Jewish World Review Dec. 3, 1999/24 Kislev 5760
This American Jerusalem
IN 1983, JON KALISH went to Brooklyn to report his first story about
chasidic Jewery for National Public Radio. He was 30 years old at the time
and like millions of non-observant, assimilated American Jews, looked down
upon the Orthodox for what he thought was their backward way of life.
By Binyamin L. Jolkovsky
Kalish says he didn't realize it at the time but it was the beginning of a
journey into another world, an old world that is thriving just across the
river from the modern one he inhabits in Manhattan. Kalish has been on
covering Orthodox Brooklyn for NPR for 16 years and over the course of that
time he's developed a profound respect for the Orthodox community.
"It never fails to fascinate me," he told The Jewish World Review.
In "Brooklyn According to Kalish," to be broadcast on WNYC-FM (93.9) on
Sunday, December 5th at 7 p.m., Kalish wanders through the mystical
precincts of Midwood and Boro Park, listens to the heavenly melodies of the
Modzitz chasidic sect and rub elbows with holy men. His hope is that before
the hour-long memoirs is up hour is up, listeners will get to know what
Kalish affectionately refers to as "this American Jerusalem." The program
will also air on KCRW-FM (89.9) in Los Angeles on Monday, December 6th at 1
p..m. and 7 p.m. Other public radio stations are being offered the
documentary.
Although there are no Chanukah scenes in "Brooklyn According to Kalish,"
many other Jewish holidays are featured. Kalish joins Satmar chasidim in
Williamsburg on the day before Passover for a tour of a bakery that makes
shmurah matzah. Kalish describes the activity inside the bakery as
"orchestrated pandemonium."
In the week before Yom Kippur Kalish records that sounds of the ritual
known as Kaporis in which Jews recite a prayer while swinging a live
chicken around their head. The sins are said to be transferred to the
chicken, which is then slaughtered and donated to the poor. Kalish had to
be assured by a yeshiva student standing on a sidewalk that reeked of
chicken droppings, that, no, poor people who are given the poultry will not
inherit the sins.
During the festival of Succos, tagged along with Rabbi Eliezer Liederfiend
as he taught a Hebrew prayer to a group of deaf Russian Jews in a backyard
succah in Midwood. Thanks to people like Rabbi Liederfiend, deaf Jews are
doing what all observant Jews are expected to do: study the holy texts and
live a Jewish life. Liederfiend's outreach group, Our Way, has translated
blessings and prayers into sign language and started a registry for deaf
Orthodox singles.
Kalish was on hand in September 1997 for the huge Daf Yomi in Madison
Square Garden, when 20,000 Orthodox men gathered to celebrate the
completion of another seven-year cycle of Talmud study. It was said to be
the largest gathering of Orthodox Jews ever in North America and half the
crowd, Kalish noted, was from Brooklyn.
"The idea of a crowd in the Garden cheering a collection of religious
books, rather than pop stars, might sound odd," Kalish said. "But the
Talmud is more than just a book to these people."
Kalish's rabbi, who he met doing a story about ridding the home of chometz
for NPR ("This is spring cleaning with a vengeance) is Rabbi Meir Fund, the
spiritual leader of a storefront congregation known as the Flatbush Minyan
and a teacher of Jewish mysticism.
"I can tell you exactly where my ancestors were 4,000 years ago," the rabbi
tells Kalish . "Because I am the recipient of a direct oral tradition which
pinpoints that 4,000 years ago they stood on a spot in the middle of a
desert where heaven and earth kissed called Mt. Sinai. The sky parted, the
one and only Almighty God came down, gave us the Ten Commandments, revealed
to us the Torah and nothing has been the same ever since."
If you'd like to arrange for "Brooklyn According to Kalish" to air on a
public radio station where you live or if you're interested in purchasing a
cassette or CD the documentary, please contact us by clicking
Binyamin L. Jolkovsky is JWR's Editor-in-Chief. Send your comments to him by clicking here.