My First Encounter with a Hassidic Neighborhood

While in Brooklyn, I stayed up late and woke up early. Unfortunately, I could not sleep in due to the bright sunshine pouring into my room and my usual early mornings back at home. So when I came back from my run on Sunday morning, my friend asked me to go walk the neighborhood so that she could sleep in. This was my chance to bike over to the Brooklyn bridge.

From her place in Greenpoint, Google directed me through a section of the Bedford neighborhood where the Hassidic Jews live. At that time on Sunday morning, school boys were being collected by yellow school buses with Hebrew script on the sides. The sidewalks were full of mothers dressed all in black and wearing 1930's style head wraps. They pushed strollers and were surrounded by their numerous children dressed all alike. Females only wear long dresses, thick tights, and long sleeves. I'm sure that black outfit must feel great come August.

But really, these people all looked alike. Images of clones from the opening theme song for Weeds went through my head. "Tiny boxes on the hillside, tiny boxes full of ticky tacky..."

The boys look like clones of each other. There is no red headed or blond Hassidic Jew who will mix it up a little. No, instead, they all don the top hats, the long dark curls, the long black coats and black pants. Looking so similar was kind of creepy for me. Horrific thoughts began to go through my head.

What if that goofy outfit was just meant to disarm someone like me? 
What if they are all armed assassins? 
What if they see how different I am and converge on me like ants on a dead bug?


Fearing that these people really didn't want an outsider like me to be biking through their neighborhood, I peddled faster.

Are all of these really the same man?