New Organization demands equal treatment for Hassidim

New Organization demands equal treatment for Hassidim

By Rabbi Lamech Somayach Meshumad Meshubach
Mashgiach Ruchini, Yeshivah Aishes Eish HaTorah
Special to MeshumadMeshubach.blogspot.com


Anyone walking along Williamsburg Street on a recent Friday would have glimpsed hundreds of Hassidim Jostling like pigeons to watch an overturned oil truck on the Brooklyn Queens Expressway as a part of their Oneg Shabbos. You would have also observed sundry goyim driving by and shouting various epithets at the Jews blocking traffic on the access road. This is the rational for a heimish new organization being formed in Brooklyn called the Society of People for the Ethical Treatment of Hassidim.

The group is a coordinating body between Williamsburg, Midwood and Boro Park. It’s purpose is to focus attention on the four areas in which the largest number of hassidim suffer most intensely for the longest time, minyan factories, shatnez laboratories, in the clothing trade and cleaning out leavening for passover.

A website for the group declared that PETH works through public education, cruelty investigations, research, animal rescue legislation, special events, celibacy involvement, and protest campaigns.

“I mean look at these poor suffering Hassidim, held slave to a million different myths and fears, half of them never getting laid and the other half giving their wives herpes from the prostitutes on Smith and South ninth streets,” Said Rabbi Pesach Feivel of Monsey. “Every time I go to the titty bar my girls tell me about another tragedy of the system. It is time we began to tell these Hassidim that we care, that they are people also,” he said.

“As of late, large number of protesters have found themselves in trouble with the various townships and councils for their uncompromising stands on Hassidic rights. For example, there are a large number of stringencies associated with the cleaning for passover, the festival of matzos that involve removing every crumb of leavened bread from a persons house. Clearly this is an unnecessary stringency for them to clean every last inch of their home,” Rabbi Feivel said.

The group website said that the training Hassidic children receive from age three to six is inhuman. It said “they suffer from extreme loneliness, boredom and frustration from the intellectual cages month after month.” The website claimed these children cannot speak for themselves and need PETH members to speak for them, and gave a range of suggestions, ranging from writing letters, to boycotts and marches.

Of course one of the biggest areas where help is needed is clothing, and the group was supporting the donation of cruelty free, drop dead georgous clothing for all kinds and sizes of clothing. It even had a skins trade section narrated by Pamela Anderson that would instruct women on the proper way to show some thong without even violating the ban on modest dress and behavior, by being aware of social norms.

One of the more interesting theoretical ideas on the site was the nude run through Williamsburg to show that that there can be modesty based on behavior, regardless of actual dress. The lecture included a video essay of fat old people casually conversing on a nudist beach.

The group was also seeking to overthrow the strict requirement and replace it with an easier way of observing the holidays. One option was to have a giant bunny deliver black socks to all the young boys and black stockings to all the little girls in Boro Park and Williamsburg.
The idea was masterminded by someone identified as Rabbi Paul Kook who said that he “Had no idea if this would be better but that at least it would be a change.”