Photo du jour: Hasidic celebration

6 comments

1. I can’t figure out what holiday they are celebrating – I thought it might be Shavuot, but that was earlier in June. Perhaps it is an event pertaining to their own congregation?

   It is interesting seeing the celebration from the women’s standpoint – usually we see the men in more evidence. Little girls so sweet.

   Still, from my admittedly secular viewpoint, I do find it sad that these girls and young women will live such restricted lives, in comparison with modern Jewish women – including modern Orthodox.

2. Well, I have a secular Jewish friend who often remarks that he is very glad he wasn’t born into a Hasidic family. Still, in some ways the Hasidic communities are a lot less insular than most people think. They’re not completely closed off from the world. In fact, in a strange sense, the Hasidim are very globalized. Malka Zipora, who recently published a memoir about her life as a Hasidic woman and mother living in Outremont, was born in Israel to Hungarian parents, raised in Australia and finally moved here when she got married.

   I’m not entirely sure what they were celebrating but it was definitely related to their own congregation; they marched down to a synagogue at Lajoie and Durocher. There was a similar celebration a week or two ago at Hutchison and St. Viateur and, back in the winter, there was an even larger one when the abandoned building at Van Horne and Hutchison was renovated and converted into a synagogue.

3. “I have a secular Jewish friend who often remarks that he is very glad he wasn’t born into a Hasidic family.”

   No shit. Me too.

   Any secular Jew who wanted into Hasidism would certainly be accepted, at least by the Lubovitch sect, which is quite active in trying to attract Jews into the fold. Make a single donation to Chabad House and see what happens: they’ll never leave you alone.

   As for the celebration in question, no clue. Keep in mind that these movements have their own Rebbes (Rabbis) that are held as holy or even messianic and therefore events that have nothing to do with the mainstream Jewish holy calendar. Perhaps something to do with that?

4. Yes, I’ve been meaning to read Malka Zipora’s book and haven’t got round to it yet.

   I crossed the celebration outside the Shul at Hutchison and St-Viateur a couple of years ago, and didn’t want to be so impertinent as to ask a man what it was about, so I asked a couple of teenaged girls (as older women might speak only Yiddish and the language of the country they hail from, such as Hungarian or Polish) – they replies “Don’t you know, the Rabbi is in town?!”

   Seems to have been a visit by a famous Rabbi, or Rebbe, from Brooklyn. Yes, they do have ties to NYC, Israel, Paris and other places.

5. The hebrew on the stand that they are carrying says “honour the Torah” which would seem to indicate that they are celebrating the arrival of a new sefer Torah http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sefer_Torah. Although it could also be a visit by some famous Torah ‘master’….

6. Yehi adonenou morenou verabenou meleh amashiah leolam vaed
   Vive le roi