{"id":7556,"date":"2012-07-23T02:40:46","date_gmt":"2012-07-23T02:40:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/?p=7556"},"modified":"2012-07-23T02:40:46","modified_gmt":"2012-07-23T02:40:46","slug":"balkanization-watch-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/balkanization-watch-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Balkanization Watch"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Via<\/a> the New York Post<\/em>:<\/p>\n

Brooklyn has lost its right to bare arms. Ultra-Orthodox Jewish business owners are lashing out at customers at dozens of stores in Williamsburg, trying to ban sleeveless tops and plunging necklines from their aisles. It\u2019s only the latest example of the Hasidic community trying to enforce their strict religious laws for everyone who lives near their New York enclave.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo Shorts, No Barefoot, No Sleeveless, No Low Cut Neckline Allowed in the Store,\u201d declare the English\/Spanish signs that appear in stores throughout the Hasidic section of the hipster haven. The retailers do not just serve Jews \u2014 they include stores for hardware, clothes and electronics. Hebrew speakers are also put on notice: \u201cEntry here in modest dress only,\u201d the signs read. When a Post reporter visited Lee Avenue in a sleeveless dress, some store owners stared at her shoulders, while others refused to look her in the face. The policy, an outgrowth of the sect\u2019s 200-year tradition of dressing modestly, is rankling non-Hasidic residents.<\/p>\n

\u201cReligious freedom is one thing, but we do not have the right to enforce our beliefs on someone else,\u201d charged Bob Kim, 39, comfy in tight jeans and a T-shirt.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy should they be able to say that on their signs? It\u2019s not OK,\u201d added Hana Dagostin, 32, wearing a sleeveless top.
\n\u201cPeople should be able to wear what . . . makes them comfortable,\u201d said Fabian Vega, 34, also wearing shorts and a T-shirt.
\nStore owners and managers defended the dress code.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have our way of life, and this is the way we want everyone to respect that,\u201d said Shalom Cooper, a manager at Glauber\u2019s Cuisine on Division Avenue.<\/p>\n

Orthodox men typically wear suits and black hats in public, while women dress in long-sleeved blouses and below-the-knee skirts.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not concerned about the way women dress in Manhattan \u2014 but we are concerned with bringing 42nd Street to this neighborhood,\u201d said Mark Halpern, who is Orthodox and lives in Williamsburg.<\/p>\n

Some called the policy un-American.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s further evidence of this era\u2019s move toward Balkanization in the United States,\u201d said Marci Hamilton, a First Amendment scholar at Cardozo School of Law. \u201cIt\u2019s no longer sufficient that they have shared norms among themselves, they are increasingly trying to impose their norms on the rest of the culture.\u201d<\/p>\n

The dress code appears to be the latest effort by the Hasidic community to separate itself from the greater population. There\u2019s an Orthodox ambulance service and a private police force called the Shomrim. On the B110, a privately operated public bus line that runs through Orthodox Williamsburg and Borough Park, women are told to sit in back, also in accordance with Orthodox customs. The neighborhood embarked on a successful 2009 crusade to remove bike lanes from a 14-block stretch of Bedford Avenue \u2014 fearful of the scantily clad gals who would pedal through. Even Hillary Clinton was caught up in the mix last year \u2014 her image in the situation room the night of Osama bin Laden\u2019s killing was scrubbed from a Brooklyn-based Hasidic newspaper because readers might have been offended by a woman\u2019s presence in a sea of men.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a movement toward insularity among religious groups. It\u2019s dangerous for tolerance, and it\u2019s also dangerous for peace,\u201d Hamilton said.<\/p>\n

City lawyer Gabriel Taussig said the signs appeared kosher, provided they don\u2019t \u201cimpermissibly discriminate based upon gender, religion or some other protected class.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the dress code covers up a bigger problem, according to Shulem Deen, a former Hasid who now lives in Bensonhurst.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt goes to the basic human value of empathizing with others that are not like you, and I think the Hasidim have no awareness of such a concept,\u201d he said<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s up to those who own the stores to set the dress code for their customers, but it’s difficult not to feel a little depressed by this tale. E Pluribus Unum and all that…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Via the New York Post: Brooklyn has lost its right to bare arms. Ultra-Orthodox Jewish business owners are lashing out at customers at dozens of stores in Williamsburg, trying to ban sleeveless tops and plunging necklines from their aisles. It\u2019s … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[9],"tags":[738,742,679],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7556"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7556"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7556\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7559,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7556\/revisions\/7559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}