In the late 1980s, Crown Heights locals going about their daily routine—rushing to farbrengens (Hasidic gatherings) with their Rebbe, or running errands down Kingston Avenue—might have glimpsed an anomaly in their midst: a Japanese woman, camera in tow, capturing the scenes around her. That woman was Chie Nishio, who spent a few years photographing members of the Chabad-Lubavitch community in Brooklyn, New York. Now, over 20 years later, her collection is finally receiving recognition at an exhibition in the Centreal branch of the Brooklyn Public Library, just a few blocks away from the community she so lovingly documented.

I met Nishio at the library last month to get a personal walkthrough of the photographs on display, 43 from the total collection of over 200 black and white prints. (Color would take away from the subject at hand, she insisted). Now 84, with silver hair framing her face, Nishio hasn’t lost any of the energy, wit and candor of her younger days.

As we scanned the prints she told me how she came to turn her lens on the Hasids of Crown Heights. Her interest was initially sparked by her Jewish husband, the acclaimed author James Trager. Though he was firmly atheist, Trager, now deceased, descended from illustrious lineage; his great-grandfather was one of the founding rabbis of the Jewish community in South Carolina. His grandfather moved to a Reform congregation interstate and the family, Trager included, eventually all assimilated.

Eager to learn more about her husband’s heritage, but with Trager unable to offer much insight, Nishio headed to Brooklyn to learn more about the people of the book. She didn’t have much luck with the strongly insular Satmar community in Williamsburg, where most were unwilling to engage with a foreigner and her camera. But in Crown Heights, a community unique among Hasidic sects for welcoming outsiders, Nishio was welcomed, and over the years she and her camera become a fixture in the Brooklyn enclave. She developed deep friendships with many of her subjects, and to this day she occasionally treks from her home in Manhattan to visit them in Crown Heights.

“I would say it all happened by accident,” Nishio laughs, “but with these people, there’s no such thing as accidental.” She points her finger heavenward. “It’s all arranged by God.”

Her photos offer an expansive yet deeply nuanced glimpse of Chabad life. Centered around the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, they portray a community of believers entrenched in ritual and practice. A one-month old baby laying on a silver tray for his pidyon haben ceremony, draped in cascading jewelry; a Bar Mitzvah boy checking the position of his tefillin in the mirror; a young bride trying on wigs in the salon before her wedding day.

Most notably, perhaps, the photos show the community’s reverence for its beloved leader, Rabbi Menachem Schneerson—known amongst his followers simply as ‘the Rebbe’—in the last years of his life, right before his death in 1994. Though women were not allowed into the main sanctuary of the synagogue at 770 Eastern Parkway, Nishio captured the Rebbe from their vantage point in the women’s gallery upstairs. And if the community’s acceptance wasn’t enough, the Rebbe himself seemed to overtly support Nishio’s mission by blessing her on more than one occasion.

In one image the Rebbe uncharacteristically turns aways from the men in the Synagogue, towards Nishio in the women’s gallery above, and hands her a roll of coins. The Rebbe used to hand out dollar bills, and less often coins, with a blessing, as a symbolic gesture to encourage his followers to in turn give the money to charity and pass along the blessing.

“Everyone said I was special,” Nishio told me, “they came up to me after asking for their share in the coins.”

On another occasion, when the Rebbe was handing out honey cake before Rosh Hashanah, he again called over Nishio who was photographing from a distance, giving her a piece of cake and blessings for a sweet year. And Nishio—by her own admission an ardent non-believer—seems to get excited recalling the memory. “Somehow, I don’t know how, he recognized me!” she smiles.

Though ostensibly an outsider, her photos reflect a deep sensitivity and keen understanding of the practices of daily Hasidic life, and also the individuals behind the portraits. They also show the diversity of a community committed to reaching out to and welcoming newcomers to the fold. There’s the bewigged lawyer who gazes out through the frame, the artist surrounded by his artwork inspired by Jewish mysticism, and the mother of six who also edits a magazine.

“I came with no prejudgement,” said Nishio. “Maybe that’s why they were so open to me.”

Nishio, a firm feminist who contributed regularly to Ms. Magazine, hints to a certain kinship with the woman of the community.

“When I came to the United States, people said to me, ‘Oh you’re not typical,’ because they have their own imaginations of what they think a Japanese woman is like. But they don’t know too much about it. Maybe based on a book, maybe they visited Japan and just saw the surface. So what I found in Crown Heights is that, yes, as an outsider walking in, the women are wearing a wig, long skirts, they’re supposed to cover their legs, but you walk in to talk to each family, each woman is different, each individual is different.”

“From the outside and from the inside it’s a completely different story most of the time,” she observed.

Perhaps Nishio is not, after all, an “unlikely portraitist,” but actually the ideal observer of this community, and the perfect person to document the color of its activities—in all the glory of black and white.

The exhibition, ‘The Hasidim of Crown Heights, Brooklyn: A Community Study by Chie Nishio’, is on display at the Brooklyn Public Library’s Central branch through February 1, 2015.

(Image: Chie Nishio)

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Inspired by Hollaback‘s viral (and controversial) video depicting a woman being catcalled on the streets of New York for ten hours straight, comedian Scott Rogowsky has documented his own experience as a publicly identifiable Jewish man. The results are appalling: he is harassed every few blocks by men from the Orthodox Chabad-Lubavitch movement, urging him to “do a mitzvah,” sniff an etrog, or say a prayer. They even speculate about whether or not he’s circumcised (captured in the screenshot above).

As a woman, I can not imagine what it would be like to subjected to this sort of harassment on a daily basis. Aside from occasionally being offered Shabbos candles in the subway in Brooklyn, my default position in communal, Orthodox Jewish religious practice is: pretty much invisible. Never have I felt more grateful to not be counted in a minyan. Halachic cloak of invisibility FTW!

Hats off to Rogowsky for his courage and good humor. Now, back to braiding those challahs in the peace and quiet of my kitchen.

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War, what is it good for? Policing female bodies, apparently.

COLlive.com reports that women in the Chabad enclave of Crown Heights, New York are organizing a tznius (modesty) contest for girls “in the merit of the safety of Israel.”

Beginning July 20, Project EDEN (which stands for “Eat Ice Cream and Defend Eretz Yisroel Now”) will encourage day camp attendees between the ages of 3 and 12 to wear modest clothing that keeps “necklines, elbows, knees and feet covered at all times.” The clothing compliant will then receive cards they can trade in for “great prize incentives,” like ice-cream and raffle entries. Why? Well, the Lubavitcher Rebbe saw a direct correlation between modesty and God’s protection, so… encouraging pre-pubescent girls to cover themselves up in the peak of summer seems like the natural next step towards a ceasefire, no? Because as we all know, there’s a causal relationship between the collarbones of 4-year-old girls and Hamas’ weapons cache.

Meanwhile, female visitors to the rabbinate in Ashdod, Israel, were initially blocked from entering the building’s bomb shelter on modesty grounds. MK Stav Shaffir told The Forward that her staffer observed a sign on the door that read “For men only.” Turns out the women’s shelter “was just a regular room, with windows and plaster walls and no indications of protection from rocket attacks.” SO NOT A SHELTER AT ALL, THEN. Writes Elana Sztokman:

In response to women’s exclusion from the bomb shelter in the Ashdod rabbinate, MK Stav Shaffir filed an urgent complaint with the Religious Affairs Ministry, demanding to put an immediate halt to the segregation. “The idea that women seeking shelter from a rocket barrage are met with a closed door is untenable,” she told Yediot Ahronot. “Discrimination against women is unacceptable under any circumstances, but when this discrimination prevents women from protecting themselves, it’s not only unacceptable but also dangerous.” Apparently the administration of the rabbinic courts was unaware of the exclusion, and responded to Shaffir’s query with embarrassment. “It was a local initiative of an employee acting without formal authority,” they responded. “The rabbinical court views such attempts at gender segregation in a very severe light and will take serious actions against those involved.”

Just keep those elbows covered, ladies.

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Recently engaged Crown Heights couple Zevi Goldin, 25, and Chana Simon, 21, are indebted to an unorthodox—but very determined—matchmaker: UPS deliveryman Terry Spiers.

Spiers has worked in the neighborhood for many years, delivering to various Jewish families and businesses, and has long had his heart set on making a shidduch. Two of the regulars on his delivery route are the Goldin family and the educational non-profit where Simon’s mother works, and a couple of years ago he began to focus his efforts on their respective families, trying to arrange a match.

“He always tries to put people together,” the bride’s mother Regina Simon told COLlive.com, “but I never looked into it… I didn’t take it seriously.” Then, to her surprise, one of her married daughters suggested setting Chana up with someone called Zevi Goldin, which prompted further investigation. Spiers acted as the go-between, asking Goldin for his shidduch resume and passing his number onto Chana’s uncle, a local shadchan (matchmaker).

“I was dismissive of the entire thing until he came back and told us, ‘Yeah, her mom is really interested. Do you have one of those things, a shidduch resume?'” Goldin told DNAinfo New York. “Next thing I knew, her uncle was calling me up to try to set up a date.”

Goldin says he knew Simon was his bashert by their second date, but he waited two months before proposing. The couple will be married on June 2.

Mazel tov!

Image: Tupungato / Shutterstock.com

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