Stop making me apologize for being Chassidic & Proud.
An excerpt from "Be like The Moon: a Chassidic memoir."
Based on an article published on The Christian Broadcasting Network website, July 2020.
I’m an unapologetic Chassidic American. However, in recent years, my community has been marginalized, vilified, caricatured, and scapegoated. We’re blamed for the outbreak of plagues like COVID-19 or the measles. We’re objectified and used, non-consensually, for salacious entertainment in films like Holy Rollers, Unorthodox, and Disobedience. We’re castigated as illiterate, barbaric outsiders and forced by the
media to wear the label of “Ultra-Orthodox,” effectively dehumanizing us as extremists. We’re repeatedly targeted by public officials, television broadcasters, and those who irresponsibly wield a cultural megaphone.
All this only serves to fan the flames of the us-versus-them mentality that endangers minority groups like mine. Chassidic Americans in New York (and Orthodox Jews in general) are under attack, with more than half of New York City’s recent hate crimes targeting Jews. These attacks are not sui generis in nature. With our distinctive religious attire and visible head coverings, the Orthodox make an easy target for physical violence and societal prejudice. The vile judgmentalism against my brethren obscures the healthy multiculturalism our proud republic was founded upon.
For centuries, my ancestors lived under regimes where adherents of the Jewish faith were told what jobs they were allowed to have, which shtetl they were allowed to live in, and when they were allowed to defend themselves against the rampant riots of anti-Semitism. Those were the good days.
Today, approximately half of the global Jewish population has ended up in the United States because the First Amendment protects our right to freely observe our religion. And it is gratitude for our nation’s values that inspired Irving Berlin, an American Jew, to pen those words during World War I that are now chanted by everyone from sports heroes to politicians: “G-d bless America.” My Torah-adherent brethren
patriotically (and accurately) refer to the United States as a Medina Shel Chessed — a “Country of Kindness” — for one simple reason:
Here we are armed with the freedom
to be who we are
and the right
to practice what we believe.
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