When someone says Williamsburg the first word that pops into most people’s heads is “hipster”: too-cool-for-school millennials feigning indifference, well thought-out nonchalance expertly uploaded to Instagram. But where north meets south at Broadway Avenue, a whole different world exists. The dress code turns black and white and the streets are filled with ultra-Orthodox Jews; the men distinguished by their side curls, the women by the lines of children who follow after them, some pushing strollers themselves. In this community, the internet and crushing modernity that looms around every corner is perceived as the biggest threat to their pious way of life.

In 2012, the community’s rabbis gathered tens of thousands of followers at Citi Field for an urgent proclamation against the use of the Internet. Outside on the corner of the street, protected by police, stood about 50 people, all former members of the same community, standing up against the rabbinical leaders. They protested that the leaders were not addressing the right problems—instead of directly addressing the darker issues within the community itself, they were blaming the outside world.

This is where the idea for our upcoming Kickstarter-funded feature film ‘The Other Side’ was born. While our movie is a work of fiction, it is largely based on the true stories of people who have left the Satmar Hasidic community in Williamsburg. We took those stories, fictionalized and reimagined them, and created an indie drama about a young Hasidic Jewish man who turns to the outside world for help in exposing a crime being committed within his community. In the process, his family and world are turned upside down and he comes to question all that he has believed in.

We agonized over each word of this story, knowing that exploring the dark subject of sexual abuse in the Orthodox community would encounter resistance—some people might even label project as anti-Semitic. All of us involved in creating the film are Jewish and our goal has always been to make the Jewish community stronger. I grew up as a reform Jew, director Dani Tenenbaum is Israeli, and our other two partners are both former members of the Hasidic community. We understand why the community has been so reluctant to talk about the issue of sexual abuse. But now is the time to speak up and to stop the silence.

In ‘The Other Side’ we will explore the beauty and deviance that coexist in the Hasidic enclave of Williamsburg, and how a thriving hipster community right next door tempts young members away from a life of safety to a life of the unknown. To stay true to the authenticity of the cultures, we will shoot the movie in Yiddish, English, and also some Hebrew.

Since our Kickstarter campaign started, we have received many emails, messages, and comments—from people within the community who are extremely supportive of the project, and also from those who hope that this topic never sees the light of day. We can’t make this movie without the help of the public. We’ve created a short video to introduce you to the project, as well as an interactive video where you can “choose your own adventure” and discover the different worlds of our film.

This is a very dynamic time in the Hasidic community of Brooklyn. New voices are being heard, and the old structure of the community is changing. As the number of people leaving this world grow, the need to explore what this phenomenon really means—on an individual level, and for Judaism as a whole—grows more urgent. It’s a story of clashing cultures and changing perceptions. It’s ‘The Other Side.’

Stacey Maltin is the screenplay writer and producer of ‘The Other Side.’ She has BFA from NYU Tisch with a minor in journalism and has been working professionally in film and theater for over ten years.

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Ah, the melting pot of Williamsburg, where hipsters and the ultra-Orthodox collide.

Last summer, seven Hasidic store owners in Brooklyn put up signs forbidding low cut necklines, shorts, and the scantily-clad like, to the great dismay of the NYC’s Human Rights Commission. The commission found the signs unjust and sued the stores for up to $75,000 for discriminately targeting women.

Two days ago, an agreement was reached. Yeshiva World News reported:

“The commission decided to withdraw the lawsuit Tuesday after the city and representatives from the stores came to an agreement that if they were to post new signs in their windows, they would note that while modest dress is appreciated, all individuals are welcome to enter the stores free from discrimination.”

The seven stores involved in the dispute are Sander’s Bakery, Lee Avenue Clothing Center, Tiv Tov Stores, Greenfield’s Foods, Friedman’s Depot Inc. and Etty’s Handbags.

Jay Lefkowitz, an Orthodox Jewish politician representing the businesses, said the exact wording of the new signs are still being finalized.

“The shopkeepers always said that nobody was actually excluded from the stores,” he said. “Any future signs will make clear that everybody is welcome, which was the reality.”

Next time you head to Lee Avenue for some babka, make sure you grab a sweater–as if you didn’t already have one on you.

(Photo by Getty/Failed Messiah)

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28-year-old artist Michael Levin has always used concepts of Jewish identity as inspiration, whether it was building a shrine to the apocryphal “Red Jews” or painting on shaimos, aka “retired” pieces of scripture. His newest series, Jews of Today, features arresting, intricately detailed depictions of Hasidim in Williamsburg, and is on display starting tomorrow at 7 Dunham Gallery in South Williamsburg. He’s also publishing Jews of Today, an illustrated primer on Hasidic dress, in conjunction with the exhibit.

In the series, Levin zeroes in on the sartorial aspects of Hasidic culture: various styles of beaver hats, the ornate robes worn by the Satmar rebbes, and the “rebbish” hems of shirts worn by boys from prominent families. While his fascination with his pious neighbors borders on reverence, his outsider status and sense of humor keeps the work from becoming a strict homage. I talked to Levin about Italian conversos, Tay-Sachs, Plato, and Orientalism.

Where did you grow up? What is your Jewish background? Was your family observant?

I grew up in Los Angeles, born and raised. Only my father’s family is Jewish; my mother is from an Italian Catholic family in San Francisco, and converted when she married my dad. Of course, there is much speculation about her family origins. Her maiden name is Bonfilio, which is a common name for Italian conversos (Jews who converted to Catholicism during the inquisition).

Regardless, having a mixed background while being raised with a strong Jewish consciousness—a term I use because we were not, nor am I now, religiously observant in any significant way—brought up a lot of issues. For one, friends would constantly say I wasn’t really Jewish, because my mother wasn’t born Jewish. This wasn’t said maliciously at all, just in that casual way that can really stick with you. It was often followed by the acknowledgement that I was the most “Jewish” of all of our friends anyway (in some intangible way that I also could sense but never understand). I guess it got me thinking from an early age about what constitutes “Jewishness,” what that je ne sais quoi is that can make someone so Jewish even without the risk of Tay-Sachs—or without even keeping kosher.

You studied Classics at the University of Chicago. Does this influence your work at all?

I have always been an artist, but not a committed one until my early twenties, after University of Chicago had made an intellectual of me. My studies do inform my painting, but more in terms of big ideas and ways of thinking. I don’t sit down to paint thinking about Plato, but I do think about the issues that interested me in the classics, which centered around the process of cultural exchange and integration, and ways of constructing the insider/outsider dynamic.

When did you move to Williamsburg?

I moved to South 2nd and Bedford in January 2007, about six months after graduating. At that time this was still on the outskirts of what young college grads thought of as “Williamsburg.” I started seeing Hasidim around here and there, and, after deciding to commit myself as an artist, they became the center of my work. At Chicago we were always trained to find “problems”—more like questions that carry the flavor of something wrong or amiss—and make them the starting point for any research. So because of this training, I got very little out of painting landscapes or self-portraits. Hasidim were the only subjects in my view that constituted a “problem” for me. So my painting became a kind of extension of my academic study, and Hasidim a new subject for the same set of questions I had already been dealing with, only now in a more personal sphere, because of my abiding difficulties in establishing my own Jewish identity. Add to that how strangely arresting and beautiful the Hasidic look is, to me at least, and there you have the genesis of this work.

Do you draw mostly from memory? What I’m trying to ask here is: how much skulking around Williamsburg do you do?

It’s almost all from memory, but the way I get my memories is by skulking around Williamsburg, a lot. Part of the reason I’m going to Pratt next year for my MFA and not somewhere else is that I can walk there, and that walk takes me right through the heart of the Hasidic neighborhood. I don’t take pictures of people on the street. I take pictures from my window sometimes, but putting a camera in someone’s face doesn’t feel right to me. Painting is my alternative, a way to preserve my memories and also push my conceptual agenda into them.

Are there any other artistic traditions that inspire your work?

Definitely miniature painting, especially the international Islamic miniature style popular from Persia to India. I want to take Jews out of the European narrative, and there is something about Mughal painting in particular that really suits this subject. Of course 19th century Orientalist painting is a big influence too. I kind of see myself as an Orientalist, because (if you’ve ever read Edward Said), the Orientalist approach was to use exotic cultures to reflect one’s feelings about one’s own heritage, and not to objectively document a different culture.

So I’m looking at Hasidim as this “primitive” eastern culture that nonetheless carries some essence of what makes me me. It’s a laughable idea, and I mean it as a little joke about alienation most of the time. Besides, there is the view that most people have (and never question) that Hasidim are the real, authentic Jews; that we all used to dress like that and then some of us decided to sneak out and put on “white people” clothes. The Hasid is the primitive Jew in the popular imagination, a view which is utterly baseless yet very stubborn.

What’s on the horizon for you? Do you think you will stick with Hasidim as subjects, or do you feel yourself moving in a different direction?

More Hasidim is where my heart is, but the MFA process is bound to push me in some unexpected direction. Whatever happens, I have unfinished business with this subject and will most definitely return to it (if I ever leave it, that is).

Jews of Today is on display at 7 Dunham gallery in South Williamsburg from July 20-31, with an opening reception July 20 from 7-10 p.m. The book is available online and at the exhibit.

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Forget fashion week—this season’s sartorial drama involves rabbis and skinny jeans.

As if the tension between hipsters and Haredim in Williamsburg wasn’t enough, an edict released by a group of Haredi rabbis, including the son of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, bans their male constituents from wearing tight pants. Clearly, they don’t believe skinny jeans and True Religion have much to do with each other.
 
The letter encourages men to “uphold the sanctity of the camp,” and also includes the apothegm, “The clothes of a person are an indication of his character.” The other side of the letter features an image of Haredi rabbis of yesteryear sporting loose-fitting clothing.
 
This does not bode well for jeggings.

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• From Seville to Hasidic Williamsburg: the black hat-making industry.

• Artists take on the task of illustrating the great Jewish quotes, from Deuteronomy to Susan Sontag.

• The New Yorker cartoonist behind the New Yorker cartoon episode of Seinfeld.

• Music festival Lollapalooza is heading to Tel Aviv in 2013. Rock on.

• Lena Dunham’s hemp-wearing college kind-of-boyfriend, New Yorker style.

• Also, Lena Dunham wrote a movie and John Krasinski is starring in it.

The post Daily Jewce: Lollapalooza Heads to Tel Aviv, Seville Hats Head to Brooklyn appeared first on Jewcy.

• The difference between NPR Fresh Air host Terry Gross and Howard Stern? Gross doesn’t ask about penis size during interviews.

• The new New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief goes to the Jerusalem Film Festival.

• Jewish porn star James Deen lost his virginity at summer camp.

• Don’t try going into these Jewish-owned Williamsburg businesses immodestly dressed.

• Gina Gershon hopes her new movie, Killer Joe, will make audiences forget about Showgirls.

• Glee’s Lea Michele talks the show’s next season at the Teen Choice Awards.

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