shellfish city

Silent, grim, colossal, the Big City has ever stood against its revilers. They call it hard as iron; they say that nothing of pity beats in its bosom; they compare its streets with lonely forests and deserts of lava. But beneath the hard crust of the lobster is found a delectable and luscious food. Perhaps a different simile would have been wiser. Still, nobody should take offence. We would call nobody a lobster with good and sufficient claws.
-O. Henry

As promised, I must continue to regale you with further stories from the subway! The next stranger I had occasion to observe was actually a Hasidic couple--at least, I think they were a couple. Their relationship was unclear, but it was certainly unlike anything I have remarked.

I first encountered the ultra-Orthodox in Jerusalem two summers ago. (Of course, the Haredim, as they are known, in Jerusalem are different from the Hasids in Brooklyn, but both sects have some of the same customs and deportments. Plus, both are so many worlds away from mine as to be almost indistinguishable.) In Israel, there are tensions among secular and religious Jews on the one hand and the ultra-Orthodox sects on the other. The latter are exempted from the compulsory military service that the rest of the country faces and also receive considerable government subsidies because ultra-Orthodox men eschew work in favor of constant Torah study. In addition, some refuse to recognize the authority of the Israeli government (because it heads a secular Jewish state), and in 1948, during the War of Independence, many members had to be forcibly restrained from taking up arms with the Arabs against their fellow Jews. Most also do not speak Hebrew except in prayer, refusing to profane by everyday use what they consider to be a holy language. Also, they're more likely to jaywalk. No, seriously.

One afternoon, I got off a bus in the New City in Jerusalem with my friend kepha and decided to take a different route to the Old City. Shortly afterwards, we found ourselves in Mea She'arim, one of the most well-known ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods in the city. The name means "one hundred gates" and comes from the biblical passage, "Isaac sowed in that land and reaped in the same year a hundredfold" (Genesis 26:12). Two blocks over, young secular Israeli women wear so little as to leave nothing to the imagination, but in this neighborhood, a sign urges a high level of decency. I had on a skirt that barely grazed my knees and short-sleeved shirt, and all the men who passed averted their eyes; but this kind of behavior is de rigueur for every Orthodox man when faced with any woman who is not his wife. I realized I was in a whole other world, however, when I was refused service and asked to leave the bakery that kepha and I stopped at for a snack.

Okay, reeling myself in after my digression: back to the Hasidic pair, a man and a woman, on the subway platform. Both were dressed traditionally, the man in a black suit and Borsalino hat, bearded and with peyot (long, curly sideburns); the woman in an ankle-length skirt and long sleeved shirt. What caught my attention--after the fact that the man actually locked eyes with me and didn't look away--was the rapport between the two. Speaking in Yiddish, they seemed to be actually exchanging ideas, and their body language bespoke a comfort and a familiarity not usually seen in public between a Hasidic couple. He stood so close to her that his shoe was in between hers, and at several points, he brushed up against her with his arm. In short, they actually seemed to like each other.

And if they were married (which it seems they must have been to have been interacting in such a way), it was unusual that they had no children along. Family is a huge priority, and kids almost always accompany their mothers. If they weren't married, then they were violating all kinds of rules of decorum. I say, more power to them!