Hasidim on Brooklyn Bike Lanes: Not Kosher
- Posted by: Nikhil Swaminathan
- on December 9, 2008 at 1:39 pm
A Hasidic Jewish community that abuts the Brooklyn hipster enclave of Williamsburg has been up in arms since late-summer about bike lanes installed in its section of the neighborhood. The primary complaint: Bohemian girls showing too much skin as they bike by. (Who wears short shorts?)
The corridor where the Hasidim live is the gateway to southern Brooklyn neighborhoods, like Fort Greene and Park Slope, a path well-worn by the borough’s cyclists. In order to accomodate the bike lanes, the city changed parking laws in the area, resulting in a lot of fines to members of the Orthodox Jewish community. Around Thanksgiving, Hasidic officials warned that they would protest the new lanes by parking private buses in them.
Yesterday, a Gothamist reader told the blog about a harrowing ride through South Williamsburg earlier in the day. On first pass through the Hasidic corridor, she claims, a man walked directly in front of her and tried to engage her in “a game of chicken,” causing her to have to “swerve around him.” That’s minor compared to what happened on her way back:
As I was making a left … a bus drive[n] by a Hasidic man (no other people on it) sped up to make the right … in front of me even though there was no room for him to make the turn. … [H]e made it impossible for me to access the far right side of the street. I had to turn in between two lanes of traffic. There was no space for me to get over until I got closer to the light, which had by that time changed. I tried to pull up into the gas station on that corner, but a huge truck with a crane started backing out. I had to swerve back into traffic where I hit a huge crack and bit it. My head almost got run over by a car. Fortunately, I got away with a scraped knee and the creeps. … [B]y the time I finally made it back to the start of the bike lane again … there was a guy driving his minivan down it … IN REVERSE!
Both bikers and representatives of the Hasidim are expected to continue the contentious fight over the bike lanes at a Community Board meeting in early January. But, with fall transitioning into winter and temperatures nosediving into the 30s and below, the primary offense behind the bike lane brouhaha (the immodest attire) should be momentarily moot. Right?
DISCUSSION: 8 Comments
You better believe if the Hasidic community needed to create “pedestrian lanes” for those times when they cannot take mechanical transportation and another community wanted to shut them down, there’d be outcries of anti-semitism and freedom of religious practice thrown all over the place!
Wear horse blinds. Seriously, have some respect for the culture of the country you live in. If you don’t like it, move. People wear bike shorts here. Get used to it.
*sigh* Theists. Don’t look, or move somewhere else.
Besides the obvious point that these anti-cycle lane people are idiots, what I find fascinating in these kinds of situations is how the protests and demonstrations by the detractors are directed at entirely the wrong people.So in this case, those opposed to the cycle lanes (for the stupidest reasons imaginable) choose to direct their anger and outrage not at the city officials who gave the go ahead to the project, but at the cyclists, who, individually, had nothing to do with the project.Similarly, those who object (often for similarly small-minded and prescriptive reasons) to rising immigration levels often take out their anger and outrage on immigrants, who have abided by the law and are just trying to lead their lives, instead of taking it out on the government officials and bodies who are responsible for such matters.But of course, it’s easier to harass lone female cyclists than it is to organise a peaceful, organised demonstration or appeal, isn’t it?
I am a “bohemian” girl who bikes through this area regularly. Until now I never understood why there was aggression from the Hasidic drivers directed at me. I also had attempted murder by Hasidic schoolbus. If a biker gets seriously hurt I say we have a mass slutty bikeathon.
Where in their holy book does it say it’s okay to harass and threaten the lives of people in this way…Wait, don’t answer that. I bet you $5 it’s totally okay. This may not be PC, but I say down with any religion that lets its members act this way. I know you could argue that this is just a few fringe elements…. persuade me. A few cops out there would put a stop to this. The actions described above are attempted murder.
I’m a little suspicious of the claim that the Hasidic community is up in arms mainly due at the impropriety of scantily clad bikers. In fact, the linked Post article even states, way at the bottom, “The issue of dress – or lack of it – wasn’t brought up at the [community] meeting. Weisser and the other Hasids instead complained publicly about bike lanes allegedly causing parking problems and traffic congestion.” I’m sure the short shorts trend isn’t helping, but from what I’d heard it was always about about the elimination of parking and loading zones hurting their businesses in the area. It’s not cool that they’re exacting revenge on innocent bikers, but c’mon people, let’s not stoke a morality war where there isn’t one.
Historically, Hasidim have always followed some variation on the idea that Jews are supposed to be a people apart [from the erst of society]. Other branches of Judaism don’t espouse that idea and in fact encourage Jews to participate fully in civic society all around them. These people are an anomaly in the large Jewish world and they know it. This whole thing of protesting bike lanes is just another way for them to eke out a space of separateness in America’s most populous city. I’m Jewish and I find their indignation mildly offensive.