22 Oct
Culture, Latest, Religion

Hasidim, Hipsters, and the New Crown Heights

by Symi Rom-Rymer Hasidim and Hipsters can’t be friends, so says conventional wisdom.  But maybe they can eat together.  At least that’s what Danny Branover, principal owner of Basil Pizza and Wine bar in Crown Heights is hoping. Crown Heights, the Brooklyn neighborhood perhaps most infamously known for the 1991 riots that irrupted between the neighborhood's Hasidic and black communities, is home to a mix of ethnic and religious groups including immigrants from the Caribbean, Lubavitcher Jews, and African-Americans.  In recent years, an influx of young, liberal professionals have moved in adding yet another cultural and social imprint on the neighborhood. According to a New York Times piece about Basil by Frank Bruni, former food critic for the Times, the idea for the restaurant started when Branover, himself a member of the Lubavitch movement, moved from Jerusalem to...

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06 Oct
Culture, Latest, Religion

New Voices goes Inside Chabad

Chabad, the ubiquitous Jewish movement best known among American Jews for its outreach on college campuses, is in many ways a mystery. Why, unlike most ultra-Orthodox, do the Lubavitch reach out to rather than reject secular Jews? What do they get when you put on t'fillin? Are they Zionist or anti-Zionist? What do they think of mainstream Jewish movements and what do those movements think of them? Do all Lubavitchers even share the same views on these issues? A new issue of New Voices, the national Jewish student magazine, addresses these questions, exploring the less known—and often troubling—aspects of Chabad. "As one JTA staffer noted," writes Ben Harris of the JTA, "it’s pretty 'ballsy' of NV to take on Lubavitch, though takedown is probably a more accurate description." Takedown or not, New Voices has done what no...

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