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Hasidic Williamsburg Tour

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Hasidic Williamsburg, as Seen by One Who Left Sect

By Julie Turkewitz

• July 10, 2014

On a recent sunny Monday, a bespectacled young woman stood at Broadway and Marcy Avenue, a Brooklyn crossing where hipsters, Hispanics and Hasidim mingle in a way that defines Williamsburg in 2014: a chic coffee shop near a Caribbean restaurant near a group of bearded men wearing black hats.

“We’re going into a really, really different part of New York City,” said the woman, Frieda Vizel, a microphone strapped to her head, “and I want us to be able to put that in a larger context.”

Ms. Vizel, 29, operates a tour business called Visit Hasidim and was about to lead her latest group of curiosity seekers on an educational perambulation through a section of Williamsburg roughly bounded by Broadway, Division Avenue, Heyward Street and the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and populated largely by ultrareligious Jews.

While legions of tour guides have long shepherded the inquisitive through the city’s neighborhoods, Ms. Vizel said she offers something special: an insider’s look at a community that is famously difficult to penetrate, mostly because among those seeking to recreate the shtetl of yore, insularity is a core value.

Ms. Vizel is herself a former Hasid, born and raised in Kiryas Joel, a Hasidic village in Orange County, N.Y. At a time when the Hasidim’s reclusive nature increasingly butts up against the modern world, she claims unique insight into not just the community’s past, but also its present tensions. “My goal,” she said, “is to bring the culture down from this exotic place to a human level.”

Fearing criticism from local Hasidim who might view her tours as disrespectful, Ms. Vizel has not publicized her work widely. But after some consideration, she permitted a reporter to join a recent trip. “As we walk through the streets,” she told the roughly two dozen men and women with her, “I want you to try to see it through my eyes.” One of those on hand, 21-year-old Grace Idle, said she was “quite nervous about how the people in the community will see us.”

That community is made up of members of a highly ritualistic sect of ultra-Orthodox Judaism who, as Ms. Vizel explained, began settling in Williamsburg in large numbers during and just after World War II as Hasidim fleeing Europe took refuge in the United States.

“These Jews are war-ravaged; families were destroyed,” she said. “When we walk into Williamsburg, we have to look at it through the lens of preservation and rebuilding. That can help us understand a lot of what drives this extreme sense of stopping time and resisting change. Because it’s: ‘Here we are. We have recaptured; let us not lose it again.’ ”

The group stopped at Cubicles Internet cafe on Division Avenue, which offers access to a vetted version of the web. Here, local residents take advantage of technology without being exposed to ideas deemed inappropriate. The conversation turned to education — how secular schoolbooks are censored in Hasidic circles and crayon-wielding auditors redact references to frowned-upon concepts.

“We would always spend a lot of time clawing the crayon markings off,” Ms. Vizel said. Offenders, she added, were obvious from the black wax on their fingernail tips.

Then it was on to Lee Avenue, “sort of the Main Street of Williamsburg,” she said, “where everyone sees everyone, where everyone checks everyone out.”

Ms. Vizel then shifted to describing the Hasidic life cycle. “Achieving a successful life is building a family that will continue to pass on the sacred traditions,” she explained. High achievers are those with big families. Marriages are arranged at age 18 by a shadchen who earns a check for every match made.

“What makes two families match?” Ms. Vizel asked rhetorically. A Hasidic girl stopped to listen. “Usually it is being on the same socioreligious platform in the Hasidic community. A lot of that can be based on a woman’s headgear.”

A woman wearing a wig is fairly liberal, Ms. Vizel said. A woman in a wig and a hat is a bit more religious. A scarf indicates extreme piety. “The term would be ‘a hat family,’ ” Ms. Vizel said. “The shadchen would say, ‘I have a great girl from a hat family.’ ”

Ms. Vizel is from a “scarf family.” Until she was 21, she lived a pious life. She married and gave birth to a son. In 2006, she began a blog under the pseudonym Shpitzle Shtrimpkind. At first, she wrote about marriage and family. “I thought: I’m going to defend the community,” she said.

As she gained a following, however, her online conversations changed her worldviews. “It destroyed my belief that the outside world is this chaotic, dangerous place,” she said. “And I started to think of it as a place of opportunity.”

By 2007, she had stopped blogging and begun “trying to put the genie back in the bottle.” She tried marriage counseling, unsuccessfully. In January 2010, her divorce became final.

Ms. Vizel, who lives in Pomona, N.Y., is pursuing a master’s degree in creative writing at Sarah Lawrence College. Last summer, at a professor’s suggestion, she began leading the Williamsburg tours. Groups range from two to 45 people. She charges $500 per group or $50 per individual.

Ms. Vizel — who is not the only former Hasid giving Williamsburg tours; Jacob Gluck has a similar business — said she was aware that New Yorkers sometimes viewed visits like the ones she leads as unwanted incursions. Last year, for example, a company called Real Bronx Tours drew sharp criticism for inaccurately depicting the borough by advertising “a ride through a real New York City ‘GHETTO.’ ” As a result of the uproar, the company announced that it would cease giving tours of the Bronx.

Ms. Vizel said she aims to avoid similar criticism by guiding a fact-based visit. Still, she acknowledged, “I walk a very fine line between being welcome in Williamsburg and not.”

During the recent tour, local reaction was mixed. At Ross Street and Bedford Avenue, one woman pronounced loudly that she disagreed with a point Ms. Vizel was making about wigs.

“Is this needed?” the woman said later, declining to give her name. “I don’t know. Maybe an understanding does foster better relationships. On the other hand, what we’re not looking for is relationships with the outer world.”

Others seemed less bothered by the visitors. Josef Honig, 72, a Hasidic retiree, called the idea “wonderful.” “Ten tours a day would give us some problems,” he said. “One or two would be just enough.”

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In Brooklyn’s hipster Williamsburg neighborhood, Hasidic Jews are the real counterculture

( New York Jewish Week  via JTA ) — Brooklyn’s Williamsburg neighborhood is known as a center of gentrification and a gathering place for the cool young hipsters of New York City. A short walk from the Lower East Side over the Williamsburg Bridge, it’s also home to one of the most concentrated Hasidic Jewish communities in New York.

In their new book, “A Fortress in Brooklyn: Race, Real Estate, and the Making of Hasidic Williamsburg” (Yale University Press), Nathaniel Deutsch and Michael Casper unpack the history of Jewish Williamsburg and the collision of its pious Jewish community with the forces of commerce and urban development.

They show how the Satmar and other Hasidic movements represented an alternative version of the “New York Jew” — the assimilated cohort that was already heading to the suburbs when Williamsburg began to fill with strictly Orthodox refugees from Hitler’s Europe. Moreover, while their fellow Jews were largely joining the professional class, the Hasidim had more in common with their Puerto Rican and African-American residents as proponents for and beneficiaries of federal and state aid to the poor.

“Rather than an Eastern European shtetl miraculously transported to Brooklyn, the Hasidic enclave in Williamsburg is a distinctly American creation, and its journey from the 1940s to the present is a classic New York City story,” they write.

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We spoke to Deutsch, professor of history at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and Caspar, a writer with a doctorate in history from UCLA, about their book in an event at the American Jewish Historical Society on May 23. This conversation has been edited and condensed from a transcript of that discussion.

Jewish Week: How did you decide to write this book?

Casper : Nathaniel and I were both living in or near Williamsburg over 10 years ago, and separately had been spending time in the Hasidic community. We had made contacts there. I really loved to walk around there and buy Yiddish newspapers and speak a little Yiddish. When Nathaniel and I met, it was at the time of the [economic] crash and huge wave of foreclosures in and around Williamsburg. Some of those Zip codes had the highest rate of foreclosures in the city. That whole neighborhood went through a massive transformation, which we watched in real time. I think we both had sort of separate interests in various aspects of the neighborhood, religious aspects, social dynamics, and gentrification. And how the Hasidim themselves were expanding into other neighborhoods like Bed-Stuy really interested us.

Deutsch: I had lived in Williamsburg since the 1990s, but in the hipster part of Williamsburg, a few blocks away from the Hasidic part. I became friends with a Hasidic community member, and he and I would learn together in a shtiebel, a small synagogue, that actually became part of the epicenter for those Hasidim who really ended up opposing gentrification. He used to take me around to different places in the neighborhood and introduce me to people.

And the second thing was that when my wife was pregnant with our second daughter, she had a midwife who was in the Hasidic part of the neighborhood who had delivered 3,000 babies to Hasidic women, including one woman who had 17 babies. And so that was another entree and made me curious about a totally different aspect of the community

Getting access into Hasidic communities can be very difficult. How did you build those relationships and get people to trust you and to speak candidly, especially with women?

Casper : Some people were willing to answer, some not. Some women answered, some didn’t. We also interviewed some major Hasidic real estate developers, and we came to them in different ways. Some through contacts, in one case through a Hasidic contact. In another case, my friend’s brother happened to live in a building that was developed by someone we were already writing about and interested in. I found that people spoke candidly to us.

Deutsch: In the case of a number of the women that I interviewed, some of them I met through male relatives and others I just met independently. There were some differences in terms of where the interviews would take place. Learning was a way that I can gain entree into the male [community]. It’s a very gender-segregated community. When it came to women, most of the interviews I conducted were in people’s homes or in a coffee shop outside of Hasidic Williamsburg, or even more typically in lower Manhattan. But people actually were very willing to talk in general. They were kind of curious about us. People would often ask, what’s your family name? Where do they come from? And what’s your family status? Like, are you married, do you have kids, those kinds of things. It’s interesting always when you interview people to also see how they’re situating you.

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Nathaniel Deutsch, left, and Michael Casper, right, wrote about Williamsburg’s Hasidic community and its relationship to real estate while living in the area. (Photos courtesy of authors)

The relationships between the Hasidic community in Williamsburg and non-Jewish community leaders or politicians were often better than relationships with Jewish but non-Hasidic elected officials. Can you say a little more about that and why that is?

Deutsch: There was an earlier Jewish community in Williamsburg, it was one of the largest Jewish communities in New York City, and it was known as the most Orthodox Jewish community already in the 1920s and 1930s. That was one of the reasons that the Hasidim were initially attracted to it. And yet there was tension. The Hasidic groups were very concerned that their followers would be influenced by the local Jews, even more than non-Jews, because the other Jews represented a different Jewish path. You would see accounts where children would call other Jews, including Orthodox Jews, “shkutzim,” which is a pejorative term for non-Jews. And these were other Jews!

At the same time, the Satmar [Hasidim] became very notorious for being profoundly anti-Zionist at a time when Zionism was increasing in popularity among American Jews. So they were distanced from other Jews in the U.S. in that regard, too. So there’s a variety of reasons why they end up becoming distanced, and they see it as a way of protecting themselves and their community from negative influences. And ironically or not, the most negative influences arguably were from other Jews, in their mind, not from non-Jews.

You write about how that sense of external danger to the community shifts over time, eventually shifting to artists, hipsters and gentrification, which brought rising housing costs and spiritual dangers. What’s the outsider threat in Williamsburg today?

Casper : I think that the hipster threat is kind of in the past, too, interestingly. But yes, for many decades Hasidim lived mostly with Latino and African-American neighbors. And when the artists and later college graduates and young gentrifiers started to move to the area, the Hasidim, similarly to the way they saw other non-Orthodox Jews in an earlier period, saw these tattooed people with dogs who laugh loudly in the street as a potential threat for their children in particular. … It was a question of modesty, too, in a lot of cases, and they would write about how women would dress in the neighborhood, which was a kind of a threat to to the general, modest character that they tried to keep.

Deutsch: The gentrification of Williamsburg occurred at the same time as other changes that were impacting the Hasidic community in the neighborhood as well as haredim [in general.] That was things like the internet and the exposure to all sorts of different influences and luxury goods and things that previously were not available to Hasidim — the general embourgeoisement of the community. So a certain segment of the community in particular became wealthier. If you look at Hasidic media, you start to see ads for things like vacations in Switzerland, or spend Pesach in Miami, or foods that are photographed in these really food magazine ways.

Michael especially has studied this phenomenon from the 1950s and on. The Satmar in particular had this ideology of being opposed to luksus, luxury. They’re very ascetic as a kind of ideal, and the Satmar rebbe [Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum], their leader, tried to live out that ideal. And yet you see over time this weakening of that opposition, at least in some camps within Hasidic Williamsburg, and then you also see a resistance to it.

For the last several years, there’s been a conversation in the Jewish community about whether Jews count as white given their history of being a minority and being persecuted. Did you ask people if they considered themselves white? 

Deutsch: Hasidim in Williamsburg, their experience especially in the ’50s until gentrification, is much more similar to their African-American and Puerto Rican neighbors than it is to, let’s say, Ashkenazi or Eastern European or German Jews, or for that matter Sephardi Jews living in the suburbs in that same period.

They live in public housing projects at a time when whites are leaving public housing projects in New York City and elsewhere in droves. And that’s exactly when they move into these high-rise public housing projects and almost all of their other neighbors in those projects are African-Americans and Latinos. During the Great Society programs of Lyndon Johnson in the 1960s, Hasidim distinguished themselves [from other Jews] for tapping into those government anti-poverty programs. They even at a certain point, under Reagan, are officially designated as a “disadvantaged minority” group by a government agency, and therefore gain benefits for that. And during the same period, they experienced the divestment of city services that happen to neighborhoods like Williamsburg, they also suffer from environmental pollution that has a strong racial and racist dimension in areas like Williamsburg in terms of putting things like incinerators there and so on.

So in those ways, are they or are they not white? They experienced a lot of the things that these definitely nonwhite groups experience now whether they see themselves as white or not.

I did ask that very explicitly recently to a Hasidic guy I know. And he kind of said that’s not exactly the right question in the sense that for him, it’s much more important, the Jewish versus non-Jewish distinction, and the Hasidic versus non-Hasidic distinction. I think that the answer is probably “both, and.” Does he see himself as white in the same way that white people [might]? I would say no, but in recent years one of the things that I find interesting about the rightward shift politically among a lot of Hasidim is to what extent that will also ultimately involve a kind of greater identification with a kind of white identity than previously existed. I’ll leave that as kind of an open question. But I wonder whether that may even be happening now as a result of supporting Trump in great numbers and so on.

You wrote about how the Hasidic community really spans the gamut of income, of dependence on welfare, dependence on public housing. You’ve got the developers with a lot of wealth on one end and people who are searching for affordable housing and often failing on the other. So how do you make sense of how this community falls under this umbrella of support for Trump?

Casper : I think there’s always been wealth inequality within the Hasidic community. And that was certainly exacerbated by the economic crash in 2008 and the subsequent rise of a class of extremely wealthy Hasidic real estate developers. So there have always been wealthy Hasidim and many more working-class Hasidim, many of whom use the Section 8 housing voucher or live in public housing. I don’t know how much cognitive dissonance there is among Hasidim who, let’s say, use Section 8 and also vote for Republicans who would be ideologically opposed to welfare. I think that Hasidim vote really pragmatically, especially in local elections, and so they’ll vote for Republicans or Democrats. And even though there was a large swing towards Trump, there were some prominent Hasidic community members who supported Clinton [in 2016].

Deutsch: I wonder whether now though, in this current moment, we’re seeing a shift, among some at least, away from that pragmatism which has typically characterized Hasidic voting in Brooklyn. It’s been profoundly pragmatic, especially on bread-and-butter issues, like when it comes to education, when it comes to housing and so on. To some extent, you could see that in the support for Trump insofar as he made gestures towards support for private schools and that sort of thing, but there’s also to me a stronger ideological component, as well as an almost personal affinity. One thing that I heard from a number of people is this idea that Trump is the first candidate, at least at that level, “who sees us as a community.” I don’t think that it’s negating the pragmatic. And you see, for example, in the current mayoral race in New York City, the pragmatic concerns are coming up a lot.

But at the same time, the Hasidic communities in New York City have largely coalesced around Andrew Yang in the mayoral race rather than one of the more progressive candidates who might have been more interested in increasing public housing. I wonder if that surprised either of you?

Deutsch: I talked to a bunch of people in recent days about this and in different specific communities, and everyone I talked to says it’s between Yang and [Brooklyn Borough President Eric] Adams in terms of their support. Adams has a long-standing relationship with different Hasidic communities in Williamsburg, in Borough Park, in Crown Heights, and has cultivated it for a long time. There’s also a long history going back at least to Shirley Chisholm of African-American politicians in North Brooklyn having support from Hasidim. The Hasidim in Crown Heights supported her different candidacies very strongly, for example.

And then Yang came in as a kind of wild card and he distinguished himself by basically saying more or less unequivocally that he was going to take a hands-off attitude towards [yeshiva] education. And there’s a big controversy right now as to whether Hasidic schools will be compelled to comply with state standards regarding the curriculum and secular subjects. In fact, if you took all the students in the Hasidic schools, it would be the second largest public school district in the state of New York, bigger than Buffalo, the second largest after New York City. So it’s a lot of students, and it also provides a lot of jobs for people teaching in the schools. And of course, educating Hasidic children is maybe the key to continuing the traditions and reconstituting the community, and then recreating it with every generation. So I think that that’s why Yang’s gotten so much traction.

Why aren’t they supporting somebody who would be more progressive when it comes to public housing? It’s a good question in certain ways, and might be somewhat similar to  the whole “ What’s the matter with Kansas?” argument, that certain people appear to vote against their interests. But then I think we should also expand the notion of what interests are. They might feel that the threat to education is more immediate and the likelihood that a New York City mayor will be able to deliver affordable housing, when that’s really done at the federal level, is much slimmer and more distant, and so it’s better to focus on the more immediate threat.

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JEWISH NEIGHBORHOOD OF NEW YORK

Brooklyn is home to Williamsburg , New York’s Jewish Neighborhood, one of the Big Apple’s most famous neighborhoods. Today Williamsburg is a neighborhood of contrasts, to the north of the neighborhood you will see and enjoy the hipster area, is to the north where you can find art galleries, coffee shops, vintage shops, street art, but if you head south of Williamsburg, you will find the area of the Jewish Quarter , a sober neighborhood that houses approximately 80,000 Jews in New York .

So, we invite you to embark on this trip with us, visit the Jewish Quarter of New York and be amazed at what you can see in one of the areas with a wonderful and impressive culture.

Let’s get started!

A little bit of history…

Orthodox Jews came to New York after World War II, chose the Brooklyn district as their new home, there the Jewish community began to settle in Williamsburg in order to continue with their lives after the terror they lived in Europe.

Williamsburg – Source iStock

Little by little the Jews came to Williamsburg with their customs, culture and traditions, now it is one of the most influential communities of New York , you will see simple shops, the facades of the houses painted all the same color, people walking through the streets in moderate attire, in reality the Jewish community is a world different from what is normally seen in New York ..

In the Jewish quarter of New York you will see a very different lifestyle, a way of seeing the world in a different way, that is why it is worth visiting the Jewish quarter in Williamsburg , because it is worth passing from the eccentricity of New York to the austerity of a community that today follows its ancestral laws and sacred traditions.

And now that we know a little more about the history of the neighborhood, let’s talk a little about its traditions and its unmistakable way of dressing…

Read: Things to do in Williamsburg

How the jewish woman dresses.

Regardless of the time of year, Jewish women wear long fabric skirts, wide jackets, only when they are girls can they wear slightly lighter shades. Normally they dress in black, there is no exception, it is also common to see women wearing wigs, because when they get married, they decide to cut all their hair because wearing long hair is synonymous with sensuality within the Orthodox Jewish community .

Normally they walk along the streets with their children, on Saturdays, Sabbath day you will not see them in the street, that day they are in their homes waiting for their husbands to return from the Synagogue after reading the Torah.

-The wigs that Jewish women wear are called Sheitel-

How the Jewish Man Dressed

Jewish men also follow a dress code, usually always wear black regardless of the season, and wear black coats, wide-brimmed hats, their traditional kippah, and other Jewish “accessories”.

Jewish Man and Women Dressed – Source Take New York Tours

One of the things that orthodox Jews in the world are known for is having long beards, unlike women, the Jewish man is forbidden to cut his hair or beard completely, in addition, it is usual to see how they let their hair grow on the sides.

For centuries the dress of the orthodox Jewish woman and man has changed very little, austerity always prevails as a sign that they lead a sober, quiet life, that is governed by Jewish laws and that seeks the best for its people, so you will see very few Jews in Williamsburg wearing colorful clothes.

What a day to go to New York’s Jewish Neighborhood

We advise you to go during the week, from Sunday to Thursday, as these are the days when you can see the shops open, enter a store, in short, immerse yourself a little in the day of the Jewish community in New York . You’ll see school buses, girls and women on the streets, men walking to work, during the week you’ll see what normally happens on a day in Williamsburg.

Jewish Neighborhood – Source Take New York Tours

On Saturdays, the Sabbath day, absolutely everything is closed, you won’t find a shop, local, open restaurant, this day is very important for Orthodox Jews, that day they rest, they don’t do anything, men go to the synagogues to read the Torah and meditate, women and children wait in the house for dinner and family sharing.

Well, on the Sabbath you will see Jewish men walking in elegant clothes to the synagogues, but that’s all you’ll see that day, because practically Saturday in Jewish tradition is made for rest.

Read: New York on a Weekend

How to get to the jewish neighborhood of williamsburg.

The main street of the neighborhood is Lee Avenue and the meters that leave you closer to the avenue are Hewes St. (J, M), Broadway (G) and Marcy Av (J, M, Z). People usually visit the Jewish Quarter by car or by hiring a tour. Contrary to what everyone thinks, the neighborhood is a quiet place, nothing insecure, it is a place where families live with their children.

A recommendation before visiting the Jewish quarter of New York is to be respectful, especially when taking pictures, it is best to be discreet so that the community does not treat you like a stranger.

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Home / Directories / Parishes /

Cathedral of the Holy Transfiguration of Our Lord

Brooklyn (williamsburg), new york.

Founded 1908

Diocese: Diocese of New York and New Jersey

Deanery: New York City Deanery

228 N 12th St Brooklyn (Williamsburg), New York 11211

Website: roct.org

Parish Contacts

Lay leadership.

General Location The Russian Orthodox Cathedral of the Transfiguration of our Lord is located in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York, on the southeast corner of the intersection of Driggs Ave and N 12th St.

From the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway (Rt 278) north or east bound Exit at Metropolitan Ave and Williamsburg Bridge (exit 32) and proceed along service road 2 lights to Union Ave.  Turn left onto Union and proceed to North 12th St.  Go about one block and the Cathedral will be on the left.

From the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway (Rt 278) south or west bound Exit at Metropolitan (Exit 32B) and turn right onto Union Ave.  Proceed down Union 3 blocks (to the park) to North 12th St.  Proceed down about 1 block, the Cathedral will be on the left.

From Long Island Take the Long Island Expressway (Rt 495) west to the Brooklyn Queens Expressway (Rt 278) west/south.  Exit at Metropolitan Ave (Exit 32B) and tirn rightonto Union Ave.  Proceed down Union 3 blocks (to the park) to North 12th St.  Proceed down about 1 block, the Cathedral will be on the left.

by Subway We are 5 blocks from the Bedford Ave station on the L Train (14th St-Canarsie Line).  Walk 4 blocks north on Bedford Ave and 1 block east to Driggs Ave.

We are a stroll through McCarren park from the Nassau Ave Station of the G Line.  Walk south on Nassau Ave then diagonally southeast through the park.  You can’t miss seeing the Cathedral standing on the other side of the park.

By Bus The B61 bus runs between Jackson Ave / Queens Plaza south in Long Island City.  If coming northbound, get off at Bedford Ave and N 12th St, and walk one block east.  If coming southbound, get off at Driggs Ave and N 12 St, and cross street to Cathedral.

Schedule of Services

4:00 PM Vespers (Fall and Winter).  6:00 PM Vespers (Spring and Summer) Saturday Evening

9:00 AM Divine Liturgy followed by Church School and fellowship hour. Sunday Morning

Confessions are heard one half-hour before all Liturgies and following Saturday evening Vigil. Confessions

Please visit the Weekly Schedule on the parish website, or call 718-387-1064 for Holy Days and other seasonal services.

Parish Background

The founders of this parish came from Galicia, a crownland of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, located in the southeastern section of today’s Poland, north of the Carpathian Mountains.  Due to economic problems and crop failures, the migration to America began about 1880.  Answering the need for cheap labor and the availability of low cost housing, they settled in the Williamsburg and Greenpoint areas of Brooklyn, Blissville and Maspeth sections of Queens.

Liturgical services were first held in the home of Lukas Taras, who lived on North 7th St in Williamsburg.  Upon locating more fellow countrymen who wanted to start an Orthodox Church, they collected $160.  This was used as a down payment with a mortgage of $16,000 to purchase a vacant wooden Methodist Church (1859).  It was located at North 5th St and Bedford Ave.  The church was named after St Vladimir.  The building was renovated to conform to Orthodox traditions, including a beautiful hand-carved 3 tier oak iconostas constructed by a German firm Dopple.  Various organizations contributed all the necessary liturgical items.

On Saturday, April 5, 1908, the first Vespers service was served and on Sunday, April 6, 1908, the first Divine Liturgy was celebrated.  Both services were celebrated by (Saint) Archpriest Alexander Hotovitsky from St Nicholas Cathedral.  The first rector was the Rev Theophan Buketoff, who came from Montreal, Canada.

As the parish grew, a larger church was needed.  A site was found halfway between Williamsburg and Greenpoint consisting of 5 building lots on the corner of North 12th St and Driggs Ave, purchased for $16,000.  The architect, Louis Allmendiger based his design for the new church on the Cathedral of the Dormition within the Moscow Kremlin, having 5 domes supported by four large columns.  The Schneider Company was contracted to build it for $117,000.  Work began in 1916.

World War I created material shortages and insufficient funds delaying completion.  Due to the shortage of funds, the N 5th St church was sold in 1919, and church services were conducted in the incomplete building.  The Rev John Krohmalney led a drive to complete the church whose cost had risen by $20,000.  Various organizations and individuals donated the stained glass windows, and the Trinity Brotherhood donated to 1002 lbs, tone “A” bell.

Two additional altars were added.  The north one was dedicated to St Vladimir.  The center one was to the Transfiguration of our Lord and the south one was dedicated to the Protection of the Holy Virgin Mary.  This required two additions to the original iconostas that was transferred from the N 5th St church.

Metropolitan Platon consecrated the church on September 3, 1922.  Patriarch (Saint) Tikhon presented the parish with the revered Holy Icon of the Mother of God of Pochaev, which now hangs in a place of honor over the Royal Doors.  The back has an inscription “In Blessing to the Russian Orthodox people of Brooklyn”.

The Depression put the parish into financial difficulty.  Loans made by individuals and organizations could not be paid, people were begging for repayment.  The church committee was afraid it might have to close the church.  The VRev Constantine Buketoff arrived in February 1932 from Bayonne, NJ.  With the assisting church committee, the slow, painful job of paying off loans was accomplished.  It is said that through the parishioners’ “nickels and dimes”, the church finally became debt free.  Metropolitan Leonty ceremonially “burned the mortgage” in October 1950.

With the help of Matushka Mallitza Buketoff, the Sisterhood of Myrrhbearing Women was founded in 1932.

By a decision of the Synod of Bishops, Transfiguration Church was raised to the rank of Cathedral in 1932.

With the returning veterans of World War II, English was introduced into the Divine Liturg in 1946.

By a decision of the Bishops’ Sobor, Fr Constantine was awarded the Mitre by Bishop John in 1952, for his many accomplishments in organizing Orthodox churches.

With the birth of the “Baby Boomers” after the war, a Church Sunday School was organized in 1949.

Rev Nicholas Yuschak was ordained in the Church on November 7, 1953.  This began the era of two priestts being attached to Transfiguration.  English Divine Liturgy was served at 8:30 AM and Slavonic Divine Liturgy was served at 10:00 AM, with Sunday School classes held at 10.  Rev Daniel Hubiak followed as the next second priest.  During this period, the Sunday School had over 150 students.

Rev Alvian Smirensky was ordained on September 14, 1958 replacing Fr Hubiak.  Rev Innokenty Semoff followed Fr Alvian in 1961.  Rt Rev Constantine Buketoff retired in September 1964, having faithfully served Transfiguration Cathedral for 32 years.  Due to circumstances at the time, the era of two priests attached to the Cathedral ended.

VRev Igor Tkachuk was appointed Rector on October 1, 1966.  Through his guidance and efforts, restoration and beautification of the church continued.  The Cathedral now contains beautiful and irreplacable Icons, Gospels, and liturgical items.  During his tenure, one of our parishioners, John Sokolich was tonsured a Reader, reaching the rank of Protodeacon, the first attached deacon of the Cathedral.  He was later joined by Dn Alexis Bona.  Fr Igor retired in October 1984, and was made Pastor Emeritus by Archbishop Peter of New York.  Fr Igor fell asleep in the Lord on November 8, 1995.

VRev Anatoly Fiedoruk followed Fr Tkachuk as Acting Rector.  VRev Boris P Vlasenko arrived in August 1986 and served until his retirement in 1991.  Rev Wiaczeslaw Krawczuk arrived in November 1992 and is the present Rector.  In 1993, Peter Andryuk was ordained Subdeacon and in 1996, Boris Slootsky was ordained Deacon.  In April 1997, the Holy Synod of Bishops of the Orthodox Church in America elevated Father Wiaczeslaw to the rank of Archpriest, and in March 2004, the Holy Synod of Bishops presented the honor of the Jeweled Cross to Father Wiaczeslaw in recognition of his faithfulness and priestly ministry.

The children, grandchildren and great grandchildren of the forebearers of Transfiguration Cathedral are members and/or founders of Orthodox parishes scattered throughout the United States, especially those organized in the 50s and 60s.

The 5 copper cupolas topped with Patriarchal crosses are visible far and wide in the New York area.  It is considered the largest of about 25 churches in the New York Metropolitan area.  Its well-known picture has appeared in local, national and international newspapers and magazines.  The historic picture taken in 1922 was displayed at the American Exposition in Moscow to show a Russian Orthodox Church in the United States (1954).  Viewers have seen it in commercials, on television, and in the movie “House on Carroll Street”.

Stories and pictures of the Cathedral have appeared in various books.  Among them are The History of New York City, of Brooklyn, The Architects Guide to New York City, and Landmarks of New York State.  On November 19, 1969, the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the Russian Orthodox Cathedral of the Transfiguration of our Lord a landmark of New York City.  In recognition of its historical and architectural significance, it was listed on the National Register of Historical Places by the United States Department of the Interior, April 16, 1980.

In 1996 all of the parishioners decided that our over 80-year-old Cathedral needed general renovation and that our focus should be on the cupolas, windows, and roof.  The lowest contract bid in 1999 was $1.4 million; $1.6 million in 2000.  Because the parish did not have this amount of money, we tried to get grants from the federal government.  After a few years of striving for a grant, we received $350,000 from the Parks Department.  Even though we received a grant, galloping inflation raised the cost of the project again.  In 2003 a contract was signed to work on the first phase of the project (5 cupolas and windows), which was completed in 2004.  Now we are working on collecting funds for the second phase of the restoration project (the roof).

The year 2008 marks our Centennial Year.  We would like to invite everyone to celebrate this great event with us on September 13-14, 2008.

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Williamsburg – Hip & Orthodox

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Explore Williamsburg on a Walking Tour!

The former waterfront and ethnic enclave of Puerto Rico, Dominicans and Hasidic Jews is now one of the hippest areas of the United States. Join us on a trip and experience a side of Williamsburg that you might not have just imagined. Your NYC licensed local guide will give you insight into how Williamsburg once was what it is today, show you cool places and great views of Manhattan’s skyline-and at the same time give you a general introduction to Brooklyn in New York City. The trip is brilliant for those of you who have heard a lot about Williamsburg and would like to know more – and after the tour, you will have the opportunity to shop and eat at the trendy Bedford Avenue.

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Brooklyn Jewish Historical Initiative

Williamsburg.

One of Brooklyn’s most intriguing neighborhoods is Williamsburg. Mostly rural until 1802, it suddenly grew so large that in 1852 it was chartered as a city of its own. By 1855, Williamsburg was annexed by the city of Brooklyn. The construction of the Delancey Street approach to the Williamsburg Bridge displaced many of Manhattan’s East Side residents.

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All About Williamsburg – Table of Contents

Click below to learn more about:

• Founding Williamsburg

Immigrants and Religion in Williamsburg

• The Jews of Brooklyn – Williamsburg

Developing a Better Future

German Jews, who had been first to settle in Williamsburg, were joined in the early twentieth century by a vast influx of eastern European Jews and a smaller influx of Sephardim. Williamsburg became one of the most crowded neighborhoods in the country – and one of the poorest.

The wealthier Germans, who had founded the first Reform temple, moved out over time to other neighborhoods, such as Greenpoint, Bedford-Stuyvesant, and streets around Prospect Park. The “uptown” Jewish community responded with fear and disdain to the eastern European Jewish masses, the “miserably darkened Hebrew” with whom “the thoroughly acclimatized American Jews … has no religious, social or intellectual ties.”

As Jenna Joselit writes in her history of New York’s Jewish Jews (1990), Williamsburg’s newer residents  established Orthodox institutions, fashioning ”their home-grown notion of American Orthodoxy” that was Zionist and educationally progressive (17).  Only later, in the 1930s and especially after the war did the Hungarian Hasidim arrive en masse and insist on their own style of Ultra-Orthodoxy. Gradually, the non-Hasidic Jewish elements left the neighborhood as the anti-Zionist, distinctively garbed Satmar moved in. By 1951, the last movie house on Lee Avenue was turned into the Rebbe’s residence and besmedresh (study hall) of the Klausenburgers Hasidic sect. Hungarian and Yiddish became the language of the streets of South Williamsburg. Williamsburg has also had waves of Italian, Polish and Latino immigrants who have imprinted their cultures on different sections of the community.

With the 1960s came a decline of once-thriving manufacturing and port facilities, and a housing shortage. Tension developed between different ethnic groups, with charges of discrimination and years of legal battles. Various groups established community organizations in the hard times of the 1960s and 1970s, including Los Sures, the Southside United Housing Development Fund Corporation, and the People’s Firehouse. Hasidic residents created the United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburg and the Opportunity Development Association. These groups turned burned-out building into new housing, preserved a local firehouse, created health care centers, home care services and food stamp programs, and helped small stores survive and expand.

UJO has also developed computer literacy programs and job training for homemakers. Although Williamsburg residents face continuing challenges, community organizations and institutions have learned great deal from the past and are working toward a better future. Most important, they are working together to overcome common problems. After years of conflict between the Latino and Hasidic communities in Williamsburg, these groups have become partners in new ventures and neighborhood campaigns. “Housing, jobs, health care, and the environment – these are our issues for the future,” said Rabbi Niederman of the UJO.

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The Unexpected Story of Jewish Williamsburg

Hosted By: The Center for Jewish History

It would be fair to call Williamsburg the Lower East Side’s lesser-known sibling. Opening in 1903, the Williamsburg bridge, which connects the Lower East Side to Williamsburg, soon came to be known as “The Jewish Highway.” Jewish immigrants, seeking to escape the crowded tenements of the Lower East Side, resettled in Williamsburg in large numbers. They brought with them all the character of similar enclaves – Yiddish, kosher butchers, and synagogues – as well as the familiar ambition of upward mobility. However, unlike the Lower East Side, Williamsburg was not soon past its heyday.

After the Holocaust, Hungarian survivors, many of whom were Hasidic, became the next wave of immigrants to make their American starter homes in Williamsburg. But this second wave did not want to move on and assimilate. They stayed in Williamsburg, despite the polluted East River, high crime, and crumbling infrastructure, and maintained their traditions. Even as North Williamsburg has been reborn as a trendy hipster enclave in recent decades, the fourth generation of Hasidim continue to thrive in South Williamsburg. Our tour will take us through this story by way of the buildings, streets, and synagogues, with a nosh of the famous Hungarian kosher baking. And, since we’ll be visiting during the week of Sukkos, the community’s lively atmosphere will enrich your experience of contemporary Jewish Williamsburg.

About the Tour Guide Frieda Vizel is a New York City tour guide who specializes in Jewish Williamsburg. She grew up in the Satmar Hasidic community and her four holocaust survivor grandparents lived in Williamsburg. She has since left the fold but remains drawn to the area‘s rich legacy.

Location and Other Details This two-hour tour will begin at the Williamsburg Bridge Plaza Bus Terminal, a glass building at the corner of Broadway and Havermeyer Streets. Please plan to arrive at 10:45 AM to check in. We will not wait more than a few minutes for late arrivals. This tour will take place rain or shine. Note: Some tour stops are not wheelchair accessible. Additional logistical information will be emailed to all registrants one week before the tour, and again the day before the tour.

Ticket Info: $30 general admission; $25 Center or Partner members. Limited spots available.

The event listed here is hosted by a third party. My Jewish Learning/70 Faces Media is not responsible for its content or for errors in the listing.

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Satmar Jews in Brooklyn: A Zealot Community

To get over to the Williamsburg “shtetl” by subway from Manhattan is unexpectedly complicated, as if one were in fact traveling to some foreign place. One must first seek, or even lose, one’s way in the underground complex at Canal Street and Broadway and find the subway there that speeds under Essex and Orchard and Clinton Streets—the memorable East Side of those earlier emigrations from all the shtetlach of East Europe—and over the Williamsburg Bridge to the Marcy Avenue station. Emerging, the visitor is very likely to be accosted by a pair of teenagers in the garb of the neighborhood—earlocks hanging down from under a businessman’s fedora, ritual fringe showing at the waist—and handed a leaflet written in both Yiddish and English, excoriating the State of Israel.

A stroll through Hasidic Williamsburg reveals a neighborhood that is certainly not the kind of slum we think of when we recall the warrens of the old East Side, or of present Harlem and the East Bronx. Quite a few open streets are lined with one-family houses which appear still to be inhabited by single families. These are, outwardly, in as good repair as the homes in any middle-class neighborhood of Brooklyn or the Bronx. On other blocks, six-story apartment houses of the vintage of the 1920’s are interspersed among older brownstones, which also appear quite habitable. Then there are the slum blocks—rows of brownstones now sheltering six families where a single family once resided.

Bedford Avenue remains the solidest street in the area, showing evidences of its former dominance. High-stooped brownstones that used to require two “in help” for their upkeep stand facing decayed mansions with mansard roofs. The Satmar Rebbe himself lives at 500 Bedford Avenue, and his congregation, Yetev Lev d’ Satmar, is housed at Number 550. The building next to the congregation, now part of the Satmar school system, still carries the legend of the Williamsburg Boys Club in the fanlight over the street door. Unexpectedly, on the corner of Bedford Avenue and Wilson Street, an incongruous ruin presents itself—the shell of a Gothic church, complete with rose window, roofless and crumbling, its brownstone pitted as from centuries. It is the one tumbledown structure on the Avenue.

The neighborhood is culturally and racially a mixed one. Besides the large numbers of Hasidic families, there are other Jews, as well as Puerto Ricans and Negroes. The latter are the more heavily represented on the slum blocks. While most of the streets look to be uni-racial, certain blocks appear to house a mixture of Negroes, Puerto Ricans, and “whites.” One block of Driggs Street, for example, is white on one side, colored on the other.

The Hasidim are not alone in Williamsburg in their passion for the strict interpretation of the revealed word. The area is a haven for fundamentalist sects of all kinds, almost every street showing a house of study or worship according to some ritual. There seem to be as many Spanish Pentecostal and Negro Evangelical storefront churches as Jewish religious buildings. One of the latter is the yeshiva of the Novominsker Rebbe, a stately, well-proportioned, high-ceilinged brownstone, through whose large windows can be seen shelves on shelves of great, black-bound folios, and the heads of the old men nodding over open volumes. Four doors down stands an old church building in good repair, which once probably housed some Lutheran or Methodist congregation. It sports a new sign, however, inconsonant with its staid architecture, announcing that here is the place of the Light of the World Church, Pentecostal Puerto Rican. The music of a midweek service—an organ, maracas, and triangle can be identified—pours into the street and into the open windows of the Novominsker yeshiva.

_____________

But among Satmar Jews the “shtetl” dominates: the visitor is most of all aware of the ubiquitous peyes , the curled earlocks that adorn every Hasidic male, of whatever age—small boys of two or three, teen-agers, and of course adults, who wear them descending into their beards. That way, as part of a bearded face, they seem natural to the memory. But earlocks on infants, earlocks along with blue jeans, earlocks with summer crewcuts, earlocks on tow-headed youngsters, all descending from the skullcap—these seem, at the least, bizarre on the American scene. The exotic earlock is, nevertheless, no impediment to the familiar Brooklyn street play. A five-year-old boy with blue skullcap atop his brown peyes rides a tricycle in circles, chased by a younger playmate, with blond earlocks and yellow skullcap, who is trying to mount the back treads. A third boy in a black skullcap runs after, calling, “ Shtel zich aroif, Yosele, shtel zich aroif !”

Maybe there is less ball playing than would be normal in a similar area anywhere else in the city, though there are just as many boys on the street. In a schoolyard, a fifteen-year-old, with the usual skullcap and peyes , sinks baskets with two non-Hasidic fellow players. In an open space a block away, four earlocked youngsters toss a ball back and forth. One of the boys, sporting a camp tee-shirt with the legend “Moriah Day Camp” and the symbol, in green, of a Torah scroll, keeps yelling, “Okay, Pinchas, tsu mir .” Throughout the area, Yiddish is the language of all ages and activities. The shop signs in English are repeated in Yiddish.

Something seems missing from the streets, some imbalance is felt: there are no grown girls or young women to be seen. The little girls, from two to ten, are playing on the stoops and pavements, and mothers lean out of upper-story windows to call to their children or watch the passing scene. But there are no teen-age girls visible—girls at the marriageable age, that is. At first glance, too, it appears to the visitor that most of the women seen in their homes and on the street have kept their own hair. A closer look shows that at least some are wearing the traditional wigs—but very good ones. A group of mothers watching their children in the playground back of Public School 16 include two with wigs, one wearing a decidedly modish hat, and two with headcoverings of the kerchief type common in any supermarket on a weekday morning. The pious, sparkling white shawl of the old Lower East Side is not seen in Williamsburg.

No shops selling women’s garments are in evidence in the quarter—the flagrant display of female undergarments would be an affront to the Orthodox male. But two or three men’s clothing stores appear to be prospering. All advertise their wares as “100 per cent wool” in large English and Yiddish signs: the Orthodox injunction against the mixing of fibers is here implied. All the suits shown in the store windows are double-breasted, and two stores carry caftans, one of them advertising Rabboinishe Malbushim —clerical garments. Caftans cost $55, in gray or black, in gabardine or worsted. For the unknowing, they are labeled “Prince Albert.”

Among the shops is seen a laundromat—two long lines of gleaming white machines that soak, wash, rinse, and dry, automatically. The bearded, skullcapped, earlocked man checking the machines appears as a startling anachronism. Also anachronistically, two professions remain home industries in the “shtetl”: the practice of law and the teaching of music. Almost every one of the “good” blocks has one or two signs of the gallows type: a one-armed “T” with a shingle dependent from the arm. They proclaim the offices of lawyers, attorneys at law, counselors at law; or they advertise music teachers, piano teachers, violin lessons. The Satmar Rebbe does not hold with such secular diversions as television, and the universal TV antenna is missing from the houses of his followers.

The community comprises a portion of the 90th Police Precinct, the station house fronting a small park in the quarter. The police speak of their Hasidic constituents as the “bearded ones”—a strange lot, in their judgment, but admirable citizens. The area is congested, and has the juvenile delinquency and general arrest rate usual for such neighborhoods. But no officer in the precinct recalls ever arresting, or even bringing in for questioning, any member of the Satmar Rebbe’s flock, young or old. “If they have any quarrels,” the desk sergeant says, “they take them to their Rabbi. They have no juvenile delinquency, take care of their kids, make no disturbances, don’t go on relief, and certainly have no prostitution or other woman trouble.” Once in a great while the police blotter records a complaint from one of the Satmar group. A non-Jewish family new to the district may react to the foreignness of their Hasidic neighbors by teasing and persecuting them in a mild sort of way. According to the police, the Satmar people will take a great deal, but when they are finally irritated beyond endurance, they come into the station to complain. An officer is sent around to talk to the “others” and “straighten them out.”

A fair proportion of the people in the streets and sitting on the benches in the little square before the police station are evidently Jewish, although clean-shaven and minus the skullcaps; the women even wear lipstick. They are non-Hasidic Jews. But these people all appear to be in their fifties, or older. The young folks have fled to less parochial areas of the city. However, almost all the storekeepers, even those without the peyes , wear skullcaps—save for pharmacists. Six years ago the Satmar group tried to force a reluctant Jewish storekeeper (much of whose trade was with non-Hasidic families) to shut his store up on Saturday. Police had to disperse the crowd then, and there has since been no repetition of the incident—not on home grounds, in any case. If there is an occasional anti-Israel riot, it generally starts outside the quarter.

The History of Satmar Jews

The town the Jews have always called “Satmar” lies in the multi-national corner of Transylvania in which three states meet: Rumania, Hungary, and Ruthenia (or Carpatho-Ukraine). The Magyars who ruled the town before 1918 and, under Hitler’s auspices, during World War II, called it Szatmar-Nemeti. The Rumanians, who acquired the town under the Treaty of Trianon in 1920 and regained it in 1945, call it Satu Mare.

Jews made up a large part of the town’s 50,000 population before Hitler sent most of the Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz. The Jewish community always included a militant Orthodox minority, Hasidic in outlook. Before World War I, these Hasidim were engaged in a bitter struggle against the worldly-educated, assimilationist-minded Jews of Budapest and their confreres in Satmar. On their side, the worldly Jews looked with disdain—and uneasiness—on the mystic fervor, provincial backwardness, and uncompromising adherence to Orthodoxy of the Hasidim of Satmar and the other country towns. One of the earliest Hasidic leaders of Hungary was the Tsaddik Moses Teitelbaum, the Rebbe of the Jews of Satoraljaujhely, known in Yiddish as “Uhely.” His ministry lasted from 1808 until his death in 1841. An imposing figure, much revered as teacher and judge, Moses was the author of the Yismach Moshe , a work of Biblical exegesis. He was followed by four generations of Rebbes who held court for the most pant in the north Transylvanian town of Marmaros-Sziget—called Sziget by the Jews, but not the cosmopolitan Szeged that is Hungary’s second largest city.

The present Satmar Rebbe of Williamsburg, Joel Teitelbaum, is not in direct line of succession to the Tsaddik Moses Teitelbaum. Joel’s father had designated Joel’s older brother as has spiritual heir. Joel refused to accept the decision and, after overcoming strong community resistance, ultimately succeeded to the leadership of Satmar. The uncompromising belief in his own election, and his forcible will, led him to other bitter controversies with famous teachers and rabbis, including the revered Hasidic scholar Chayim Eleazer Shapiro of nearby Munkacs. As a result, Joel’s reputation as a zealot had spread well beyond the confines of Hungarian Jewry before World War II.

Ironically, Teitelbaum, bitterly anti-Zionist and anti-Israel, was saved from the concentration camp by the Labor Zionist Israel Kastner, 1 whom the SS authorized to select a trainload of Hungarian Jews to be sent to Switzerland. Among those selected by Kastner was the Satmar Rebbe. After a brief stay in Switzerland, the Rebbe went on to Palestine. He came to the United States in 1947. Settled in Williamsburg, the Satmar Rebbe has built an impressive domain around his congregation, Yetev Lev d’ Satmar. It includes four mikvehs , a matzoh bakery occupying an entire building, and the Satmar school system.

Although an appreciable number of Orthodox Jews lived in Williamsburg before World War II, the achievements of the Satmar group would have been impossible without the postwar immigration of many survivors of East European Jewry. The Satmar congregation in Williamsburg served as a magnet for hundreds of Hasidim whose own Rebbes had been killed by the Nazis. Rebbe Teitelbaum also brought to the United States a sizable number of followers acquired during his stay in Palestine. Their immigration was made possible, in part, by the Satmar group’s deep commitment to mutual aid; members already established in this country provided the support affidavits required to bring other followers into the United States. When new immigrants arrive, the Rebbe places them in the businesses owned by members of the congregation. The jobs thus obtained may be miserably low paid, but they are jobs in which Hasidic attire and strict observance of the Sabbath are not handicaps.

An abundance of capital is not always available for the Satmar undertakings—many of them, in fact, operate on the proverbial shoestring. A constant appeal for funds is made, and the members, even the indigent ones, often accept heavy financial sacrifices in order to give to the support of the religious, educational, and charitable purposes sponsored by the Satmar Rebbe. A major source of income is the sale of second-hand clothing which the members solicit door to door in the greater New York area. There are well-to-do individuals who give support to the movement—notably diamond brokers and a few manufacturers.

Public School 16 covers the block on Wilson Street between Bedford Avenue and Lee Avenue. It is of the red brick-monumental-functional style popular about thirty-five years ago. But it isn’t rundown and has a large play area. However, none of the boys of the Satmar families attend P.S. 16. They are taught in (he Satmar school system, served by something like one hundred and twenty instructors, two-thirds of whom, approximately, teach religious subjects in the Yiddish language. The rest see to the curriculum required by the state law.

At 95 Boerum Street, in Williamsburg, the United Talmudical Academy Torah Vyirah has about 2,600 students—1,500 boys and 1,100 girls. The building is divided in half by locked doors which separate the sexes. This yeshiva, housed in a former vocational high school building, is, according to its principal, the largest yeshiva elementary school in the world. The Satmar system also includes day-school branches in Boro Park, Crown Heights, and on Manhattan’s East Side, as well as affiliated schools in Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, Belgium, Canada, and Israel. The congregation’s original yeshiva at 550 Bedford Avenue is now the Mesiftah (or Mesivtah, an Aramaic word meaning yeshiva but now used to describe a school for advanced Talmudic studies). Here about seventy young men drawn from all corners of the Satmar Rebbe’s world-wide realm pursue graduate studies, and about one hundred boys, twelve to fourteen, undergo “pre-Mesiftah” training.

In their long school day, the Satmar children are taught English and the other secular subjects demanded by the state until they reach sixteen; this, of course, is in addition to the Yiddish language and the religious subjects. Those over sixteen who continue their education in the Satmar academies concentrate on non-secular studies. Strong pressures are put on the youth against pursuing higher education in a field which might produce conflict with a fundamentalist interpretation of Torah and Talmud; any study contradicting the Biblical view of the creation of man and the world is forbidden. However, continued education in the industrial arts and sciences is encouraged.

An official of the school offered the rationalization: “We know that the All-Highest created the world 5,720 years ago. It would confuse the children to hear outside that the world evolved slowly over three billion years, while the rabbi says that it was created in one day less than six millennia ago. We know that God created man out of a lump of clay, and gave him life. How can we also allow a child to be taught that man was descended from the animals?” He added, “The child is not competent to judge whether Moses, in giving us the Torah, was a liar or not.”

Despite the Hasidic belief that Torah and Talmud teach all necessary astronomy, physics, and mathematics, the children appear to be getting a secular education beyond that required by the state Board of Regents. The reporter was treated, in a visit to the Satmar school, to a demonstration by the eighth grade girls’ class of its science knowledge. It was the first week of the new school year, and the girls were showing what they had learned during the preceding semester, in the seventh grade. Questioned by their teacher, a middle-aged woman wearing her hat, in the presence of the reporter and the school principal, the girls proved that they knew what atoms and molecules were; something about the periodic table; why carbon was the building block element for sustaining life; what hydrocarbons were and why they were important. The answers were volunteered by about a third of the class of twenty-five girls, and it seemed to the reporter that they knew far more science than children of the same grade in the average New York City public school. At the close of the demonstration (unprepared, since the class did not know that the reporter was coming), the principal asked the girls: “And Who created the atom?” The response was unanimous: “Der Ebershteh—the All-Highest.”

A question from the reporter brought the reply from one of the rabbi-officials of the school (who offered that he had studied psychology and sociology) that his investigation of pupil attitudes indicated that the children did not feel estranged from their larger environment. They were not envious of the greater freedom of their non-Hasidic neighbors. They were happy, he said, and free of resentment at the restrictions imposed by their parents’ view of the world. Finally, he declared that 99 per cent of the children growing up in the Satmar milieu remain members of the congregation, strong adherents of its religious and social codes.

The Satmar Hasidim, tracing their theology from the Baal Shem Tov (like the other Hasidic sects), believe that there can be no division between secular life and religious life. There are no private lives, they say. All life and all activity in life must be in relation to God and His law. Therefore total adherence to the entire roster of Torah-revealed commandments is implicit in being a Jew. To the reporter one of the Satmar rabbis explained, however, that there were no real theological differences between them and other Orthodox believers. It was a question of emphasis more than theology: “Modern American Orthodoxy,” he said, “tries to find ways of adapting religion to modern society. This, in itself, opens the door to change. We, on the other hand, do not want to change our religion or religious practices and so do not seek any justification for change.”

The Hasidic insistence on tradition in religious and daily life he interpreted as being based on psychological and sociological grounds rather than on religious. “Of course we follow the injunctions regarding the wearing of fringes, and not trimming the beard, and the division of the sexes, because Torah requires it. But there are other reasons, too. These exaggerated differences are our greatest armor against assimilation. They build a wall between Jew and non-Jew. We will not compromise with tradition because any compromise is a breach in that wall—and will inevitably widen.”

He continued to the reporter: “You are a good Jew. But your son is brought up to play with non-Jews, to have social relationships with them, to think of them as being no different from himself. Perhaps it will end there with your son. But how about his son, your grandson? Why shouldn’t he accept this theory altogether—and marry a non-Jew?”

He hastened to add that this view did not imply segregation or discrimination. “In fact, we fight discrimination against any people. But Jews must maintain their differences, particularly in America where the pressures for assimilation are so great. Only in this way can we preserve Torah Judaism.”

Referring to the example of himself, the rabbi showed how tradition guards the Hasid from unnecessary contact with worldliness. “I do not go to the theater,” he said. “And even if I wanted to, I couldn’t go.” He pointed to his full beard, his peyes , his clothing. “If I walked into a theater garbed as I am the audience would laugh at me rather than at the comedians on the stage. So you see the virtue becomes a necessity.”

“You,” he pointed again to the reporter, “are a Jew. But you trim your heard, cut off your peyes . You probably do not even put on phylacteries. However, I accept you as a person. For instance: you are a college man, no? How do you regard an illiterate? Surely as a person; but one with no learning and little understanding. It may not be the illiterate’s fault. His parents may not have permitted him to be taught. They may have been too poor to provide education. Or he may not have the head for study. But he could be a fine person. That is how I regard you. Why you are not an observing Jew I do not know. Something is lacking. In this area you are uneducated, you lack understanding. But this does not detract from you as a person.” He added: “However, it is not necessary to go to school to acquire learning. Some people study by themselves. So, too, with religion. Some day you may find the truth within yourself.”

The Satmar congregation does exactly what their Rebbe says, and it does only what he says they may do. Trying to make the reporter understand the relation between Rebbe and followers, a spokesman for the group said, “He is like a king to us.”

The comparison of the Rebbe with a king is not so far-fetched as it sounds. The group’s Yiddish newspaper, Der Yid , commonly refers to the Rebbe as Manhig Hador , Leader of Our Generation, and Tsaddik Hador , Upright One of Our Generation. “Only such a spiritual giant as the Satmar Rebbe could have the strength to lead the erring mass of the Jewish people on the proper path,” the newspaper observed in November 1958. In the same issue, the paper urged all Jews everywhere to celebrate the 21st of Kislev, anniversary of the day the Rebbe escaped from Hungary. “On Pesach we say that the Almighty, blessed be He, liberated not only our forefathers from Egypt, but us together with them. Likewise, we can proclaim that not only was our Rebbe saved by the Almighty on the 21st Kislev, but each one of us, and not merely we the living but our future generations also, nay, even more than that—the entire community of Israel.”

Describing the escape of the “adornment of our heads, the light of our eyes, our master Joel Teitelbaum,” the newspaper said: “On that day the Almighty led forth our holy rabbi—may he be granted a long and goodly life—from darkness to light. As we have the privilege of finding shelter in his shadow, of warming ourselves by his light, may we be so privileged in the future. . . . Thus shall we proceed and go forward until the Messiah of Righteousness Shall come, soon and in our days.”

Such absolute, self-abnegating reverence for the Rebbe is confined, in Williamsburg, to his own congregation. In the Brooklyn “shtetl,” as of old in Hungary, the Satmar remains a figure of controversy. The Klausenburger Rebbe, Y. Y. Halberstam, who was active in the German DP camps after the war, refuses to accept Rebbe Teitelbaum’s leadership or views on Israel. Rebbe Halberstam’s social and educational activities include sponsorship of the Kiryat Tsanz resettlement project near Natanya, Israel. Neither does the renowned Lubavitcher Rebbe share the Satmar’s views. Yet, in fact, Rebbe Teitelbaum’s extreme rejection of Israel makes him an influential as well as a controversial figure.

Nor does his rejection of Israel mean he lacks zealous adherents there. His overseas dominion reaches to the Mea Shearim quarter in Jerusalem. The ultra-Orthodox Neturei Karta, the “Guardians of the Wall,” look upon the Satmar Rebbe as their leader. Neturei Karta was founded in Palestine in 1936 when Amram Blau and about a score of his followers were expelled as extremists from Agudat Israel. They too believed that only Divine Grace and the coming of the Messiah could redeem the Jews and establish a Jewish state; therefore any attempt—like the Zionists’—to achieve this end by unaided human effort was regarded by them as sacrilege.

Since the establishment of Israel, Neturei Karta and the Satmar group have refused to recognize the Jerusalem government or any of its instrumentalities. The State of Israel has further confirmed them in their view by permitting secular education, work on the Sabbath, women in the military, and the like. (Refusal to recognize Israel made necessary some peculiar arrangements for Rebbe Teitelbaum’s recent visit to Israel. He and his entourage of fifty traveled by Turkish steamship to Haifa. Neturei Karta chartered a special train to take him to Jerusalem, for which they printed special tickets—without the hated Israel insignia.)

Joel Teitelbaum’s “maximalist” opposition to Zionism goes back fifty years. While in Hungary he was only one of many Orthodox leaders who were critical of political Zionism—the secular movements which gave rise to Israel’s Mapam, Mapai, General Zionist, Herut, and other parties. But the Satmar Rebbe was virtually alone in his staunch opposition to the Orthodox world organization Agudat Israel, which opposed the political Zionists. Today, Agudat Israel, while critical of many policies of the Israeli government, functions as a loyal opposition. The Neturei Karta and the Satmar movement denounce the very basis of the Israeli state. The crucial difference between loyal opposition and outright hostility was strikingly demonstrated when Rebbe Teitelbaum called for a boycott of the Israeli elections. It was Israel’s religious parties—the only parties which would suffer from such a boycott—that were then openly critical of his stand.

What keeps the Satmar Rebbe from total ostracism by the rest of the Jewish community is the strong sense of grievance evoked in many Orthodox groups by Israeli events. Not all these people share the Rebbe’s unswerving hatred of Zionism. But the Satmar Rebbe’s followers, with all their considerable distortion and exaggeration, have been able to capitalize adroitly on real occurrences, so that they can draw five hundred Hasidim to a picketline around the White House and four thousand people to a protest meeting in New York.

The mixed swimming pool incident was a case in point. To the Orthodox, the proprieties of the holy city of Jerusalem are offended by the sight of men and women together, in modern bathing suits. (Mixed bathing on the shores of the Mediterranean and in other areas has not been challenged.) Announcement of a swimming pool to be opened in a neighborhood near Jerusalem’s Mea Shearim quarter provoked such deep feeling among Orthodox believers in Israel that, in May 1958, 20,000 persons there marched in a protest demonstration led by eminent Torah scholars. Here in the United States the incident was an occasion for the Satmar group to stage a picketline demonstration at the White House against the “Unheard Brutality of Israel Zionist Police” (so the demonstrators’ banners proclaimed); and a leaflet read, “Religious Jews Oppose Atrocious Acts of Israeli Atrocities”—the last word in the legend undoubtedly being a printer’s error for “Authorities.”

Rabbi Simon Jacobs, who spoke to reporters on behalf of the demonstrators, explained why they were picketing the White House: “Because the President and Congress have a tremendous influence over Israel, we want them to intervene against anti-religious oppression as well as coercion in Israel.” Leaflets handed by demonstrators to passersby said, “Our Jewish brethren . . . are being persecuted, tortured, and held in prison by the Israeli authorities.” Another leaflet claimed that “Since its inception the State of Israel follows a determined policy of systematically eradicating Jewish religion in its boundaries.” One St. Patrick’s Day, bearded and earlocked Satmar stalwarts were to be seen passing out anti-Israel leaflets to the startled Irishmen parading on Fifth Avenue.

Previous demonstrations mobilized with the “help” of the Satmar Rebbe have brought 5,000 people before the Israeli consulate, 3,500 people to Manhattan Center, and either 2,000 or 10,000 to Union Square—the first is the Jewish Telegraphic Agency’s figure, the second Der Yid’s . Speakers at these meetings are not all holders of the Satmar extremist views. They have included Rav Aaron Kotler of Lakewood, New Jersey, the “Kletzker Rosh Yeshiva” and head of the American Agudat Israel’s “Council of the Torah Great,” and Frankfort-born Rabbi Simon Schwab, associate rabbi of a German Jewish congregation in New York.

The “National Committee for Freedom of Religion in Israel” was established six years ago with the strong support of the Satmar Rebbe and the tacit backing of Agudat Israel. At its inception, the Committee’s primary aim was to have Orthodox girls exempted from conscription in the State of Israel. After the Israeli government had conceded this, Agudat Israel withdrew its sup port and assumed that the Committee would go out of existence. Instead, it was moved to a Williamsburg address by Satmar partisans whom it had provided with an instrument for being heard in places which had previously been inaccessible to them.

Within the Committee itself there are some who object to the Satmar group’s unceasing efforts to catch the eye of the non-Jewish world. The Rebbe’s followers, however, argue that, “Only in this way can we really embarrass the Zionists. They don’t listen to Hebrew protests, certainly not to Yiddish ones, but they sit up and take notice when we run English newspaper ads, when we see Congressmen, or when our mass meetings are reported in the American press.” When the proposal to picket the White House was first advanced, it met with strong resistance within the National Committee, and as a result the “World Union of Orthodox Jewish Communities” was set up. Earlier, a demonstration which the National Committee had been reluctant to sponsor was staged by a hastily formed “United Orthodox Jewish Congregations and Organizations in America”—an organization which has since disappeared without a trace.

The present office of the National Committee for Freedom of Religion in Israel consists of a single sparsely furnished room in a Williamsburg office building. Next door are the offices of the “Central Rabbinical Congress,” composed reportedly of about two hundred Satmar graduates and partisans. Adjoining this room are the editorial offices of Der Yid , which claims on its masthead to be “The Voice of the American Orthodox Jewry.”

The “World Union of Orthodox Jewish Communities,” sponsors of the White House picketing and of a two-column anti-Israeli ad in the New York Times on July 11, 1958, on the other hand, is not so easy to find. Jewish organizations and agencies in New York have no record of it The New York Telephone Company does not know it. The New York address on its leaflets, 465 W. 51st Street, turned out to be a telephone answering service and mail drop. The operator of the answering service has been instructed to forward letters and inquiries, but not to reply to any questions. The World Union of Orthodox Jewish Communities turns out to be a letterhead organization Which, behind the elaborate camouflage, is directed by Satmar zealots.

Led by its frail, seventy-three-year-old Rebbe, who is purported not to have slept in a bed in fifty years, and who remains inaccessible to the curious outsider, the Satmar movement is characterized by an extremist intolerance toward opponents and causes. A case in point was the Satmar people’s treatment of the rabbi who for twenty-seven years had occupied the pulpit of the B’nai Israel Community Center Synagogue on Williamsburg’s Fourth Avenue. He served as president of the local Mizrachi chapter, occasionally supported Israeli fund-raising efforts, chose to be clean-shaven, and ruled that it was permissible to drink pasteurized milk even though no kashruth inspector had approved it. Morning after morning, the rabbi found his front steps covered with noisome garbage. His windows were painted with tar to which was affixed anti-Israeli leaflets. He was rudely accosted in the street by youngsters in skullcaps and peyes . His telephone rang all through the night, and when it was answered, anonymous voices cursed him. His wife was spat on in the Street. One day she received a telephone call telling her that her husband had been run over by a truck. The rabbi finally resigned his lifetime contract with his congregation and moved away, although he had no other appointment.

This was only the most flagrant case. Rabbi Aaron B. Shurin, author of a critical article on the Satmar group in the Jewish Daily Forward , was also the victim of a round-the-clock campaign of telephone abuse. Rabbi Shurin suffered weeks of persecution, until he had his telephone changed to an unlisted number. When the Satmar group demonstrated before the Israeli consulate, Rabbi Max Kirshblum, president of the Mizrachi Organization of America, issued a critical statement. Rabbi Kirshblum, too, got the telephone treatment; finally, an anonymous phone call came to the national office of the Mizrachi, claiming that Rabbi Kirshblum had just been “killed” in a traffic accident. Chaim Lieberman, religious columnist for the Jewish Daily Forward was another telephone victim. And the author of a letter to the Forward praising Lieberman received scores of magazines to which he had never subscribed, followed by bills for them. Salesmen of all types came to his door in response to his “requests.” Organizations sent trucks to pick up clothes and furniture he had “offered.” A Catholic priest thanked him for his letter expressing “interest” in the Church. In June 1958, according to Der Yid , copies of the Forward and the Day-Morning Journal , another Jewish daily, were publicly burned in Williamsburg. The Satmar movement’s wrath was also turned on Rabbi Eliezer Silver of Cincinnati, seventy-nine-year-did president of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis, when he criticized the “World Union’s” ad in the New York Times as offensive to religious law. He was threatened with physical violence if he set foot in Williamsburg. An Israel Bond Rally at the huge “Brisker Shul” on Williamsburg’s Clymer Street had to be called off when Satmar partisans jammed the synagogue to threaten rabbi and speakers. Police had to quell a riot in the Old Fifth Street Synagogue when Satmar zealots tried to drag Benyamin Mintz, Deputy Speaker of the Israeli Knesset, off the dais.

During the telephone campaign against Chaim Lieberman and the Forward , Rebbe Teitelbaum was urged, without success, to voice his disapproval. Finally, in a rare interview, given to the Toronto Jewish Journal in October 1958, the Rebbe denied categorically the news reports that his Hasidim “had terrorized their adversaries through telephone calls and other inadmissible means.” The Rebbe attributed these stories to the Israeli government, “past masters in spreading false rumors about their opponents.”

Significantly, there have been no stories of such “terrorizing” since the Rebbe released his statement. Credit for the change is given by some to a reported intervention by the District Attorney’s office. Der Yid denies this. The District Attorney’s office will neither deny nor confirm. Another possible factor was alluded to in a column by Lieberman in the Forward : “The Rabbi, after all, also has a telephone, and so do the big fish in his entourage. Hence, it occurred to someone to pay it all back, a phone call for a phone call.” A drop in contributions to the Satmar projects, as a result of antagonism to the anti-Israeli demonstrations, may also have had its effect.

Paradoxically, the recent “Who is a Jew?” controversy in Israel has tended to inhibit the Satmar group. When Agudat Israel and Mizrachi left Ben Gurion’s cabinet in protest against the government’s religious policies, the Satmar Rebbe was put in an anomalous position. To continue to fight against the Israeli government, he now had to side with Agudat Israel and Mizrachi. And he could hardly continue to fight the Orthodox parties when they were in opposition to the secularist leaders. It is undeniable that the extremist activities of the Satmar movement has caused in some uninformed Jews on the outside an undermining of confidence in all conspicuously pious and ultra-Orthodox groups.

A number of such ultra-Orthodox groups launched a vociferous campaign against a thirteen-million-dollar public housing project for the lower Bedford Avenue area recently proposed by the New York Housing Authority and approved by the Board of Estimate. They objected that not only would such housing change the character of their “shtetl,” but the displaced Hasidic families would not be able to move into the new houses where elevators and other machines operate on the Sabbath. The same reasons, according to a knowledgeable banker, militated against a plan for Orthodox groups to build their own cooperative housing in the city.

Tracking down a story that appeared in the New York papers last June to the effect that the Satmar group was moving en masse to the New Jersey countryside, the reporter found himself negotiating for an interview, over a period of about two weeks, through a hierarchy of the lesser rabbis and the lay leaders of the Satmar people. The Rebbe himself, the only source of definitive information, was in Israel. In any case, he doesn’t grant an audience to one who does not belong to his congregation. Finally, a spokesman for the group revealed that three hundred acres of New Jersey farmland have already been purchased by the group. The cost and details of the financing were not forthcoming, but the spokesman said the land was “not expensive.” Title is held by the congregation. Exact plans and dates are vague since the Rebbe has not revealed them to his followers, but it is expected that building will begin this coming February. When the projected community is completed, it will house five hundred families, their stores, community activities, and workshops. The workshops will consist of knitting mills, also owned by “the congregation.”

Private investment in other manufacturing or farming enterprises, from friends of the Satmar movement, will be welcomed. These enterprises will have to obey the strict Sabbath laws enjoined by the community and the other restrictions and strictures found in Bible and canon. For example, the law regarding shatnes , which forbids the mixing of different fibers, will be enforced.

Thus a new communal colony will be established in New Jersey, to rival earlier, anarchist settlements in that state and the mid-19th century primitive communist colonies in Indiana and upstate New York. If the New Satmar is successful, it will, nevertheless, move only about a third of the Satmar Rebbe’s families out of Williamsburg. Five to ten thousand followers (they have a high birth rate) will remain in the Brooklyn “shtetl.” “When he tells us to move, we will move. If he tells us to stay, we will stay.”

So far this absolute faith has been well founded. That the Satmar Rebbe’s followers have learned to adapt American techniques to the movement’s uses has been strikingly demonstrated by them since their settlement in Williamsburg. Their educational system and the movement’s network of propaganda organizations have shown a shrewd ability to overcome great obstacles. The Satmar community, with their Rebbe to lead them, is confident that it will continue to expand.

1 See “The Kastner Case,” by W. Z. Laqueur (December 1955).

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The Jews of Williamsburg & Greenpoint

Posted by Tony Carnes | Sep 12, 2018 | 6 |

In our street-by-street census we found 152 Jewish synagogues, religious schools and social service centers in the area. Most of them are associated with the 50,000 or so Hassidic (“the Pious Ones”) Orthodox Jews who belong to a group called Satmar, who derive their name from a town, Satu Mar, in present-day Hungary from which they emigrated. They are very strict in their separation from “worldly culture.” Controversially, some of the Satmar community leaders have tried to censor dissidents and whistleblowers from going outside of the community with tales of wrong-doing.

In addition to Satmar many other groups of Hassidic, Orthodox and other Jews have settled in Williamsburg-Greenpoint area at some point. However, Greenpoint has lost most of its Jewish population, and its five synagogues which originated in the 19 th Century has shrunk to one on Noble Street, Congregation Ahavas Israel.

The synagogue was founded as a German Jewish Orthodox congregation in 1893 and took over a building that had served a Congregational church. In 1903 after a merger with the Reform-orientated Temple Beth El, the synagogue built an additional building next door. However, Williamsburg is burgeoning with the growth of Judaic organizations.

Early in the Twentieth Century Orthodox and secular Jews settled in Williamsburg-Greenpoint. An example is Red Auerbach, whose father was Belarus. Auerbach got his nickname “Red,” his love basketball and a secular Jewish upbringing in Williamsburg during the 1930s. As a kid he lived hoping to get out of the poverty-stricken places that he lived in Williamsburg, mostly on the edge of today’s Hasidic area and in East Williamsburg. A glimpse of 1940s Hassidic life (and its discontents) is provided by Chaim Potok in his novel The Chosen .

Just before World War II and afterward, at least twenty Hassidic groups moved into Williamsburg.

Today, a rough estimate is that 61,000 Jews live in the NYC government defined community district of Williamsburg-Greenpoint , making up 35% of the general population. (The comprehensive Jewish Community Study of NY: 2011 does not include Greenpoint with Williamsburg and its definition of Williamsburg includes an area lying south of the community district as defined by the city. In the United Jewish Federation study’s Williamsburg there are over 74,500 Jews, also making up 35% of the general population.)

The number of Jews in Williamsburg is increasing rapidly. Between 2002 and 2011 their population increased by 41%. With families commonly including up to  8-10 children this population will continue to grow. Over 50% of the Jews in Williamsburg are children under age 18.

The Williamsburg Jews are mostly Orthodox. 82% indicate that they identify with Orthodox Judaism. 83% attend synagogue; 84% keep kosher households; 90% give to charities, mainly religious charities; and 60% do religious studies. 95% of the children attend or have attended Jewish day schools.

The trend among Jews in Brooklyn is toward more Orthodoxy. In 2010 the Values Research Institute surveyed by telephone 654 Jews in Brooklyn and found that 59% of the Jews in Brooklyn identified themselves as Orthodox . About 38% of the Orthodox are those Jews who are very strict with their practices and are often called “Haredi,” “the pious ones.” Every year the Orthodox increases its proportion of the Jews in Brooklyn by 1.5%. The large growing Orthodox population in Williamsburg, which makes up about 13% of the Jews in Brooklyn, is indicative of the larger religious trend.

It is also certain that we missed quite a few Jewish organizations in our Journey census because we only list what we can see from the street and even that is limited in practice. Let me give you an example.

I remember classifying the overwhelming number of Satmar Orthodox Jewish sites in one block of Bedford Avenue. As I worked my way down the block deciphering the Hebrew letters, a young kid was leaning against a fence at the end of the block watching me. When I wearily got to the end of the block with darkness already having overtaken me, I was ready to call it quits. Instead, the Satmar kid had cooked up a different plan for me.

He asked, “What are you doing?”

I explained about A Journey through NYC religions and how we went about our work going down the street. I half-complained that his block just about exhausted me with the vast number of religious sites. But I triumphantly added that I had finished!

“You missed one,” he said.

“What? I walked every inch of this street, both sides. Where did I miss one?” I retorted. What a smart alec!

“At the other end of the block you missed the synagogue with its name on the door,” he laconically observed.

“I was there. See here is the photo,” I said, trying to prove my point.

“Hmm,” he said leaning over to look. “Blow that photo up. See, there is writing.”

I sputtered, “How can I read that from the street? The letters are tiny and in the dark? How do you know that it is a synagogue?”

“I know the rabbi.”

Uh-oh, is he kidding me?, I thought.

“You ought to go back,” he added.

“How do you know the rabbi?, I asked, rather dumbly as it turned out.

“He’s my father. You need to go back.”

I grudgingly walked back to the other end of the block and wrote down the name and came back. The kid looked over to see if I had put the Hebrew down correctly. Evidently, my practically illiterate Hebrew passed muster in this case, because he smiled. Fortunately, he did not ask me to speak the name in Yiddish.

I had become the student, and he the teacher. Crazy. But he was right.

“Do you want to meet my Dad? he asked.

I now chuckled at this smart-alec kid who has now maneuvered me to make sure that his Dad and his synagogue got proper recognition. I also laughed a thankful laugh for his invitation to do some reporting. I was now energized and engaged. The night is young!, I thought.

And that was the beginning of another long story about the hospitality of the Satmar Jews who seem so distant to outsiders. I learned a lot about their organization that provides kosher meals, measured by Satmar standards, to hospital patients. It turns out that their shipping station was across the street from where the kid was standing. There was no sign, and I didn’t notice them putting meals into a truck. I wondered, how unconscious was I? What kind of reporter am I? The kid and his Dad taught me a lot of humbleness and insight into the Satmar community.

As they packed up their evening meals, they allowed me to pepper them with questions and taking photos. All the time, they kept saying that they were in a hurry (Satmar Jews on business tend to walk straight and fast without looking side by side—you know, the straight and narrow path). But they kept answering until finally they said, “Okay, we have got to go.”

I was left on the street in the dark, but I felt differently about Williamsburg. I had really only been seeing the scene from the narrow perspective of my coffee spot on north Bedford Avenue. True, I knew about the Jewish Orthodox Chabad place upstairs, but it was like a parallel universe, sensed but never traveled through. Now, I realized that it was part of my universe, or, I was part of it and the world of the Satmars on the other side of the Williamsburg Bridge.

And what about the Jewish mega-high school? That is Khhd Yoel on Rutledge Avenue.

————————————————

For more features on Williamsburg-Greenpoint:

Brooklyn 1 Williamsburg Census Map ;

Illustrated Explorer’s Guide to Williamsburg & Greenpoint ; and

Surprising truth about Billburg & Greenpoint: thick with religious faith and practice .

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Better a dinner of herbs with a peaceful mind,, than a fatted ox that tries it. PRO15;17

Also, tomorrow we will run a pretty cool version of the Szyk Haggadah.

Great, looking forward to more articles to come

We will be doing some more cross-Brooklyn comparisons of Jewish groups.

I am really thankful to the son and his father rabbi. They told me some about their synagogue, of course, invited me to a come of age party for boys, and introduced me to a hospital meal delivery service among the Satmars. And more. We will run some more stories and photos as we get time. Thanks!

Good article, thanks for this. I’d like to hear more about Borough Park, too. How does it compare to the Orthodox Jews of Williamsburg & Greenpoint? More Hassidic Jews? What sects do they belong to and where are they from? and interesting note about the hospitality of the Satmar Jews “who seem so distant to outsiders.” quite true! What did you learn from the rabbi and his son?

Great article!

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• The Catholics of #Williamsburg and #Greenpoint, #Brooklyn › A Journey through NYC religions - […] The Jews of Williamsburg & Greenpoint. About 61,000 Jews live in the NYC community district of Williamsburg-Greenpoint.  […]
• The Great BQE Disruption of evangelicals in Williamsburg-Greenpoint › A Journey through NYC religions - […] The Jews of Williamsburg & Greenpoint. About 61,000 Jews live in the NYC community district of Williamsburg-Greenpoint.  […]
• The Bridge to the Land of the Devils › A Journey through NYC religions - […] The Jews of Williamsburg & Greenpoint […]

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12 Things to Do in Williamsburg

The neighborhood of Williamsburg, in Brooklyn, is one of the trendiest areas of the city. Here is a list of must-sees so you don't miss a thing

Isabel Catalán

10 min read

Tourist in North Williamsburg | @Carolina Machado

Williamsburg is a neighborhood of contrasts. In this area north of Brooklyn, hipsters and orthodox Jews coexist. In just a few streets, the atmosphere changes radically: from the most striking street art and old factories converted into restaurants to the austerity of the Jewish quarter.

Brooklyn is a 'must' on any trip to the city of skyscrapers and within Brooklyn, for me, Williamsburg is one of those authentic areas full of contrasts that is worth visiting. You can visit it on your own or take a tour of Williamsburg. Here's what you can't miss.

Brooklyn Williamsburg Tour

Discover new york's trendiest neighborhood.

Tour Williamsburg with a local guide who will give you all the details about this popular neighborhood, its street art and local culture.

On this tour of Williamsburg in Brooklyn you will wander with a local guide through one of the most unique neighborhoods in New York. A tour of approximately two hours in which you will pass through highlights such as the famous flea markets, the East River State Park, the Smorgasburg flea market or the Williamsburg Bridge.

You'll also explore street art and learn about the importance of beer at the Brooklyn Brewery - a highly recommended option!

Recommended if ... You don't want to miss any detail of this popular neighborhood.

1. Don't miss out on Williamsburg Bridge

This is one of the sites you will visit on the tour of Williamsburg in Brooklyn . Less known than its brother the Brooklyn Bridge, this bridge that connects Williamsburg with Manhattan is worthy of a walk through its surroundings (and surely more than one photo). Plus, you should know that when it was built in 1903, it became the longest suspension bridge in the world.

Best of all, you can still walk or bike across it today, so there's no excuse for not venturing over it.

Book a tour of Williamsburg in Brooklyn

2. Admire the urban art of Eduardo Kobra

Williamsburg is a hipster neighborhood with a very personal and alternative character. Despite the proliferation of fast food chains and luxurious residences (especially for Wall Street workers) over the last few years, its authentic works of art continue to adorn walls and walls, and on the tour of Williamsburg in Brooklyn you will see many of them.

And speaking of Street Art, we can't fail to mention Eduardo Kobra , a Brazilian artist who signs the most spectacular murals you'll see in the neighborhood. Besides, he has a very personal style , so I'm sure that after having seen a couple of his works, you'll know how to recognize him as soon as you come across another one of his murals.

Specifically, "Fight for Street art" is probably his most recognized work (it's a tribute to Andy Warhol and Basquiat). I'm sure you've seen it in a thousand photos. You'll find it at 147 Bedford Avenue .

3. Taste an authentic craft beer Made in Brooklyn

In North Williamsburg you'll be able to enjoy a delicious beer at the Brooklyn Brewery craft brewery. I recommend that you take advice from the experts and try the types of beer they have to offer. The place, moreover, could not be more authentic, so for me, it was the perfect place to take a break from the tourist life and feel like a New Yorker for an afternoon.

In the Williamsburg tour you will learn about the importance of this beer.

4. Take a tour of contrasts

Yes, the very famous New York contrasts tour passes through here (how could it be otherwise) and it's a good way to get to know the historical and cultural context of the neighborhood. Although it does not stop too much in this part of the city, I assure you that it will be a good introduction to the area and will give you the necessary brushstrokes for you to enjoy it on your own.

If you are thinking about doing the contrasts tour, you can read more information about the tour in my article about the New York Contrasts tour: how to book and prices , but I already tell you that there are many tours of New York in Spanish that are worth considering to tour the city by the hand of an expert guide.

Book the New York contrasts tour

5. Visit the Jewish Quarter, one of its main attractions

Surely, one of the main areas of the neighborhood that arouses the greatest curiosity is the Jewish Quarter. Within the Williamsburg neighborhood, the orthodox Jewish community lives mainly in the South Williamsburg area, which is reached by crossing under the Williamsburg Bridge . Where the community's life is concentrated is on Lee Avenue , the neighborhood's main thoroughfare. This is where most of its temples and businesses are located.

I invite you to wander the streets and browse or buy local products in the stores, but if you want to read more about this particular area, I have written an article on what to do and see in New York's Jewish Quarter to help you get around the key parts of the neighborhood.

6. Don't miss the huge mural The Chronicles of New York

By now you've probably figured out that street art is more than just a hobby in this area. And the tour of Williamsburg in Brooklyn will give you all the details. Throughout its streets you will find murals, graffiti and authentic works of art that you will want to keep in your retina.

Specifically, this spectacular mural is by the French artist JR. You will find it near Domino Park and you will be amazed by the combination of photographs of more than 1,000 New Yorkers and how he combines them with some of the most emblematic buildings of the city in black and white . You'll want to take a thousand pictures, and the challenge will be to get the whole picture (the size is more than considerable) into your lens!

7. A music lover's paradise, at Rough Trade

If you love music, you don't need any further explanation. You have to go to Rough Trade , the musical paradise where you will find thousands of CDs, vinyls , books and posters of the most legendary artists in history, but also of alternative bands and groups that you will love to discover. I warn you that you may lose track of time in there, but I assure you it will be worth it. You'll find it at 64 N 9th Street.

8. Stroll through Domino Park

New York is the city that has best redefined its former industrial spaces and this park is a good example of that. What was once a sugar refinery is now a park and promenade stretching along the river. The brick building with the huge chimney that guards the park gives the authentic touch to this area and its lounge chairs area is perfect for a rest if the weather is nice.

If you are a lover of green areas, you should know that in the middle of the concrete jungle of New York you will find spectacular parks with views of the river, the Skyline, mythical buildings... Check here which are the best parks in New York to choose where you will have your next picnic.

9. Have an authentic Colombian coffee at "Devoción"

I loved Devocion coffee shop with a Colombian soul and one of the best coffees I've had in New York to date. The place is super open, with lots of light and green details. Try to get the table next to the mythical Chester sofas to rest from your walk through the neighborhood!

The most 'foodies' will find in this area a paradise where to have the best coffees, brunches and menus of the city. If you want to organize your gastronomic route, take into account this list of places to eat in Brooklyn .

Book a food tour in Brooklyn

10. Recharge your batteries with a delicious meal

If there is something that stands out in Williamsburg is the authenticity of its locals. A stroll through its streets will be enough to identify cafes and restaurants where you can have a good coffee or take out your computer to work in a relaxed atmosphere.

In addition, I highly recommend you to book a food tour in Brooklyn and try delicious dishes that will fill you with energy to continue with the route through Williamsburg.

Book a Brooklyn food tour

11. Treat yourself to a designer souvenir from Home Coming

I warned you that you would find authentic places here, right? Well, at Home Coming you will find not only a super quiet place to have a good coffee (beware, the coffee menu is huge and you won't know which one to choose) but also a place to buy flowers or even decorative and design elements .

Instead of taking home the typical keychain, I am sure that here you will find more than one original and authentic souvenir to give or give yourself. Plus, the place is beautiful, so it doesn't cost anything to come in and take a look, right?

12. Go on a vintage hunt at the best stores in Williamsburg

Another thing you can do in Williamsburg is to go shopping. I'm sure that along your tour of the neighborhood you'll find more than one little stall on the street, or even see how some clothing or antique stores take part of their windows to the street (literally) to attract the attention of passersby.

But if you want to visit the shopping place par excellence in Williamsburg, visit Artists & Fleas , where you will find fashion and vintage art from emerging and renowned designers, second-hand items, decorative pieces... Definitely a good place to get an authentic souvenir of your trip to New York.

And before you start shopping, organize your budget and locate the best stores and flea markets. Here is a list of the best things to buy in New York , but if you want to find luxury items at bargain prices, it is best to visit Woodbury Commons, one of the best outlets in New York .

How to organize your visit if you go on your own

Spending an afternoon on your own in Williamsburg, or even a whole day if you have enough time, will give you a very complete view of New York. You can stroll through the more touristy part of the neighborhood to the north, but you can also immerse yourself in its Jewish Quarter further south. The best way to get there is by ferry (here I leave you the practical guide to use the New York ferry ) or directly by subway . You can also take the opportunity to get to know Brooklyn in detail. I leave you my :::link|text=Guide on what to see and what to do in Brooklyn|element=sc-1-747 so you can go as prepared as possible.

What to see in Williamsburg

In this area you will find alternative places to enjoy a good brunch or a really authentic coffee . You can also book a table for lunch or dinner at one of its hipster restaurants or stroll through one of its streets completely different from those of Manhattan, where industrial buildings of exposed brick and luxury and design hotels and houses prevail.

Last but not least, you can get to know the Jewish quarter where one of the largest Orthodox Jewish communities in the United States lives. Walking through its streets you can get an idea of how they live or what their customs are, in addition to buying or consuming delicious typical Jewish products .

Is Williamsburg safe?

Before you ask yourself if it is a safe area, let me tell you that it is . As the industrial area that it was, it should be noted that it lived through worse times, especially around the 60's, where crime was much more common in the area.

But when you get there you will see that, in general, it is a neighborhood full of life , with many New Yorkers going from one place to another (perhaps with less haste than in Manhattan) and full of cafes and curious stores that give a unique personality to the area.

Is it worth visiting with children?

Absolutely! Williamsburg has many areas suitable for strolling, green areas and outdoor terraces where you can sit and relax or have a bite to eat with the little ones.

If you travel to New York with children they may not appreciate the architecture of the area or the hipster atmosphere, but the parks, the huge murals of Street Art and the tranquility that is breathed in contrast to the chaos of Manhattan will conquer them.

What if I go at Christmas?

The best thing that New York' s winter leaves us with are the lights and the Christmas atmosphere. Take advantage of your visit to Williamsburg to visit the best of Brooklyn at Christmas: Dyker Heights . Starting in November and of course in December , this Brooklyn neighborhood is decked out in pure American style with millions of colorful lights and Christmas decorations that are worth a visit.

Frequently asked questions

Why is williamsburg worth visiting.

Outside of Manhattan, it is one of the trendiest districts in New York: it is full of hipster coffee shops, vintage stores, quiet streets and a very peculiar architecture that is worth visiting as a contrast to the bustle and skyscrapers of Manhattan.

What to see in Williamsburg?

Both its parks and its famous works of Street Art are a must-see in the area. In addition to having lunch or brunch in one of its many cafes, take the opportunity to discover its Jewish quarter.

Is Williamsburg the Jewish Quarter of New York?

The Orthodox Jewish community lives primarily in the South Williamsburg area. You will find it around Lee Avenue, which you can access by crossing under the Williamsburg Bridge.

Which is better, Brooklyn or Williamsburg?

Williamsburg is precisely part of northern Brooklyn, one of the 5 boroughs of New York. That's why I recommend you to dedicate a whole day to get out of Manhattan and discover Brooklyn in its entirety, visiting DUMBO, Williamsburg and its Jewish quarter.

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