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The Hasidism Exchange, Part 3: Tensions in the Hasidic world

[additional-authors]
March 4, 2015

Joseph Berger has been a New York Times reporter, columnist, and editor for thirty years. He is the author of numerous books including Displaced Persons: Growing Up American After the Holocaust, which was a New York Times Notable Book; The World in a City: Traveling the Globe Through the Neighborhoods of the New New York; and The Young Scientists: America's Future and the Winning of the Westinghouse. He lives in Westchester County, New York.

This exchange focuses on Mr. Berger’s critically acclaimed new book The Pious Ones: The World of Hasidim and Their Battles with America (Harper Collins, 2014). You can find parts one and two here and here.

 ***

Dear Mr. Berger,

At the end of your second round answer you mentioned the serious difference between the Lubavitch Hasidim – who are quite ambitious when it comes to proselytizing and attracting more Jews to their brand of Hasidism – and the rest of the Hasidic world, which is more concerned with secluding adherents from the outside world.

I’d like to ask you about the Hassidic world’s reaction to the Chabad movement and to its followers. Does a remarkable phenomenon like the spreading of Chabad centers throughout the Jewish world lead to any discussions, dialogue, or tension between different Hasidic sects? More generally, how close do adherents of different varieties of Hasidim feel to one another? Is there any sense of pan-Hasidic unity and a shared cause, or are the different sects as secluded from each other as they are from the outside world?

Thank you again for your interesting book and for doing this exchange.

Yours,

Shmuel.   

***

 Dear Shmuel,

 The Lubavitch are indeed sui generis within the Hasidic world. And in the 1980s when Satmar Hasidim accused the Lubavitcher Hasidim of proselytizing in Williamsburg–their home turf–these tensions exploded into full-out combat when there was a report that a Lubavitch man was seized on the streets and had his beard shaved off as a warning. 

In general, however, Hasidic sects get along with one another though there is sometimes no love lost. 

 Hasidic sects who fervently oppose Israel's existence (before the coming of the Messiah) like the Satmar seem to have closer relationships with like-minded sects. And Williamsburg, a hub of Hungarian-derived Hasidim, seems the center of that faction. Bobov and Belz seem among the most open to other viewpoints. And in Borough Park, the most diverse of the Hasidic neighborhoods, relative amity thrives among the different groups, even the Satmar who live there. That is probably the result of the multiplicity of Hasidic sects and the fact that they live next to one another as in a mosaic. 

 The tensions that have come to the fore in recent years result from splits within the Hasidic dynasties themselves. Two brothers, Aharon and Zalman, dispute the leadership of Satmar, with Zalman followers more prevalent in Williamsburg and acolytes of Aharaon dominant in Kiryas Joel. They have created separate synagogues, school systems, banquet halls etc. And they are in secular court over ownership of properties like a grand synagogue in Williamsburg. Viznitz has similar interior dynastic quarrels. So far there has been in recent years little violence, though years ago a breakaway group in Kiryas Joel said its houses were firebombed, windows broken and children kicked out of the school system.

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