I read this whole thing and felt like I was in the midst of a catfight in the household of Mel and Max Brooks.
That could be.
There's large Jewish enclaves in Iowa? Running a slaughterhouse? My understanding of Iowa (lived in Minnesota for awhile and my dad works for John Deere and all we hear at home was agrobusiness) is Corn and Pigs. And more Corn and Pigs. And everyone is Scandinavian, either Lutheran or Methodist.
There's one, the famous or infamous Postville. Neat business move, actually. Too costly to ship the livestock into or near the city. Trouble is that in order to be properly kosher by most Orthodox standards, meat must be partially prepared--kashered, that is--pretty quickly after slaughter, so the other stop-gap--sending rabbis and slaughterers out to remote slaughterhouses--is also expensive and leads to heavy losses from time to time. The most cost-effective solution is to simply move all the necessary personnel: slaughterers, checkers, rabbinical supervisors out there. Along with their wives and kids and apprentices. And teachers. And a kollel, because every community needs scholars to spend their days "lernen" that is, studying law, mostly talmud but also later writing and exegesis and such, full-time to sustain the spiritual life of the community. And their wives and kids. And more teachers. And then people to run a bakery, a mikveh (ritual bath; the guys' doesn't take much upkeep, but the women's does). And people to run the motel that you buy to put up any visiting relatives and prospective employees. And some teachers. OJ kids don't go to public school, and so you gotta bring a school with you.
Anyway, it's a fairly large inundation of black-and-white garbed guys with black hats and no ties into a community of jeans and baseball caps and your choice between the Lutheran church, the Methodist church, or those freaky Catholics. But it's job and a boost to the economy.
But, as Stephen Bloom commented, yeah, there is a whole lotta Lake Woebegone meets Brooklyn, and while much of it is amicable some of it isn't. So, yeah, there is a small but noticeable enclave of Jews in Iowa.
All these Jewish sects you guys mentioned: What gives.
ok, ok.
Orthodox Jews: A Spotter's GuideChassidishe = Hacidic?
Yes. Hasidic, Chosidish, Chassidish are all the same thing. Hasidic is the more accepted spelling in secular writings. Chaim Potok for example, talked about Hasidim. (Ok, pause: hasidic/chassidic--adjective describing teh adherents of that group of sects; hasidim/chassidim--plural noun; hasid/chassid--singular noun). "Chassidishe" is my smarmy way of letting Chaim know who I am and where I come from. It's pronunciation that an outsider is very, very unlikely to use. And the "Ch"? Yeah, unless you speak German, don't even try. See, we (and I use "we" loosely, for obvious reasons) used to all speak Yiddish, but we spoke it all different kinds of way, and the extra syllable on the end reflects a pretty "yeshivish" pronunciation.
Yeshivishe = Mesianic?
No! Well, sorta'
All Orthodox Jews are messianic in that they constantly await the coming of the messiah. They recite it in prayer at least once daily, it's a popular theme in songs, and it's central to the liturgy of most holidays, but most especially Passover.
But the yeshivish community thinks of itself as being distinctly anti-messianic. More on that below. The yeshivish community in some ways arose in opposition to the hasidim centuries ago, but in its modern iteration, yeshivish simply means "very Orthodox, but not organized around a dynamic leader and his family". It has its important families, but officially there are no dynasties. There are no "uniforms" in that women have a broad choice in how to cover their hair, for example, or in how long their skirts should be. Men wear, nearly universally within the community, black felt hats and black jacket, and a black suit on the sabbath, but you have your choice of pinstripes, or even a daring charcoal grey or navy. They have a fairly neutral set of customs that pretty similar and most are based in interpretation of law rather than in following the lead of a dynamic rabbi. The men learn as much as they can--and by learn I mean as described above. The women sometimes work outside of the community, but cautiously, and only to make a living. "Careers" tend to be frowned upon, for both men and women. This community is very open to newcomers like Chaim who are Jewish but become Orthodox. I was raised in this kind of community.
Chassidish? Well, all those things the yeshivish community is not? The charismatic leaders, often in family dynasties, the "uniforms" for men and women, other things designed to promote separateness--those are chassidish. Thing of long, curled sidelocks, shaven heads (men and married women in some sects, but they vary a lot, and you'd never see a women's head anyway), long cassocks of a particular design. Sometims knee pants, with long white socks. On sabbath and holidays, there is an array of fur hats of various kinds. They want to recall their roots, to maintain their seperateness, to follow leaders, etc. There are hundreds of these sects. Some are more modern, like the Twerskis (Milwaukee) and the Bostoners (Boston), and don't have the obvious visual markers, but they have the other traits of chassidus. Those are: an emphasis on spirituality over legalism, an emphasis on singing (if you're a man anyway), an emphasis of crafting one's life not around fulfilling the legal requirements of Judaism, but on enjoying them, on living them fully. There's a huge emphasis on joyfulness. (Unless you're like me, and get your joyfulness from shooting and running and riding and judo--and combine all this with being a woman. That whole life just didn't work out for me...)
Ok, now the Lubavitch. First of all: irritating as all get out. Ok, so I'm biased, all my Jewish extended family are lubavitch, some messianic, and they are just irritating. Lubavitch was a hasidic sect, led by the Schneerson family. Came over from Russia a while back (dunno when--I think right after WWII), but under the leadership of the last rebbe became an intersting experiment: a modernizing chassidic sect. They openly and loudly proslytize to fallen-away Jews, but they also attract a lot of non-Jews, a big no-no in Judaism. Potential converts are traditionally turned away unless they are really persistent. Lubavitch tends to be not so careful with that. They have enclaves around the world. If you see someone in Delhi or Brasilia or Tokyo with a beard and a black suit, a white shirt, and no tie, who looks Jewsih, odds are he's a Lubavitcher. But they can be very arrogant. They can talk down to people in pretty annoying patronizing ways. In most ways they are no more guilty than any discrete group that is proud of who they are and what they do, but the combination of chassidus and modernity and openness has led to a lot of clashes and frustrations. Yeshivish types often don't get along with them. My own family had some serious problems, up to and including separate yeshivish and lubavitch prayer quorums at the house of mourning when my grandfather died. Just different customs, and lots of abrasive in-your-faceness about the difference in customs.
Oh, and messianism:
Most yeshivishe folks and chasidish folks are *not* messianic in that they do not attempt to identify a potential messiah, they refrain from making it as central to their lives as some others. Lubavitchers tend to make the messiah concept more a central to their lives than others and have exhibited a propoensity for assuming that their leader is it. But most were shocked and horrified when some Lubavitchers, in the early 90's, to varying degrees, demanded that their recently deceased rabbi (or the "rebbe" aka R' Schneerson famously of Crown Heights, Brooklyn) was the messiah, even though he was dead. Much of Jewish philosophy surrounding he messiah has arisen over the centuries from the need to refute Christianity, and so, ya see, declaring that a dead guy was the savior was um, problematic. There was an even bigger backlash against those guys from all corners, and against lubavitch in general (probably unfairly). But some Lubavitch defended those people, too. It got weird.
But it's hardly yeshivish against lubavitch; it's mostly pretty peaceful. But only recently has Christianity even begun to approach the level of sectarianism in the Jewish community. Fortunately, between most groups, most of the time, things are pretty peaceful. There are some serious feuds, mostly about kosher laws and meat, oddly enough, but mostly it's all good.
How does one sect care more about illegal immigration than another? I just don't see the connection.
Because Lubavitchers and dirty, lying, thieving, pseudo-Christians with a penchant for philandery, so we gotta stick it to 'em! Duh.
Seriously though, my feelings about Postville arise from my personal experiences. Now, my experiences may be what they were because my sister and her husband are not Chassidish or Lubavitch, and so they never felt very welcome in Postville and were more critical in their observations. Any community is way too multi-faceted to condemn out of hand.
But, I grew up in community politics, and long before I decided to split, I lost any illusions that Jewishness or Orthodoxy meant an absence of corruption. I am skeptical on the face of it, as well as from family experiences: I think it is ludicrous that an astute family like the Rubashkins would not know that a huge proportion of their workforce was incredibly illegal. Im also familiar with the way that small, close communities can spawn little side-businesses that feed other side-businesses in interesting ways. Of course there's a conspiracy. There's a million and one little conspiracies.
Fistful failed to interpret and provide footnotes in your dialogue... again. Way to go fistful. Schmuck.
Yeah, dude, what's up with that?
