trip. My daughter
enjoyed dancing in the restaurant during dinner. Multiple strangers expressed
the desire to take her home, buy her, or eat her up. My husband returned full
of ideas ranging from changing his personal style to considering the Aliyah to
Israel. I came home with plans for my next New York visit. I hope to visit my cousins with better planning
and availability in the future. I hope
the next time our trip will include a
show, as well.
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