Too cold to strip: Bike protestors stay clothed in Hassidic area of New York
Brooklyn residents wanted to cycle naked after bike lane removed from ultra-Orthodox neighborhood.
By The Associated Press Tags: Jews in America Jewish World Israel newsBicyclists planning a Saturday protest in an ultra-Orthodox Jewish area of New York had been calling it their "Freedom Ride" - free of clothing, that is, but a last minute snowstorm meant that there was less nudity than expected.
Some protestors pinned fake breasts over their clothes instead.
The removal of clothing had been planned as a protest over the removal of a bike lane in Williamsburg, an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn.The activists wanted to go topless in front of Hasidic residents who "can't handle scantily clad women" on wheels, bike messenger Heather Loop told a local newspaper earlier this week.
The newspaper, The Brooklyn Paper, had suggested the scantily clad protesters could roll into the neighborhood at sundown Saturday - just as families leave synagogue services on the Sabbath.
Bicycling advocates claim New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg erased the bike lane because conservative residents don't like seeing women in skimpy clothing riding by every day. But local residents say the lane was removed out of concern for the safety of children being dropped off by school buses.
Members of the Satmar branch of Judaism "don't want to see women in shorts," says Baruch Herzfeld, who runs a bike-sharing program in a community where Jewish women wear hefty skirts and blouses with long sleeves and men heavy coats and hats, even in summer.
"The rabbis want to keep their people in the 18th century, and they don't want the world to intrude into their enclave," says Herzfeld.Not entirely true, says Leo Moskowitz, a resident with five children. He insists the main issue is safety.
"Kids can be knocked over because school buses are not allowed to stop in the bike lane - it's dangerous," says Moskowitz, a salesman at a telecommunications company who acknowledges that he feels "very uncomfortable" seeing women bare their legs in public.
The bike lane battle is pitting Hasids against hipsters and, in some cases, Jew against Jew.
Those who say safety is the main reason for doing away with the lane "are lying," says Herzfeld, who was born a Satmar but says certain practices should be abolished.
"The mayor made a deal with religious fanatics trying to enforce old traditions that don't belong in the 21st century," he said.
Marc LaVorgna, a Bloomberg spokesman, says the city always consults members of a community when making changes that affect them. In this case, he said, city officials want riders to use a much safer lane nearby that he called "the Cadillac of bike paths" - a two-way path separated from car traffic. That bike lane also drew the wrath of some Satmars last year, but it stayed.
The now-vanished bike lane, on Bedford Avenue, has been the subject of two recent protests.
On Sunday, activists staged a "funeral procession" for the departed path.Two weeks ago, under the watchful eye of police, they painted back the stripe. City workers scraped it off and two bikers were charged with criminal mischief and defacing the street.
The organizers of Saturday's naked ride have been keeping a low profile.Since she spoke to The Brooklyn Paper earlier this week, Loop has been mum. She didn't return a call to her cell phone or answer a Facebook message.
The participants in the ride did not have the support of Transportation Alternatives, a major cycling advocacy group.
"A ride with people in provocative undress doesn't make Bedford any safer, and it undermines efforts to bring the neighborhood together to solve the problem," says Wiley Norvell, a group spokesman.
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Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn. |
| Photo by: (AP) |
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There is always thie stress on objections to what women are wearing. Judging from the pop bottle thrown at me, while walking through Meah She'arim in Jerusalem, they don't like men wearing shorts either. (Has anyone noticed how male haredim dress? Perhaps the protesters are sexist too.
Heather Loop has no idea what Hassids can handle and what they rather stay far away from.
Were they given power, the Satmar's and other "ultras" would be indistinguishable from the Taliban, Wasabis, et al. They would allow beatings, persecutions, and worse under the authority of their reading of biblical law. As a one-time yeshiva "bucher", I know what resides in the heart of these pious folks: religious psychosis. They should not be tolerated, humored, or supported--politically or financially.
When my mother was a kid on the lower East Side women had to sew weights around the hems of their dresses so their ankles wouldn't show. Women was horribly hot during NYC summers. Times changed and women came to wear less restrictive clothing during hot weather. I'm sure people shrieked then, as you do now. No matter. Each generation's clothing styles change, and you (who can wear anything you want) have no right to dictate community standards for the rest of the world.
DONT MISS THE PHOTO OF ADAM AND EVE ON BIKES
We support the cyclists. Let freedom ring.
Interesting did you ever hear the expression "you?re trying to impose your thinking on other", I do not get this why is the public- that do not live where these whoever and whatever their practices are, you do not agree so what go on living your lives as you please but do not impose on others what you do not want others to impose on you find yourselves a different route. They want and need a safe haven for their children and community and do not need your ideas. Whether you see it fit or not does not even make a difference. Going nude just shows what low lives you are
the US if it had been a Muslim neighbourhood, rather than a Jewish one.
Those bikers all mostly bike messengers that work 'on the books' thus paying for the hasidics lifestyle of learning in Rabbinical school at the expense of the Goyim. I used to live in that area,the Hasidics have a foostamp card next to their Amex Platinum cards in their wallets. The hasidics make a great bloc vote however and can thus drive out the Puerto Ricans from Williamsburg in a less violent way than their co-religionists in Palestine in 1948-67. Cheers
Of course, the KKK could legally ride through a black neighborhood - not the smartest thing to do, but they would certainly have the Constitutional right to do so. The Skokie, IL, case established or reaffirmed that.
The USA is no place for the haredim to try to impose their backward beliefs upon all Americans, for they will find out very quickly that they are no longer welcome. If these haredim cannot handle living in a modern western style democracy, they should move to Israel where their backward believes are accomidated.
Wish I could be there to show support :)...Hooray to freedom of expression that hurts no one (except maybe sensibilities)!!
Would liberals permit the KKK to ride bikes with KKK appparel in a black area ? Whats the difference here ?
It shows exactly why cyclists should not be allowed into this sensitive area, they have absolutely no regard for the residents living there. The intentional provacation, in addition, shows that these riders are of the far-left liberal type of low calibre and low intelligence.
If the cyclists are prepared to do something so immoral and so irrational, so disgusting and so low as to ride unclothed in public then it shows that their morals apply to a caveman era when people dressed like that.
Hold it right in the middle of their 'hood on their Sabbath. This is America, not Israel. We don't have a Chief Rabbi ordering our lives. If the Hassids don't like it, they can move somewhere more "understanding" of religious extremism. Say, Iran.
Americans enjoy freedom. Hassidic Jews should practice there foibles somewhere else. Israel maybe? That would be a good thing. Salaam/Shalom
John Stewart Mill may not have been Jewish. In fact he was a Liberal in England when there weren't any such animals. He is credited for saying my right to express myself ends at the tip of my neighbor's nose, or something like that. Yes, the streets are public, but I don't have the right to leave my dog's droppings on the middle of sidewalk for someone to step upon them accidentally. And yes, if I have neighbors who are sensetive to some issues, it behooves me to respect them.
Bring the naked bikers here and let them bike infront of Intel and the parking lot on Shabbat, we wont need the police anymore...brilliant solution.
These are public streets. Anyone should be able to walk or bike in normal clothes. Normal clothes here includes shorts, cycling gear, short skirts etc.. By capitulating to the Haredi demands, the local government is violating separation of church and state. The rights of the cyclists are being infringed upon.
I live here in New York City, and I know many Jews who actually had to sell their homes and move away from their neighborhoods because it had become so inundated with very religious Jews who would not accept other Jews not observing the Sabbath the way they saw fit, or just not being the kind of Jews they thought was appropriate. Their houses were actually stoned, and they were spit on by the children of these religious fanatics. How you want to personally observe your faith is one thing but to enforce it on others is beyond belief in this country. Yet, it does happen right here in NYC, and, in particular, in Brooklyn. There is no law that says a person cannot wear shorts in NYC. Furthermore, the bike lane is not a private one. The odd part of all this is that if these people were Muslims who made complaints about bike riders being scantilly dressed, the response would have been quite different as our Mayor Bloomberg surely would dare not deny.
While I can appreciate that they have a problem with community standards of dress, I fail to see how the remedy is to give them the right to decide what everyone else should be allowed to wear.
like the Amish. There's no place for intolerant people in a free society. If they don't like seeing scantily clad women they have 2 choices, cover their eyes or form their own haredi community.