I don’t know if the story is true, and I’m fairly certain I wouldn’t mistake an Amish man for a Hasidic man. But - if I said something that assumed he was a Hasid and he told me he was Amish ( or vice-versa), I wouldn’t decide that I was correct and he was lying. After all, I’m not an expert on either Hasidic or Amish dress - I’m certain I couldn’t reliably tell the difference between a Hasidic man and a member of a non-Hasidic Orthodox group with similar dress or between an Amish man and a member of a Mennonite group with similar dress.
Do Amish people ever actually do the thee art thing? I’m in Illinois, and any Amish people I run into either speak German (among themselves) or straight-forward modern English.
IMO the story is pure UL / made up parable ref igor above.
Having said that, there are people in the US who have little enough personal experience with both Amish and Hasids that if they encountered one in some neutral context they might not know enough to know the difference.
I grew up in LA then lived in the Midwest and overseas for a few years. I saw my first Hasid in the flesh at the ripe old age of 31 when I first began living part time in NYC with the airline. Up until then I could have given you a capsule summary of their appearance as odd black dress & scraggly hair but that’s about it.
Later at about age 35 I began working in the Midwest and began to see the occasional Mennonite but no more Hasid.
A guy like I was could easily make such an honest mistake. That such an ingénue would also be a practicing Reform Jew with an opinion about Hasidism is what strains credulity in this story well past the breaking point.
I’ve seen the story told about an anonymous Chasid, not Twersky. I’m pretty sure the joke predates him.
In any case, I can’t imagine anyone who has actually met either Amish or Chassidic men would mistake one for the other. Their clothing isn’t really similar (the black-clad Chassids I’ve seen uniformly wear ordinary western business attire and outerwear), and neither is their grooming (Amish men eschew mustaches as a sign of their faith, while all of the Chassidic men I’ve met cultivate full facial hair).
Now, it’s not impossible that someone who’s had no contact with either community could make such a mistake. I did have a coworker who mentioned seeing Amish men in Chicago. I explained that we really don’t have much of an Amish community here, but we do have several Chassidic communities. Somehow she’d managed to live in the area for years without learning anything about them.
I find it hard to believe a Jewish person would make the mistake. But I could see where many people can have troubles at first knowing if Amish or Hasidic. Growing up more or less in the middle of both groups, I can easily see the difference, especially if close enough to be talking to them but someone from down south or beyond the Mississippi could lack context to know.
There was a Barney Miller episode where Wojo mistakes an Amish man for an Orthodox Jew at first, this was following an earlier episode where Wojo did not know an Orthodox Jewish Man by his clothing. Very odd for a NYC Detective but he was prone to a certain simpleness. Wherever he grew up, Wojo was a little slow to assimilate to some aspects of NYC I guess.
One obvious difference is that Amish men do not have mustaches. Hasidim do since they don’t shave at all. I don’t know whether this is true but I read somewhere that the Amish started shaving their upper lips in WWII to express their disapproval of Hitler. Anyone know if this is true?
There is, BTW, an Amish run supermarket in Manhattan, something like 9th Ave. and 50th St.
Would an Amish guy even be at the airport in the first place?
Another vote for the story being a complete fabrication … but some modern Jews with little actual exposure to either Hassidim or the Amish could be confused.
True story, seriously … my oldest son, secular Jewish household in a Reform congregation Chicago area, was visiting an East coast college campus and looking around on his own a bit and was approached by couple of Lubavitchers to join them in their Sukkah (I guess he looked Jewish enough that they assumed). When he met back up with my wife he told her it was the weirdest thing … a few Amish people asked him to shake the lulav and the etrog with them.
Believe it not, smart kid.
It pre-dates Hitler by at least half a century. In the 19th Century, military personnel usually shaved their chins, but often grew mustaches. The Amish did the exact opposite, to proclaim their pacifism.
I think the Amish are OK with traveling on modern transportation like trains, cars, planes etc as long as someone else is operating it.
I’m also comfortable traveling on an airplane as long as someone who is not Amish is operating it.
It takes forever to taxi down the runway in a horse-drawn 757.
Also, the Amish tend to have more luxurious suntans.
Many Amish come in to a local hospital for genetic testing and research. They are driven in, in vans and small buses, and have no problem with them.
Many Amish have Mennonite relatives that drive them.
Also there is more than one Amish business where they come by truck and erect pole barns. Not sure who drives but most if not all of the workers are Amish from the few times I’ve seen them.
We used to see Mennonites and maybe some Amish at our Midwest hub. Kinda like the Mormons in SLC, when somebody was traveling, a vast entourage of extended family would come along to send them off or greet them on return.
The funniest part was most of them hadn’t encountered escalators before either. And that was transportation they had to “operate” at least enough to get on and off. Hijinks often ensued.
True Story:
Pepper Mill was working in an office in Boston’s North End. Walking down the street comes a party of vacationing, sight-seeing Amish*. Someone pointed and shouted, in all seriousness:
"Look ! PILGRIMS !!!
*Yes, Amish DO take vacations, and go sightseeing. It’s not forbidden.
The Amish Market? There are a few of them in Manhattan.
When the business started, it bought all its produce from Amish farmers in Pennsylvania. But the owners weren’t, and aren’t, Amish. They’re Turkish immigrants (although an American-born generation may have entered the business by now).
Also, they’re crooks: https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/owner-gourmet-food-markets-sentenced-manhattan-federal-court-five-years-prison
Heck yeah, they vacation! There’s a whole village dedicated to Amish vacationing in Florida, they’ve been going for generations. (Homiest link I could find.)
I purchased a big shed from an Amish business. It was delivered on a big flatbed truck, driven by a non-Amish employee. The Amish passenger told the driver step-by-step how to back up the truck to the correct spot to unload. He then told the guy which button to press on the control unit to slide/tilt the truck bed, eventually setting the huge shed down on my prepared gravel spot.
It really seemed awkward. The Amish guy seemed really intelligent, while his employee was obviously not all there. The Amish guy looked like he wanted to grab the damn controls and do things the easy way.
Amish don’t have moustaches generally, just chin beards. Also the clothing is not even similar.
So, no, I wouldn’t confuse the two.