Didn’t the author A.J. Jacobs hilariously describe, in The Year of Living Bibically, a sort of all-male religious ‘rave’ the Hassidic Jews knock themselves out in NYC?
They dance with each other all night? Those guys DO rock, to klezmer music, but still!
I was living in NYC during that period, and the Hasidim weren’t nearly as visible as they have become since. Sure, lots of Jewish people, some very Orthodox . . . but not so many who dressed differently than anyone else. Maybe a yarmulke here and there, but usually nothing more.
I hasidim, but sadly, never knew im.
Just thinking. By the time I went to high school, I certainly would have recognized a Hasidic Jew as such, but I’m not sure I would have known an Amish person upon seeing one. A bit further removed from my experience.
A follow up on this. In a later episode (that I watched last night) Wojo confused an Amish man for being Jewish and said Shalom to him. The Amish man had been mugged on his visit to the city. He took the train. So Wojo was unaware of both Hasidic Jews earlier and found them easy to confuse with the Amish later.
Another note as I am not sure what thread it came up in:
In the episode where Wojo arrests a man who thinks he is Jesus, Wojo ends up in a conversation with Barney in Barney’s office where Wojo says, “I forgot you were Jewish” It goes on from there and boils down to Barney is a non-observant Jew and Wojo is a Catholic that had not been to Mass in 3 years.