Heeb

Today Jewdar was confronted with a real conundrum. On the one hand, we are chock full of Torah observance. On the other hand, we ride a bike in NYC. Thus, it was at first difficult to decide who to side with in the current contretemps in picturesque Williamsburg over the new bike lanes that apparently carry scantily clad women through the overwhelmingly Hasidic community. Then we remembered that we weren’t self-righteous bullies (well, at least we aren’t bullies). We could always tolerate some of the more repressive elements in the orthodox community on the grounds that, while they had beards and funny hats and views on the outside world which we find troubling, at least they didn’t try to force others to adhere to their beliefs. Given all that’s been coming out both here and in Israel about efforts in the black hat world to enforce their rules on non-hareidim, we think we’re going to need a little more to remind us as to why again a significant segment of the black hat world isn’t simply the Taliban translated into Yiddish?