L'Chaim

Jewish World Review Dec. 3, 1999/24 Kislev 5760

This American Jerusalem


By Binyamin L. Jolkovsky


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.

Econophone 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.

Trakdata 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 below.


Binyamin L. Jolkovsky is JWR's Editor-in-Chief. Send your comments to him by clicking here.

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