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| View of Parking lot packed with Wedding Guests |
More from last night's wedding in Brooklyn, NY.
— Abby Stein (@AbbyChavaStein) January 19, 2021
Some context:
The groom is the youngest son of the Bobov Rebbe, Bentzion Halberstam (son of my great-uncle, the Bobov Rebbe Reb Shlomo, who replanted the dynasty in the US after the holocaust), one of the largest Hasidic sects. pic.twitter.com/4YvTxla57m
When the Yiddish newspaper Der Blatt set out to explain how a massive wedding for the grandson of the Satmar grand rabbi took place despite pandemic limits on gatherings, it waited until after the event to reveal all the details.
Another Orthodox news site took a different approach this week: JDN, an Israeli site, published an article before a large wedding about the secrecy involved in its planning, then replaced the article with another version that said the affair would be small and in keeping with COVID rules.
Photos and video from the wedding held Monday in Brooklyn’s Borough Park neighborhood made clear that the first version of the story was accurate.
They show that hundreds, if not thousands, of guests packed into the main synagogue of one faction of Bobov Hasidism on Monday night to celebrate the wedding of the youngest son of Rabbi Ben Zion Halberstam, the grand rabbi of the sect. Videos circulated the next day over WhatsApp showed a packed wedding hall with thousands of people and no masks in sight. Large tapestries with the words “mazel tov” were hung from a wall to cover windows into the hall.
The wedding is the latest example of the lack of compliance in Hasidic communities with protocols meant to stop the spread of the coronavirus. And perhaps more troubling for authorities hoping to stop these events, it is yet another example of the degree to which members of the Hasidic community are willing to keep secret violations of public health guidance that put lives in jeopardy as COVID cases rise across the country and a new more contagious variant of the disease continues to spread in the United States and around the world.
JDN, the Israeli news site that revealed the wedding plans on Monday, made clear the extent to which wedding organizers made sure to keep the event under wraps — even though, according to the news site, thousands attended and hundreds came from Europe and Israel to do so.
“Conditions make it very difficult to hold mass events, but the Bobov Hasidic group, one of the largest Hasidic groups in the United States, did everything to make the wedding take place on the better side, properly for the wedding of the youngest son of the grand rabbi for whom many anticipate a bright future,” according to the article published Monday.
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It continued:
“It is a difficult task to organize a mass wedding in such tumultuous days. Even if you have managed to find a respectable venue, the heart is not at peace, because at any given moment you are exposed to the danger of whistleblowing and the police forces will be on their way to the place and the celebration subsides. If in Israel there are concerns, in the United States of America all the more so.”
The article went on to explain that the location of the wedding was not made clear until immediately before its start and that guests were warned not to take any photos or videos of the event.
The original version of the article was documented by Rabbi Natan Slifkin of the Rationalist Judaism blog, who often writes irreverently about Orthodox leaders. But by Tuesday, the JDN article had been replaced with a shorter one that claimed the wedding would be held in a more limited fashion.
“JDN News has learned that due to the situation, the wedding will be held in a very limited manner and notes that the Rebbe is very strict in the instructions and was among the first to order the closure of the Torah institutions of the Hasidim to protect against the virus,” the article said. “Thousands of Bobov followers from all over the world will celebrate from their homes the joy of the great wedding, the joy of the youngest son of the Rebbe who will be married at a good and successful time. The hearts of thousands of followers are full of excitement.”
Since the summer, large weddings have been cited as a source of infection in Orthodox communities and of tension between those communities and government authorities. Community members who have spoken out about the large gatherings at synagogues and wedding halls have been called “mosers,” a term that translates to informers but can carry the threat of physical violence.
In the protests that seized the Hasidic neighborhood of Borough Park in October, one Hasidic journalist was cornered by a mob after a local provocateur, Heshy Tischler, called him a “moser.”
The same JDN reporter who wrote the articles about the wedding tweeted an update Tuesday afternoon after Halberstam spoke at the first of the sheva brachot, the post-wedding celebrations.
“In his remarks, the Rebbe referred to the ‘mosers’ who inform the authorities about celebrations and the opening of synagogues and came out against them with great sharpness,” he wrote.
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5 comments:
Dear DIN,
As an avid follower I'd like to shed some light on the Bobov wedding I attended this week. The #1 guideline was that only those that tested positive and then negative, between the ages of 13-60 were allowed in (there were exceptions on the age rule for family only). I know the optics are bad but one thing about DIN I always like is your ability to see through "optics", and not let the "forced narrative" to prevail.
Hatzlocho,
48 Chussid
9:57
I hear you but the posting was because as you put it best ... the "optics." ....
here in Israel this wedding was posted in all chareidie newspapers and it was in a negative light..
they were reporting that even if all the attendees already had covid .. how do you make a wedding like that ... when the entire goyishe world is accusing Jews of spreading the virus..... not that they the Israeli Rebbes don't do the same exact thing ... when the Belzer Rebbe made a wedding here this year his closest chased a relatively young man died and so did his father and then his mother ; they got sick right after the wedding ..thousands were infected as a direct result of that wedding
In Israel the virus is being spread by Chareidim ... but the government will not isolate those neighbourhoods because if they did, the chareidie parties would leave the coalition which as of this posting makes no difference because we are going to elections.. but Netanyahu is afraid to mess with them..
But a Rebbe...a leader of thousands should have made a point of making a small wedding ...
Yes we are all going crazy because of lockdowns..but we are causing anti-Semitism if we do not follow regs ..
You can get Covid twice. End of argument.
48 Chusid - you should be ashamed. Whatever it is that you're practising with your fellow lunatics is not Judaism.
Chassidus has been twisted and perverted - and you try to justify this.
You have no moral compass, and neither does your comic book Rebbe.
I wonder what Halberstam will say on judgement day? "But only 30 died?"
(standard response at this point is to yell anti-semite- not attempt to understand the overt hatred of jews this causes as a by-product of death spreading)
Dear Anon..,
No I wont call you an Antisemite. You are entitled to your opinions and i do respect them. From reading your post I draw 2 assumptions 1- that you haven't the slightest clue about the beauty of chassidus. 2- that you are an X chassid, albeit in pain.
Either way i validate everything you say. But dont agree.
None is perfect and especially us chassidim that strive to be better people and live within the guidelines of the tora (and yes some funny customs that enhance our experience). With that being said ill throw the ball back to you. Hatred isnt caused by us chassidim. point of reference is the holocaust. It started in Germany; with the most assimilated and accultured JEWS ( it ended with the chassidim). Id suggest some real soul searching on your end. If history is indicative of anything is that when we all stay as 1 things typically turn out just fine. I rally do love you like a brother.
Shalom
48 chassid
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