When I was a Muslim, I laughed at those shtreimels. Now I'm wearing one
As told to Rivka Streicher by Ephraim Nachman
When I was a young kid growing up in Williamsburg in Brooklyn, nothing looked weirder to me than the chassidic guys who lived on the other side of the Marcy Avenue train station. We’d see them walking by with their long side curls, big beards, black coats — and sometimes with striped blankets and fur hats.
What on earth?! I thought.
I was a Puerto Rican kid growing up in a melting pot of minorities, most notably Hispanics and Blacks, and venturing into the chassidic community of Williamsburg was like stepping into Eastern Europe. They seemed intent on staying apart, with their archaic garb and a language of their own to boot.
Later in my life, I’d hear others denigrate them and point to them as the source of our problems. Even later than that, while it would’ve been the most ludicrous thing you could’ve told me, I’d end up looking like them.
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