Sterlizing the firebrand - "Chassidish Lite"

The SR with Hertz Frankel standing left. Also seen are Yossel Ashkenazi and Sender Deitsch.


Yosef718's point may have been lost on some of us. He wasn't trying to discourage women who don't cover their sheitlach from coming to daven at the tziyun in KJ. Chas Vesholem. I think what he was trying to bring out is how the SR has been sterilized to be a lovable old zeide who only had nice things to say abut everybody and everything, and even his opposition to Zionism was in a nice way. I don't even think that Satmar itself has been leading this effort, it's mostly the Agudists and the Litwaukees. I'm not sure why this has been happening. He's no Satmar Chossid himself, Yosef, I can vouch for that, so what they made of the SR is what bothers him. Which is why he brings up the points about his opposition to socks and so on, to show those who so love him that the love was not necessarily mutual. Not only did he not care for their socks, he also didn't care for the Mishna Berurah ! at times. Not only did he not care for their socks and Mishna Berurah at times, but he held they (in Israel) were all Ovdei A"Z by speaking Hebrew and teaching the language in their schools and having their schools funded by the heathen Israeli Gov't.! Yet every year they eulogize him in the Agudist literature as if he were one of their own, and in Ami magazine we're treated to a weekly ongoing series about him, despite the fact that claim to be very "open-minded." This is one life's great mysteries.

Which brings us to the concept of Chassidish Lite. I once heard that term from a man in a bungalow colony we once went to. (We worked there, we didn't go there on vacation.) He was speaking about a cheder that his son attended in Flatbush (Midwood) and said that he liked it because it was "Chassidish Lite." They teach in Yiddish but they don't give the kids or parents a hard time in other aspects... This man was a very proud descendant of Lubliner Chassidim and wanted his son to at least have an affinity to some things Chassidish, which he would not get if he went to a school like YOB or CB. In many if not all Chassidishe Kreizen you see these Lite Chassidim. They come for a kvitel or to the simchas in the Rebbe's Hoyf, or they may even come for RH & YK, but they can't keep up with the regular vigor of everyday Chassidish life with its expectations and dress codes. Their parents and zeides were chassidim and they want to be as well. They send their kids to Litvishe Yeshivos probably because there they can have it all, am easier life and maybe become Lomdim too. They want it all. They're often men of means, so they get their due respect, despite the fact that they don't keep the takonos, etc. So, judging from the fact that the SR had "utter contempt," as Yosef718 so eloquently put it, for those who wore thin stockings, is there room in Satmar for the "Lite" crowd? He may not have minded that the men don't have the Chassidishe Levush, but he sure did mind when it came to the Ezras Noshim!

My only question to Yosef718 is: was the Rov not Yotze Mrs. Hertz Frankel with Shofar either? or was she never there for the הייליגע טעג so as not to cause any trouble?

(COMING SOON: Is there a "Chassidish Lite" element in Lubavitch?)