Modesty in Ultra-Orthodox Brooklyn Is Enforced by Secret Squads

[jsr]

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/30/nyregion/shadowy-squads-enforce-modesty-in-hasidic-brooklyn.html

Modesty in Ultra-Orthodox Brooklyn Is Enforced by Secret Squads
By JOSEPH BERGER

The Brooklyn shopkeeper was already home for the night when her phone rang: a man who said he was from a neighborhood “modesty committee” was concerned that the mannequins in her store’s window, used to display women’s clothing, might inadvertently arouse passing men and boys.

The owner wrestled with the request for a day or two, but decided to follow it. “We can sell it without mannequins, so we might as well do what the public wants,” the owner told the manager, who asked not to be identified because of fear of reprisals for talking...

The details were startling: a witness for Mr. Weberman’s defense, Baila Gluck, testified that masked men representing a modesty committee in the Hasidic village of Kiryas Joel, N.Y., 50 miles northwest of New York City, broke into her bedroom about seven years ago and confiscated her cellphone.

The Brooklyn district attorney, Charles J. Hynes, who prosecuted the Weberman case, has now received allegations that members of a modesty committee forced their way into a home in the borough, confiscating an iPad and computer equipment deemed inappropriate for Orthodox children, officials say. Allegations have also surfaced that a modesty committee threatened to publicly shame a married man who was having an affair unless he paid the members money for what they described as therapy.

[TransitJohn]

1. How is this any different from the mutaween?

It's bullshit.

[pscot]

5. Religious thugs

[hrmjustin]

2. Hynes won't do anything because he is a coward. I live in Brooklyn and we have known about

this stuff for years. Hynes who is a neighbor of mine will not do anything that would annoy the Hasidic community because they vote and he does not want them voting against him.

[virgogal]

3. I have a son that lives in the area and he says that

the Hasidim are virtually untouchable.

[hrmjustin]

4. For the most part yes, but recently a rabbi was just convicted of child molestation and got

103 years in jail. Child sex abuse in that community is a major problem, but getting them to come forward is a problem and Hynes is not helping at all. He is basically letting them police themselves, and the kids are paying for it and will be scarred for life.

[Brigid]

6. Several months ago, I read "Unorthodox" by Deborah Feldman.

She was born into the Hasidic community in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. She left a few years ago with her son after divorcing her husband -- not an easy feat. And I had no idea it was possible to be so isolated in the middle of a large city. It just sounds like a bizarre and joyless way of life.