THE BORDER. THE ULTRA ORTHODOX JEWISH COMMUNITY OF NEW YORK.

Williamsburg, in Brooklyn, is a neighborhood known for its flea markets, modern bars, vintage shops, art galleries and because it is one of New York’s cutting-edge sceneries. Prosperous, trendy and modern residents with irresistible hairstyles and outfits that vanish once they get close to "The Border".

Broadway Street marks the line between hipsters and ultraorthodox Jews in the same neighborhood. Crossing the street involves traveling to another reality and bumping into an antagonistic world within twenty yards.

Families of eight members, all dressed in black, heads covered, trellised buildings, modesty and silence. Reactions of who enters for the first time in the ultraorthodox side of Williamsburg may vary from curiosity, perplexity or even fear. I have seen a variety of reactions but they all have a common cause: Ignorance. Who are they and why do they not share our way of life?

     

                 

For the Hasidic Satmar community, formed mainly by Hungarian and Romanian Holocaust survivor Jews, religion is a way of life that marks strictly how to dress, what to eat or how to spend their leisure. Everything in their lifestyle has an explanation and to discover why, it's exciting. Married women must cover their hair, there are those who do by a hat or turban, although most of them wear a wig called "sheitel" which allows them to have a common look and yet reserve their beauty only to their husband . The Hungarians also tend to wear cropped hair under the wig. Decorum is an essential quality in them, so the rest of your outfit is on the same line. Skirts below the knee, long stockings, never necklines and sleeves to the elbow. A consistent aesthetic that makes us perceived them as clones.

                    

Men cover their heads, first with the yarmulke, typical Jewish beret, but larger and made of black velvet, and then a wide-brimmed hat covered with fox fur called "spodic". So, they cover their heads, and they do it twice, to always remember that above them God is watching all their movements. Males also have two curls on the sides of the head.

The rest of their clothing is very similar to that used by their ancestors in the eighteenth century, the same as the first ultra-Orthodox Jews who came to New York after World War II. First settled in the Lower East Side in Manhattan, where they left a beautiful synagogue in Norfolk Street, the oldest in the city. But in 1950, Rabbi Teitelbaum, one of the lucky few who made ​​it out of Auschwitz into a rescue train called the "Noah's Ark", decided to establish the center of the Hasidic community in Williamsburg. At that time were a small group, today they are about eighty thousand and in twenty years their numbers would have doubled. Every night in the community are being celebrated from ten to twelve weddings, divorces hardly exist and each couple has an average of six children.

No need to do any population study to realize its unstoppable growth by just walking the streets. Before crossing the border, in Broadway St, children are uncommon and there are many dogs, once in the Jewish area, there are only children and not a single dog.

The high birth rate with the lack of higher education makes poverty rates quite high in the community. This was a feature that surprised me about them. Far from the image we have of Jewish people, of success and wealthy businessman, about half of the ultra-Orthodox families are living below the poverty line and this is due to several factors. To begin with the lack of higher education necessary to achieve high-wage jobs and children attending their own schools where education is focused mainly on the study of the scriptures, does not help a lot. A study that still devoting much of their time as adults, forcing women to work at home and away. Most of them also in low-skilled jobs.

                                            

Out of the benefits provided by the State of Israel to the Jews, the ultra-Orthodox do not take any advantage. Moreover, they reject them as if scum was. One afternoon while doing a transfer in the subway I saw who seemed to me a Hasidic Jew carrying a banner that read "Israel is the devil", as in New York there are all sorts of everything, I just thought it would be a performance, but sometimes true is stranger than fiction. For ultra-Orthodox Jews the state of Israel is the cause of much of the evils of this world. They crave the Promised Land but not the one is reached by war, but the one the messiah will bring, when he arises. Furthermore, they believe that the Holocaust was a direct cause of the birth of Zionism in the nineteenth century, just as it is today terrorism and violence in all its forms.

                            

But borders often have more leaks which at first sight appear. The word "Ikea" seems incompatible with the term ultra-orthodox, well, it's not. Maybe you have more Hasidic buying there per square meter than in Lee Avenue, the high street of the community, any given Sunday. The grocery store with the best bargains in the area: "Doña Piña", is also shared by hipsters, Latinos and Jews to claim a dollar pack of asparagus. The contrary also happens; I repair my shoes in a small shop owned by an ancient Jew who charges me half price of the average cost and leaves them as new. It is their traditional lifestyle which makes them great cobblers, craftsmen or bakers. Quality products behind miserable shop-windows that make you think twice about coming in.

They eagerness in not showing-off makes them to overlook the image of their business and storefronts to the unimaginable. But what was a surprise for me and my friend from Alicante, that stayed with me for a few days, was that while visiting the area, she realized that the shoes "Chupetín" made ​​in her hometown; Villena, the ones that Spaniards have stopped buying in favor of cheaper choices of different origins, such as the Chinese, are sold today in the ultra-orthodox neighborhood of Williamsburg.

                                     

The relationship between this community and New York City Council passed its tense moments but overall is good. The city politicians know that the group votes as a bloc and to have their religious leaders happy is crucial. The city has not agreed to his demand of libraries closing on Saturday (their Sabbath), the day of rest for Jews, and then opening on Sundays. Neither the municipal swimming pool lifeguard being a woman in the female classes. But they succeed, for example, in being allowed to use water wells to make their bread, setting up some anti-bacteriological filters and not having to use chemically treated water from the tap.

The Jews can only eat "Kosher" foods, which means adequate or suitable. What is suitable and what is not, is also written in the scriptures. The Kosher laws are widespread; they only eat ruminant animals with cloven hoofs, i.e. sheep, cow or goat, never horse or pig. The animals have to be slaughtered while are conscious through a cut in the neck to lose all the blood, because blood is not allowed to eat. Fish must have tail and scales, seafood is not kosher. Milk cannot be mixed with meat and wine is Kosher if it is made by a Jew. Usually a rabbi is who certifies whether something is suitable or not.

                             

They are different, very different to me, they are my neighbors and I love walking their streets on a Sunday to buy some pastries, which certainly make great, and liking the idea that you can live in many other ways. That's the best of New York, which is not in the travel guides, nor the movies, the cultural diversity and the different ways of living, you can like it or not but they are like you and live next to you.