March 21, 2017 A thread on imamother: “How does Satmar feel about Frieda Vizel’s tours?”
There is an interesting conversation on the frum internet forum imamother.com about my tours. The questioner wants to know how insiders feel about it. This is a question I get asked most often by tourists and it is something I grapple with myself. Here is the most succinct version of the ethical dilemma, as framed by the original poster on imamother:
Frida Vizel is a former member of the Kiryas Yoel community who left Satmat and now operates a business running tours of Chassidic Williamsburg. It’s called Visit Hasidim.com (I googled; you could have, too).
How do you think you would feel if someone started running tours of your neighborhood so that strangers could get an up close and personal look at your way of life? In theory it’s to generate understanding but there’s plenty of plain rubbernecking going on as well.
Now how would you feel if the person running the tours was an OTD formerly frum person from your community?
I can’t give a single answer because various Hasidim I asked had different reactions; and because what I experience isn’t the sum of the community’s philosophy towards tourism. But while I don’t know how everyone feels, I do know how people have treated us over more than three years of quietly touring the neighborhood.
People in the businesses we visit are just friendly and very down to earth, while everyday folks go about their daily affairs as if we aren’t there. On occasion, we get stared down, or people ask what we come to see, or even contribute to the conversation. It happens rarely, but sometimes a Hasidic person gives us a short lesson. We had only one instance of an individual disrupting the tour on several occasions. A middle-aged man followed the group around and disrupted our tour with cries of “hypocrite!”. At some point a local Hasidic shopkeeper came out of his store to ask the disruptive gentleman (in Yiddish) to “leave them alone”. The two men had a conversation as the disruptive man argued that we had come on some traitorous mission. Then he went his way and we went ours (to taste some rugelach.)
Here is what people on this forum say they feel about the tours:
It’s actually amusing. I have never come across a disrespectful or annoying tourist. I see local bakeries profit from their purchases.
I live here. No one cares. At worst it’s an eyeroll, combined with a “what can possibly be interesting about that pharmacy that they’re all taking photos of?…
Few people even know about it, and nobody cares. She’s not the only one doing tours in Williamsburg. An average Shabbos has many tour buses riding down Lee Ave and dropping tourists off to check out the sights. Nobody gives them a second glance.
I grew up and lived in Williamsburg until two years ago. These tours are going on for years already. I remember seeing her on shabbos, they’d board their bus across the house I grew up in. And I watched them often from my window.
I couldn’t care less. For me it was entertainment on a long shabbos….
I’ve never heard a complaint.
I remember my sister mentioning that she knows her amd it was sad that she ended up this way.
There are lots of tourists coming to tour the “hasidic” Williamsburg. Her Groups were the most respectful groups. No noise, no trash, quiet and quick.
We gawk right back, if they take photos of a pharmacy. Or we go right on with our business.
Do Parisians mind the tourists? Do Londoners?
I love when uber drivers ask me about our neighborhood. I love pointing out that we are not as homogeneous as they think. I never speak to anyone in the tour groups, mostly because I can’t spare the time. It also seems like they don’t want to bother people with questions. I like to think they are here to learn just a little bit more about us than the one dimensional portrait the media often paints.
It is worth pointing out that the comments on an online forum are not a particularly indicative sampling, and people online tend to be more open in the first place, but these sentiments were the surprising and thoughtful reactions we have always experienced.
The most negative feedback that we get from community members is that we come to Williamsburg to “gawk as if at a zoo”. This is a critique that is not unique to Williamsburg tours; all cultural tours or anthropological studies might be guilty of turning people into involuntary performers or unwilling objects of analysis. We do our best to avoid disrespect by coming in small groups, engaging with the shops and avoiding stereotyping at all costs
If we had an opportunity to explain to members of the community why we do this; we would say that visiting cultures so radically different than the mainstream is a worthwhile learning experience; it broadens our understanding of history, community, Jewish life and the colorful tapestry that is New York. We try our best to be sensitive and grateful for the opportunity, and we hope we aren’t too much of a pain!
Related:
Tour-guide diary: a scary Hasidic man causes trouble
The bus tours and insensitive tourists
Hasidic Tours for German Tourists
A tour of Hasidic Williamsburg 35 years ago ($6.50!)