A Fortress in Brooklyn

March 22, 2021
Historians Deutsch (The Jewish Dark Continent) and Casper deliver a rich chronicle of the Satmar Hasidic community in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, focusing on how the group’s “commitment to extreme ideological purity” and “remarkably flexible pragmatism” have been crucial to its success. Arriving from Hungary in the 1940s, Satmar Hasidim sought to make Williamsburg a “holy ‘camp in the desert’ ” that would protect their culture from secular influences and exemplify authentic Jewish life outside of Israel. The authors document the displacement of Williamsburg’s preexisting Jewish population by Satmar Hasidim in the 1950s and ’60s, and detail contentious relations with African American and Puerto Rican neighbors in the ’70s and ’80s over access to public housing and rising crime rates. Gentrification created internal divisions, as some community members waged “war” against the artistn (the Yiddish term Hasidim use to refer to hipsters), whose presence they perceived as an economic and moral threat, while others welcomed the prosperity that redevelopment projects brought to the area. Deutsch and Casper wade deep into local politics, detailing protests over a bike lane and the construction of an incinerator, but stay tethered to the larger point that the Satmar Hasidim have both changed and been changed by their neighborhood. This expert account enlightens.