Chaim Potok and the Rebbe Walk into a Bar.
A farbrengen is a Hasidic spiritual gathering–it can be just a handful of people, or a few thousand. Stories and folktales are told, wordless niggunim are sung, and, more often than not, alcohol is...
View ArticleMitzvah Tantz
The mitzvah tantz is one of Hasidic Judaism’s most bizarre rituals. It takes place at weddings, when the leading members of a community–a prominent rabbi or the bride’s new father-in-law, or...
View ArticleVideo: Fake Hasids, Real Hasids
Hollywood has long been fascinated with Hasidic Jews. From A Stranger Among Us (1992) to New York I Love You (2009)—featuring Natalie Portman as a Satmar wife—to Madonna’s most recent film W.E. (2011),...
View ArticleVideo: Hasidic Boy Wins Chinese Dance-Off
However did we miss this? Does anyone know who this boy is, and how he made it to this dance contest in Shenzen, China? We would really like to know. The post Video: Hasidic Boy Wins Chinese Dance-Off...
View ArticleAn American Folksinger With A Hasidic Twist
When you first listen to Levi Robin‘s tender, breathy vocals and hypnotic fingerpicking, what comes to mind is likely Iron & Wine or Bob Dylan. But if you close your eyes and listen to the lyrics,...
View ArticleThe Other Kabbalah-Loving L.A. Musician
LA-based singer-songwriter Mikey Pauker’s inspirations come from across the map. From contemporary pop music to Jewish liturgy, hasidut, kabbalah, and his own Jewish experiences, Pauker skillfully...
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When Falling in Love Means Leaving Ultra-Orthodoxy Behind
Meira is young, Hasidic, and miserable. She hides her birth control pills and her doo-wop records from her husband Shulem, roaming the wintry streets of Montreal just to get air. “Why are you trying to...
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A New, True Story About Growing Up Hasidic and Leaving
Ex-Hasidic narratives — they seemed to be publishing’s hot ticket for a few minutes, with Anouk Markovits’s I Am Forbidden, Leah Vincent’s Cut Me Loose, and others. But Unpious editor Shulem Deen’s new...
View ArticleWhen Bob Dylan Went Hasidic at a Chabad Telethon
Bob Dylan is a well-known iconoclast, from his combative tone with reporters (see this clip from the 1967 Dylan documentary Don’t Look Back) to his born-again Christian phase in the late 1970s and...
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Why Hasids Celebrate Xmas Eve (Sort Of)
Christmas Eve has such a marked place in European Jewish history that it has its own name: Nittel Nacht. As a precaution against the violent acts by marauding Eastern European and Russian Christians,...
View ArticleBizarre Torah Taxidermy in the Heart of Jewish Brooklyn
Tucked away in a brownstone in the Brooklyn shtetl of Borough Park is a family-friendly attraction of almost Biblical proportions: Torah Animal World, or the “spiritual taxidermy center” of New York...
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These Hasidic Legos Are Coming to a Death Star Shul Near You
The wonder of Legos is that you’re supposed to be able to build anything you can imagine. While sitting around their Baltimore Shabbos table, Tobey Finkelstein and family decided that what they wanted...
View ArticleRabbi Art Green (still) believes Hasidic ideas are key to a vibrant modern...
(JTA) — Rabbi Art Green is a scholar of worldwide renown, the author of dozens of books, one of the world’s leading experts on Hasidic Judaism and perhaps the only person ever to lead two different...
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