Boychiks in the Hood is your passport to the Hasidic underworld -- a destination far different from popular expectations. Join Robert Eisenberg as he hangs out with an ex-Deadhead in Antwerp, makes a pilgrimage to the grave of the revered Rebbie Nachman in the Ukraine, munches mini-bagels with Rollerblading kosher butchers in Minnesota, discovers the last remaining religious Jews in Poland, talks sex with a karate-champion-turned-rabbi in Israel, and more.Simultaneously respectful and hilarious, Boychiks in the Hood is a surprising and unforgettable journey through the worlds flourishing Hasidic communities that reveals this vibrant tradition as never before.
Very well done, exceedingly informative.
I admit that I bought the book because the title suggested an almost rap-music reality behind the scenes of a New York Hasidic community. Yes, the title is plenty pop-culture, and it probably was part of a marketing plan. BOYCHIKS IN THE HOOD is a far better book than I had expected or hoped for, and the razzle-dazzle title does not at all suggest the complexity of a back-breaking world tour the mostly secular Eisenberg made, in a labor of love, to find and explore Orthodox, Satmar, Lubavitch, Hasidic communities thriving all over the world. As a non-Jew I perhaps know more about Judaism than some, but I have picked up both specifics and general ideas that have vitalized and deepened my respect for the Jewish world. In New York of course I have see "glatt" kosher restaurants, but here I learned that this step "up" from regular kosher means that the lungs of killed animals can show no flaws at all, while animals killed plain kosher can have slight sores---as long as the sores do not allow the passage of air. This kind of detail---and perhaps I pick one that may seem slightly sensational, and for that I apologize, for it is not presented that way by Eisenberg---suggests the level of detail, thought, discrimination, judgement, rule, and inevitable debate that runs through every inch of the Hasidic thought. Eleven nice chapters on the communities in Brooklyn, Minnesota, Ukraine, Israel, Poland, New Jersey, the Catskills, Belgium, and even a dynamite town in Iowa, etc. Full of surprises and wit (the wit sometimes diminished by Eisenberg's rather heavy handed sense of metaphor verging into pop-journalistic zing). But Eisenberg writes well, engagingly and informatively. I've picked up fifty Yiddish words which, discreetly, I'll be dropping at cocktail parties as I finger my rosary. A powerfully readable book about a people's resilience, savvy, spitituality, and about the curious seduction of their unique kind of life.
Buy Boychiks in the Hood: Travels in the Hasidic Underground by Robert Eisenberg At The Lowest Price!
No comments:
Post a Comment