Tablet Magazine » Boro Park

Today on Tablet

the Editors — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 15:00:03 +0000

Today in Tablet Magazine, you’ll want to spend some time listening to Fyvush Finkel (you’ll know him when you see/hear him) on the Vox Tablet podcast. Mark Bergen reports on the controversial plan to build publicly subsidized housing for ultra-Orthodox families in Boro Park, Brooklyn. Josh Lambert’s weekly rundown of forthcoming books of interest is Holocaust-themed. The Scroll was going to make a pun on truth-bombs, but how about not.

How To Lose Jews and Not Influence Them

Marc Tracy — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 16:00:14 +0000

Every New York City and state political candidate should (and probably will) read these five rules (via Ben Smith) for campaigning in ultra-Orthodox communities, and follow them, er, religiously. They are insightful, wry (“Boro Parkers are NOT amish. Everything you say WILL be recorded”), and dead-on. Paladino, the Tea Party-backed New York Republican gubernatorial candidate, saw an opportunity to win the votes of Brooklyn’s heavily observant Jews, who hold conservative views on social issues like abortion and gay marriage but are heavily backing Democratic nominee Andrew Cuomo. This philosophy was shared by Rabbi Yehuda Levin, the small-time politically conservative pseudo-Hasid who served as Paladino’s ambassador to the community before summarily de-endorsing him last week for apologizing for saying mean things about gay people.

This strategy is a prime demonstration that a little learning is a dangerous thing: It seems logical on its face, but in practice it was never going to work. Because here’s the thing about these Orthodox communities:

2- Don’t bash gays. This is the major mistake that many politicians outside of Boro Park make. They think that Boro Parkers care about social issues. They’re wrong. Boro Parkers care about social-service issues not social issues. As far as they are concerned, violating shabbos, eating pork and gay marriage are in the same category—transgressions of Jewish law. But Boro Parkers aren’t trying to convert the world, they’re only trying to improve theirs.

A New York Post article buttresses the case. The influential Rabbi Herschel Kurzrock notes, “Andrew Cuomo is too liberal. But Paladino is a wild man, and that’s the problem.” (He says he is open-minded about tonights’ seven-way debate.) A Lubavitcher rabbi is obviously not pleased with Cuomo’s having taken his children to a gay pride parade. But, he adds, “He’s not running for rabbi.”

Not that the Jews are the most of Paladino’s problems: A new poll has him trailing Cuomo 59 to 24 percent.

Jewish Politics: 5 Reasons Why Paladino Lost The Orthodox Jewish Vote After Visiting Boro Park [The Yeshiva World News]
Gay Issue, Paladino Spur ‘Rift’ in Haredi Community [NY Post/Failed Messiah]
Earlier: The Rabbi Who Influenced Paladino’s Speech
Rabbinic Svengali Quits Paladino

Daybreak: Obama Takes Charge

Marc Tracy — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 13:00:54 +0000

• This week’s generally successful direct talks perhaps above all represented the United States—and particularly President Obama—showing how powerful it remains. [Politico]

• Speaking of which, the United States is reportedly pressuring President Abbas not to leave the talks even should West Bank building start up when the freeze expires later this month. [Haaretz]

• Meanwhile, the problem with Hamas’ attacks (and pledged attacks), beyond them themselves, is that they represent broader division among the Palestinian people over the attractiveness of peace talks, including among Palestinian Authority leadership. [WSJ]

• Want your West Bank microcosm? It’s Hebron. [LAT]

• Influential columnist Ari Shavit asks whether we should be aiming for an interim deal rather than a comprehensive, final one. [Haaretz]

• Four Orthodox members of a Shomrim Patrol were shot last night in Boro Park; all survived. [NYT]

Guss’ Pickles Decamps For Brooklyn

Marc Tracy — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 15:16:42 +0000

Manhattan’s Lower East Side has already lost most vestiges of its history as the teeming neighborhood whose tenements housed many of our ancestors. Yet there is still something depressing about Orchard Street landmark Guss’ Pickles decision to move across the East River to Brooklyn’s heavily ultra-Orthodox Boro Park. The pickle emporium, which opened on nearby Essex Street in 1910 and which still closes on Saturdays, reportedly needed more room and couldn’t afford a bigger rent in the neighborhood. So here we have another ravage to chalk up to gentrification, which has either destroyed what remained of “the old neighborhood” or turned it into an object of commemoration. Still, gentrification also undoubtedly increased the neighborhood’s Jewish population—albeit with Jews of the more secularized, yuppiefied variety—and it’s a shame they can no longer walk down the street and pick up a fresh, sour, briney pickle.

Guss’ Pickles Packing Up for Brooklyn [Bowery Boogie]