In an historic development, women no longer have to sit in the back of a public bus that runs between two predominantly Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods of Brooklyn! The Private Transportation Corp., which pays the city $20,000 a year to operate the Williamsburg-to- Borough Park B110 bus, has sent a letter to the DOT insisting that women were never required to sit in the back, despite many eyewitness reports. But the owner of the company is promising to make sure the thing that supposedly never happened doesn't happen in the future. Next thing you know these broads will want to hang out in saloons and chew tobacco! more ›

Like it or not, wicked modern mores may be coming to a group of Orthodox Hasidic Jews who prefer women to ride in the back of public buses. Earlier this week, an article in the Columbia University-run publication New York World shed goyish light on Brooklyn's B110 bus line, which the DOT franchises to a private company, Private Transportation Corporation. It's a public bus, but most of the riders are Orthodox, and they insist that women sit in the back, just like Roslyn Parkstein. Well, yesterday the DOT fired off a sternly-worded letter to the company, and then Mayor Bloomberg dipped his oar in. more ›

Perhaps you recall the two in-debt Midtown jewlers who hired two men to rob their store so they could save their business with $7 million in insurance money. No? Certainly you remember that the robbers were dressed as Hasidic Jews in a scene straight out of Snatch? Yeah, those guys. Well, you'll be interested to know that the jewelers in question, Mahaveer Kankariya and Atul Shah, were found guilty today on seven counts of grand larceny, insurance fraud and other crimes. more ›

Even though a Community Board and the City Council approved the rezoning an industrial area in Williamsburg for low-rise housing, a judge blocked any development in order to hear a lawsuit claiming that the process to rezone the area favored whites and Hasidic Jews over other minorities. Now, the NY Times reports that Justice Emily Jane Goodman scheduled a hearing next month "to determine whether the city's plan...would essentially foster segregation." more ›

The Williamsburg Satmars rec center bathroom signs seem to have gotten an upgrade, suggesting their bathrooms are only for men with payots and women with lots of children. Though the woman's skirt seems way too short for Satmar standards, the paper cutout additions are pretty spot on. So what other neighborhoods could use bathroom makeovers? Bike helmets in Greenpoint? Bermuda shorts and fanny packs in Times Square? Photoshop contest! [Via Village Voice] more ›

Cops have arrested the two diamond sellers who allegedly staged a $4 million heist, in which thieves dressed as Hasidic Jews pretended to clean out their safe at gunpoint. In reality, the owners of the Midtown wholesaler had stolen their own jewels and are now charged with grand larceny and falsifying business records! One of the hired thieves is in custody too, while one remains at large. "The whole thing was set up," one source said. It was also stolen from a popular crime flick. more ›

A New York Hasidic woman passed away last month leaving behind 15 children, over 200 grandchildren and enough great-grandchildren to bring her total number of living family members to around 2,000. Yitta Schwartz—who lived to the old age of 93 outlasting her husband by 34 years—was productive even among her community of Satmar Hasidic Jews for whom having kids is a tribute to God. So much so that she spent much of her time attending various events—brises, first haircuts, bar mitzvahs, etc., reports the Times. “She would appear like the Prophet Elijah,” said her eldest living daughter who is 64. “Everybody was fighting over her!” more ›

After the CDC announced that over 1,500 cases of the mumps have been reported in the NY-NJ area—the majority in the Orthodox Jewish community—the NYC Health Department has announced mumps vaccination clinics. About half of the cases are in NYC (44% in Brooklyn), and the Health Department says, "Young men in Williamsburg, Crown Heights and Borough Park have experienced high levels of mumps for several months. Most cases have occurred in males and an increasing number of cases have been in young adults, ages 18 to 30." Details for clinics are here. more ›

With many cases stemming from an outbreak at a Jewish boys' summer camp upstate, more than 1,000 in New York and New Jersey are infected with the mumps, most of them Orthodox Jews. One camper—who caught the old-fashioned childhood disease in England where more than 4,000 are infected—spread the sickness to 25 of his bunk-mates, who then brought it home to their Orthodox communities. Many came from Borough Park, Brooklyn, where in October, 79 mumps sufferers were counted, reports CNN. But the numbers keep growing! more ›

Have really fake-looking beard, will rob: Surveillance footage has emerged of two men who disguised themselves as Hasidic Jews to rob a Diamond District jewelry importer on New Year's Eve afternoon. more ›

The NYPD is stepping into a long-running feud between two rival Orthodox Jewish patrol groups in Crown Heights in order to unite them into a single police-supervised unit. Shmira and Shomrim are two bitterly-divided private crime-patrol organizations that split in the late '90s. (Here's one explanation of their complicated rivalry.) In an exclusive titled, "Jew Guys Need to Talk," the Post reports that Shmira has agreed to the merger, but Shomrim refuses to sit down with Shmira, who they accuse of slashing patrol-car tires, making prank emergency calls and falsely informing on Shomrim to the police. Yossi Stern, director of Shmira, denies the allegations: "It's all a bunch of rhetoric. Show me a police report. We're not out to harass anybody. We're out to do a service for the community." You'll recall that members of Shmira were suspected of beating a 20-year-old black man, Andrew Charles, in Crown Heights last April. more ›

The utterly unnecessary return of 90210 to the small screen tomorrow means the arrival of giant billboards displaying the new cast. The Brooklyn Paper reports on one in which teens wear swimsuits and lounge in pools in the form of the 90210 numbers. The image can be seen from the BQE and hangs above Williamsburg--specifically in the Hasidic Jewish area. Rabbi David Niederman says, “In Jewish law, it is forbidden to see any part of a lady that is not dressed — and having men and women swimming together is also not permissible, even if they are fully clothed.” (In the past, Hasids have rallied against an H&M ad.) To be fair, though, that girl in the "1" pool isn't swimming with any boys, so she's only half offensive. more ›

The police have increased their presence in Crown Heights after two incidents that have upset the black and Jewish communities and caused unrest between them. And many are recalling the summer of 1991, when the Crown Heights riots shook the city. more ›

A few months ago we were walking on Lee Avenue in East Williamsburg, and noticed some strange billboard graffiti. It looked like someone had spraypainted a beard over the kid in the ad. At first, we thought it might be the work of Beard, a streetartist who had been putting work up recently, but on closer inspection, it wasn't so much a beard as just a straight crossing out of the face. more ›

Haverford graduate, Parks Department project manager, and Greenpoint resident David Langlieb is under fire for writing an essay about his neighborhood in his alumni magazine. According to the Daily News, the essay, ripe with complaints about the old-school Polish residents and self-deprecation about not being an Ivy League graduate, has incensed the Polish American Congress and Councilman David Yassky, who said, "my eyes pretty much popped out of my head when I read this." more ›

Gavin Cato's death set off three days of riots. Yankel Rosenbaum, an Australian Orthodox Jew doing research in New York City for his doctoral dissertation at the University of Melbourne, was stabbed to death a few blocks away by a group of young black men. Cato's and Rosenbaum's deaths became heated symbols in a political and cultural struggle that pitted not just Hasidic Jews against black residents of Crown Heights, but also black radicals against the black-dominated Brooklyn political establishment; the black mayor and his black police commissioner against the largely white police force; the United States Department of Justice against New York politicians; and the leadership of Manhattan-based Jewish organizations against Jews from the outer boroughs. The riot strained race relations in the city, led some to question the viability of urban liberalism and the black-Jewish political entente, raised concerns about the extent of black anti-Semitism, and led the federal judiciary to broaden the scope of federal civil rights legislation to include Jews.

Gothamist on the Hasids vs. the Hipsters. more ›

Should hipsters be added to the list of plagues? Gothamist previously on the Hasidic-Hipster unrest. more ›

Two books that show the divide between the communities: The Hipster Handbook and Hasidic Williamsburg. more ›