Consider intra-Orthodox relations in the alte heim, in the shtetl. What did they look like? It would seem from history texts, from pictures, and, most important, from speaking with our parents and grandparents, that co-existence was the rule of thumb. The shtreimel, the black hat, and the gray hat (and even the no-hat) lived more or less in harmony.
Pick your shtetl or community. Generally, there was one rav in town, even though there were different types of people living there. In Radin, Lita, the Chofetz Chaim was the rav of the yeshiva community and the rav of the community as a whole. The Brezaner Rav, the Marsham, was the rav in Galicia. Rav Eliyahu Feinstein held that post in Pruzan, White Russia. The Minchas Elazar, the Munkatcher Rebbe, was the rav in Czechoslovakia in the late 1930’s and early 1940’s. He was the predecessor to EF Hutton – when the Munkatcher Rebbe spoke, people listened.
In Roman Vishniak’s pictorial histories of Jewish life in those towns and cities, you can see and feel how these hatted and hatless people spoke and lived together. A much smaller percentage of men wore shtreimels back then.
This is not simply an exercise in nostalgia, an ultimately fruitless yearning for an irretrievable past. The question, uncomfortable though it is to some, must be asked: Why has the hat become the ultimate symbol of Orthodoxy rather than the individual who is wearing the hat?
In The World That Was Lithuania (pg. 42) there is a picture of the roshei yeshiva, rebbeim and talmidim of the Telz Yeshiva in 1932. The kollel talmidim are a large group of gray hats. Many of these young men, as well as others like them and their children after them, would go on to become presidents of shuls, askanim, and leaders of the frum community.
Or take a look at photographs of the early Agudah conventions. They reflect a more heterogeneous grouping of Jews joined by one unifying purpose. There, too, one sees many gray hats in the crowd.
Joseph Schick recently contemplated Orthodox labeling on his blog (www.jschick.blogspot.com). In a post titled “Orthodox Judaism’s Cultural Divide,” Schick quoted former fellow blogger Godol Hador, who divided the frum world into four camps: Right Wing Haredi, Left Wing Haredi, Right Wing Modern Orthodox and Left Wing Modern Orthodox. (I noted there was no group labeled “Center.”) Schick stated further that he does not identify himself as either haredi or Modern Orthodox. Indeed, in haredi settings, he wrote, he’s perceived as Modern Orthodox, while the modern tend to think of him as haredi.
Moishe Hellman, resident of Ohel Children’s Home and Family Services, often laments this type of characterization in our community as it pertains to his organization. Within the bounds of Boro Park, Ohel is perceived as an organization of modern, English-speaking professionals. Conversely, in Manhattan or the Five Towns Ohel is perceived as a “Boro Park agency” serving only the heimish or haredi community.
It seems that organizations, too, can be labeled by a hat.
Why is this an issue? Why is it relevant to us all?
The slow but perceptible loss of the Center within Orthodoxy has had far-reaching ramifications on our community. It has had a profound effect on our finances, on shidduchim, on housing, on employment, on shuls and yeshivas, on our very social strata
As touched on above, in our recent and not so recent past, in the shtetls and cities of Europe, there was a middle, a Center. Many Jews were part of this Center – whether in terms of religion, politics, or both.
