The Greenstein Gallery Hosts Hipsters and Hassids

Hipsters and Hassids and other Judaic works
The Art of Elke Reva Sudin

Live Exhibition Presented by the Greenstein Gallery
July 11-July 30th, 2011

Upcoming Reception: Saturday July 23rd, 11pm meet and greet the artist.

Greenstein Gallery | 417 Central Avenue | Cedarhurst, New York 11516
Purchase Inquiries: 516-295-2931 WWW.JGREENSTEIN.COM
Download the press release here.

Virtual Exhibition Presented by 3Dvas
Opening virtual reception  July 18, 2011 6pm-9pm
Active Link available for opening reception
RSVP on Facebook

I’ll Take the One in the Toiben

“Hasidic headcovering is in, says urban outfitters #shvimlkeit”

Hipsters and Hassids are rubbing off on each other. First it was the fedoras, now the toibens.

The first time I saw a Chassidish woman’s head covering (the popular turban style, for around the house wear and going to the grocery store) was over a year ago. I thought it was a fluke, an old person’s things were given away that somehow landed in Beacon’s Closet.

Both groups are definitely rubbing off on each other. Hipsters find chassidim fascinating (which many Chassidim can’t comprehend) and if you really ask, the Chassidim find hipsters fascinating as well. More recently it became fashionable to wear the headcoverings of each other’s sides.

You may expect the ethno-interested scarf stylings in stores wrapped in creative ways, but they are also selling the same turbans that are sold in Hassidic tichel and head covering stores. I’ve seen at least one hipster chick crossing the street with an interesting ‘do topped with a turban like this one above, and it makes you look twice.

Culture Hopping in a Fedora

Via NYtimes

SPOTTING a Borsalino, a black wide-brimmed felt fedora, in the traditionally Jewish section of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, is no strange thing. What was surprising was the wearer: Theophilus London, a hip-hop artist from Trinidad. “This one is from the Jewish store,” Mr. London said, motioning toward southern Williamsburg, where the haredi still outnumber the hipsters.

Theophilus London, a hip-hop artist.

Called either a “black hat” or Borsalino, for the style’s most famous and expensive brand, the simple hat is most commonly associated with ultra-Orthodox non-Hasidic Jews, as well as members of the Chabad-Lubavitch sect, the Hasidic group based in Crown Heights.

But in recent months, the quasi-religious hat has not only popped up on the other side of Williamsburg, where skinny jeans and canvas sneakers still rule, but also in Cole Haan advertisements as a secular fashion accessory.

“I like wearing it because I know it’s genuine,” said Monika Jonevski, a marketing manager at Adidas who first saw one in the window of a hatter on the Lower East Side. “It’s been around in Jewish shops for ages.”

Mr. London didn’t seek his out, either. He was in Williamsburg recording a cover of the Nat King Cole song “Calypso Blues” when he stumbled across Bencraft Hatters, an old-school hattery on Broadway that offers more than 100 styles of felt hats by Borsalino, Stetson, Puertofino and Luigi Baroni. He bought a Puertofino for $120. “I liked the shape of it,” Mr. London said.

Since then, it’s become a part of his urban uniform. He wears it to pick up dinner at his local roti shop, to parties at the Top of the Standard, and even onstage.

This is not the first time that the Borsalino has hopped cultures. “This is an item of clothing that the Jews didn’t design, and didn’t invent, but they took it on and have given it a cachet in their own world,” said Samuel Heilman, a sociology professor at Queens College and the author of “Defenders of the Faith: Inside Ultra-Orthodox Jewry.”

While the tradition of Jews wearing black headgear goes back ages (it was a sign of mourning for the loss of Jerusalem), it wasn’t until the 1960s that ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students, as well as Chabad-Lubavitch Jews, began wearing the black fedora to distinguish themselves.

“As the differences between left and right begin to crystallize — when the trauma of survival is behind the Orthodox Jews and they’re re-establishing themselves in North America and Israel — they’re looking for some way to ensure they’re not assimilated, that they don’t disappear,” Professor Heilman said. “It’s not just the black hat. It’s the black suit jacket, the black pants and the white shirt, black shoes and glasses with black frames.”

Contemporary fashion has long drawn on religion for inspiration. “There are so many examples,” said Kenneth Ramaekers, director of Modemuseum Hasselt, a fashion museum in Hasselt, Belgium. Mr. Ramaekers cited Jeanne Lanvin’s and Balenciaga’s adaptation of the cassock in the 1920s and 1960s respectively; Jean Paul Gaultier’s 1993 women’s-wear collection, with its strong Hasidic inspiration; and Walter Van Beirendonck’s burqa look for men in 2008.

Last February, Thom Browne sent models down the runway dressed as nuns; their habits were removed to reveal the designer’s playful suits and colorful patterns. “Designers have always loved the traditions of religious as well as military uniforms,” said Madeline Weeks, fashion director at GQ magazine.

But that may not explain the black hat’s newfound appeal on the street. “I don’t think the yeshiva boys or the hipsters get their black hats from any kind of religious background,” said Maya Balakirsky Katz, who teaches art history at Touro College and is the author of “The Visual Culture of Chabad.” “It’s all from ‘Mad Men.’ In the ’50s, when the actual Mad Men were wearing Borsalinos, yeshiva students who were living in Manhattan said ‘Oh, this is how to acculturate.’ And that style is back in fashion again.”

The trend is by no means limited to men. Leandra Medine, the author of the style blog The Man Repeller, who was raised as an Orthodox Jew, gave a tongue-in-cheek nod to women wearing the “temple topper” trend last November. “Some ladies find themselves taking these masculine cues to new heights, Crown Heights, if you will,” she wrote.

Added Mordechai Rubinstein, a former yeshiva student who is behind the men’s-wear blogMister Mort: “Women are pulling these hats off better than men today. It’s so cool to see a woman wearing a Borsalino really well — brim down, crown pinched, tilted to one side, with such confidence.”

That’s not to say Mr. Rubinstein disapproves of the look for men. “A Borsalino is one of those classic pieces of men’s wear that every man should own,” he said. He gives a special acknowledgment to Mr. London. “Theophilus wears the hat, while most men are letting the hat wear them.”

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Kate Owen Photography

Monika Jonevski

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Phil Oh/Streetpeeper.com

Leaf Greener of Elle China.

Thou Shal Wear Plastic Glasses

Leaders of the Vizhnitz Hasidism have issued new instructions in regards to the purchase of eyeglasses, as part of their attempt to combat modernization. – lakewoodvoice.com

The first point of irony is that this message to hold to strict traditions is projected on twitter. Twitter. From a Hassidic source in the Viznitz would. Twitter is very commonly known for being a tool for hipsters to project their missions and serve their initiatives. So how did tweeting this message become acceptable, but picking up a pair of specs is not?

As for the message itself, the point of wearing plastic frames is to not fit in too much with the other nations and modern mainstream culture, aka nonsense. The irony is that the quinticential hipster look is to wear large plastic lenses, very much similar to what is considered traditional in the Hassidic world.

The irony of ironies, and what makes this situation a real subject for Hipsters and Hassids, is that as much as these two groups are trying to be unique and separate themselves from mainstream culture, the more they are acting like each other.

Rabbi Hagar said, “a student who wishes to delve into Torah studies and observe mitzvot must detach himself from all nonsense and not let them infiltrate.” Back you dirty artists! Back I say!

Urban Frumfitters: Hipster Corporate fashion Mimics Hassidic Hair Covering

Hey all, its been a long time since updating but I’ve been busy! Checkout JewishArtNow and elkerevasudin.com and you’ll see what I mean.

I am so excited to see the Satmar Chassidic influence on the hipster fashion agenda. Thank you Hashem for blessing us with this irony!

Here is an article Tablet posted about it. What I like the most is that they are super copying my style, but then again, imitation is the highest form of flattery.

So here’s the article:

Urban Frumfitters

By Merisa Fink for Jewcy | Originally posted January 21, 2011

Cover of Prattfolio Magazine

One of my Hipsters and Hassids paintings made it to the cover of Prattfolio Magazine!

Celebrating Sukkot in Clinton Hill

By ROISIN WISNESKI, Community Contributor

originally posted on the NYTimes

“One of the best things about being a rabbi in a school in Brooklyn is that we are at the epicenter of Jewish life. Last year we made a sukkah that we tagged with art and Hebrew words,” said Weinstein. “It’s a very liberal community here at Pratt, and we’re right near the Hasids. Both hipsters and Hasids are counterculture in the way that they dress and their customs.” – Rabbi Simcha Weinstein

Rabbi Simcha Weinstein shows off the Pratt sukkah in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn.

Read the full article here.

Old post, still Hassids on bikes

On August 26, 2009 Vos Iz Neias posted this article on Baruch Herzfelds classic non apologetic approach to getting Chassidim to exercise and have fun. Baruch is still ad it with the treif bikes but in case you didn’t know, here is the story:

Aug 26, 2009

Williamsburg, NY – An unusual sign appeared in the neighborhood. On it is a large Star of David constructed out of 50 or so rubber chickens. In the middle of the star, Yiddish text offers a free bike loan to any of the Yiddish-speaking Satmar Hasidim who live in the area.

“You can come borrow a bike to ride around and have fun,” the sign reads.

Baruch Herzfeld, a neighborhood gadfly/clown/activist/businessman who owns a small bicycle repair shop below the offices of his cell phone company (the shop’s name: Traif Bike Geschaft), put up the sign. Herzfeld, 37, already has sent some of his Hasidic friends down to the Brooklyn waterfront on the beat-up bikes he has in his repair shop. He just received 500 used bikes from Japan that will allow him to expand his program.

“These guys always complain to me. They say: ‘Baruch, what can I do? I’m miserable. Help me out,’” Herzfeld said. “I said, come to me. I’ll give you a bicycle on the side.”
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Herzfeld’s office is smack in the middle of the divided territory of Williamsburg, a neighborhood that has long been inhabited by Satmar Hasidim but has recently become a favorite of young secular New York hipsters. These two communities have little in common, but they have been particularly divided over the past year by proposed bike lanes through the neighborhood — which the Hasidim have opposed and the hipsters have generally supported. Herzfeld thinks that if he can get a few Hasidim riding bikes, it could ease some of the tension.

“The goal is just to make it acceptable. I’m not doing it because I want to change the world — I just think it would be a healthy thing for the whole city if some of these guys got on bicycles,” he said.

Or put differently, in Herzfeld’s rapid-patter style: “For the love of God — I’m Jewish, you’re Jewish, borrow a bicycle. Who are we hurting?”

It’s an improbable plan with a number of barriers to overcome. On a recent afternoon, a black-hatted Satmar man walked by and noticed the sign; Herzfeld told him to come by for a bike, but the man just laughed.

“Usually over here, the adults don’t ride. Over here nobody takes two wheels,” said the man, who declined to give his name.

If anybody can break these barriers, though, it’s probably Herzfeld. Though not a Hasid, he is a Sabbath-observant Modern Orthodox Jew. Both of his brothers are rabbis — one at the National Synagogue in Washington. But he also is a classic Brooklyn bon vivant: Next to the rubber-chicken bike loan sign is a graffitied picture of Che Guevara, and in back, with the bikes, is a chicken coop, where Herzfeld gets eggs for his wife. He wears a fedora, tilted forward, ironically, and an open-necked shirt — and he shows no fear in challenging the local rabbinic authorities who might look down on his program.

“Both of my brothers are rabbis. They’re probably smarter than your rabbis,” Herzfeld told one skeptic who cited religious restrictions. “My brother’s the rabbi at the National Synagogue. He lets me ride a bicycle. You should ride one, too. You got the wrong rabbi.”

The roots of the local resistance to Herzfeld’s thinking run deep. There are some Hasidic communities in which grown men do ride bicycles, but the Satmar world of Williamsburg is not one of them. Simon Weiser, a Hasidic member of the local community board who fought hard against the proposed bike lanes, said that it is simply a matter of tradition.

“It’s very uncommon here, so it looks awkward to ride a bike,” Weiser said. “That’s how it is. I don’t know how or why, but that’s how it became.”

The local attitudes surfaced last fall when the city proposed putting new bike lanes through Williamsburg to accommodate the many young, secular residents who use bicycles to get around. The Hasidic community immediately opposed the lanes, citing the reduced parking they would cause; some religious leaders also mentioned the immodestly dressed women who would come pedaling through the neighborhood.

The community meetings at which the bike lanes were discussed turned bitter and acrimonious. Wiley Norvell, a spokesman for the group Transportation Alternatives, which lobbied for the lanes, said the battles over bikes were “a sort of stand-in battle for the anxieties people have about neighborhood change.”

Norvell was excited to hear about Herzfeld’s plans. “It’s definitely the kind of bridge building that north Brooklyn could really use right now. It’s been a tough year — there’s no doubt about that. This is the sort of thing that could help us get back to a much more civil place.”

Like his meandering patter, Herzfeld’s approach to this problem has not been a linear one. He says it really began last summer, when his bike was stolen near his home on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. He went online to find a new bike, and he found a police auction site. He ended up buying 500 bicycles at around $8 a pop. Once he had the bikes, he needed somewhere to store and sell them, so he transformed his Williamsburg backyard into the bike shop and brought in one of his many neighborhood friends to run it.

This quickly made his two-story building a hangout for local hipsters, as did his decision to donate space on the ground floor to the group Time’s Up, an activist bike collective. Once he had the hipsters, Herzfeld saw the possibility of bringing them together with the Hasidim whom he meets on the street and in the local kosher restaurants. Earlier this summer, Herzfeld got a permit to close off his block and hold an event in which the Time’s Up folks fixed up some of the police auction bikes for Hasidic kids. He has decided to call his lending program a “Bike Gemach,” playing off the Hebrew word for a free loan society.

The gemach is part of a broader Herzfeldian vision to set up a bike-loan program like the ones that Paris and Amsterdam have, and in which most of the bicycles will not be free. “I don’t want to be in the business of lending bicycles to every shmeyl that wants one,” he said. His charity toward the Hasidim also knows bounds: “If someone does it all the time, I’ll say, ‘Listen, Khazer — go buy a bike.’”

On a recent Sunday, a Hasidic friend of Herzfeld’s, Yoel Buchinger, came by and was taught how to ride a bike by some of the Time’s Up activists. They recorded it on video for posterity. Buchinger said that he has many friends who would be willing to ride, as long as they are not doing so in the middle of the community.

“I have a lot of friends riding bikes every day — every night. They ride around the water,” Buchinger said.

Weiser said that Herzfeld might have some luck if he finds Hasidim who want to borrow bicycles and ride them outside Williamsburg. A passing Hasidic man said that no one could do it in the neighborhood because of “tznius,” or modesty, and told Herzfeld, “You see the problem.”

Herzfeld shot back: “Yeah, you see, you go with the two wheels, then you start enjoying yourself. It’s no good.”

He still got a parting “Zay gesunt,” or “Be well,” from the man as he walked away. Herzfeld gave him a “Zay gesunt” in return, with a smirk.

How Many Hipsters fit in a Jazz?

Okay, now its time to figure out how many Hassids fit in a silver minivan. If they are catching a ride to a wedding out of town, my guess is 9, unless someone has been eating too much shnitzel and kugel, then I’d say 5.

Future of Hipsters and Hassids

The Hipster and Hassid paintings are back in the studio for a rest but that doesn’t mean they are gone. Print versions will be available soon in 8.5×11″ and largest 13×19″. I am currently looking for new locations to show the works including a possible semi-permanent space to showcase the series together the way it is meant to be shown.

In the mean time, stay up to date with my new projects posted on www.elkerevasudin.com including

Jewish Diversity Art & DJ night at Gallery Bar

Thursday, July 29, 2010
7:30pm – 11:00pm
Gallery Bar
120 Orchard St

NY, NY

Jewish artists from racially or ethnically diverse backgrounds at Gallery Bar (co-sponsored by BeChol Lashon)

MORE INFO AT
http://shemspeed.com/bechollashon

Facebook Event

Painting in the (P)ark

Painting in the (P)ark represents a place of peace and artistry. (P), standing for the People of Art, and Ark representing a place of refuge for artists.

Classes will be held on the below dates from 4pm-6pm. The cost is $100.00 for the 8 classes in advance at http://paintinginthepark.eventbrite.com

There is no painting experience necessary. Bring your own art supplies. Once you sign up for the class, the suggested supplies list will be sent to you.
June 20th, July 11th, July 18th, July 25th, Aug 1st, Aug 8th, Aug 22nd, Sept 19th. *Rain date class is Aug 29th.
For more information about the class, please email Info@Artists4Israel.org.

Check out Modern Tribe for cool and hip Judaica