So as some of you may know by way of the addictive Facebook, I am moving to Monsey. I know that many of my loyalists who remind me of those who elected Bush for his second term, have called me a sell-out for leaving my anonymous post in upstate NY for a more public and less “cool” residence in the Charedi kingdom known as Rockland County. But I have to work, get married and buy an overpriced mansion to house all of my books and bikes, so I decided to look for a full time job, landed one in Monsey for that manner and off I went on a new adventure.
This will be the first time I am living in a large orthodox Jewish community since I was 12. After attending 8th grade in Providence Rhode Island I whisked away to the great establishment of Chofetz Chaim in the image capital of the world otherwise known as Rochester, where entertainment revolved around ice fishing and hunting seasons as well as those daily run yeshiva bingo games. Our kosher food consisted of a deli that everyone “held” by, but that you needed to ask for glatt meat. Then of course I moved to Albany and for the last three years lived within the luxury of having kosher food less then two hours away. Never in my life did I imagine I would live in a big frum community with kosher restaurants, Chassidim and potential shidduchim. I thought I would conquer this earth singlehandedly from a log cabin in Montana, or at least somewhere that I considered “out of town.”
Now I know a lot of people are asking themselves how I can stand to move to such a place as Monsey, in fact I have received numerous emails asking me why I would put myself in such conditions and I have a few answers. There are many reasons why one would want to live in Monsey. Besides for the beautiful underage waitresses at the over priced “looks better then it tastes” Monsey restaurant the Purple Pear. Besides for nearly running over all the Chassids dressed in black standing on the shoulders of Maple Ave and hitchhiking, besides for the multitudes of twirling peyos Chassidic kids staring at me because I am wearing shorts in the summer and besides for the fact that Monsey will give me some great material to share with you people every day. I have one major reason I am moving to Monsey:
The proximity to hiking, biking and kayaking, DUH!!! I would never have lived anywhere but Monsey, well maybe Monroe, but that’s it. Besides having a 2.85 mile commute to work, behind the worst drivers in the country, I am located 10 minutes drive from Harriman State Park, 52,000 acres of trails, rock climbing, rural roads and lakes. Besides for Harriman, I have the Appalachian Trail running practically through my backyard. Multiple hiking spots within 30 minutes in the Hudson Highlands and a 40 minute drive to my favorite mountain biking spot in NY State.
I am already scheming about coming home from work, hiking into the woods camping out, cooking some dinner, waking up early enough to hike out and shower and then be at work the next day- all on a weeknight. Endless possibilities exist when you don’t care for TV or drunken nights grinding up on people you will never see again.
Of course the fact that Monsey will provide with an inside view of the frum community and allows me to expand the Blog are also things I am looking forward to. I would also like to hopefully try and do some standup shows, with me ranting for hours- if you know of anyone who’s interested they should email me. Oh and if there are any folks who read this and are located in Monsey I would love to meet up- in fact this shabbos is being spent with this guy who’s parents and him are a big fan of the videos- shall be interesting.
25 responses so far ↓
1 s(b.) // Feb 28, 2008 at 1:43 pm
Do you like to play softball?
2 anon // Feb 28, 2008 at 1:53 pm
monsey needs more people like you, people who actually have an interest in life and things outside a gemara. bring some of your friends while you’re at it.
3 Helloween // Feb 28, 2008 at 1:54 pm
If this move won’t turn you into an anti semite within 3 months, you’re a good jew.
4 abandoning eden // Feb 28, 2008 at 3:31 pm
if wok n’ take out is still around, they have great kosher chinese food (especially the veal..mmmmmm). Or at least they did 7 years ago.
5 Michael // Feb 28, 2008 at 4:15 pm
this is the first time that i have seen your site and i find it really funny that you mentioned the purple pear since i work there. i totally agree that the food is overpriced but u gotta admit that the food is great and the portions are more than enough for 2 meals
6 utubefan // Feb 28, 2008 at 5:45 pm
Ok. I have to do this. If you had moved out of town to a larger Frum community like Atlanta or Baltimore or something then you still would have had access to beautiful parks and trails, kosher food, jobs, and normal out-of- town women. Here (yep, I said “here”) in Monsey, you will have access to the kinds of girls you make fun of–with a few exceptions and that includes those pesky 5 Borough and 5 Townsers–and a culture of negative energy that you will not be able to escape, trust me, I have tried and it’s been a few years. So, ammo-wise, you’ll be loaded for years and you’ll be posting rants upon rants, but otherwise please know that:
a. there are no normal Shuls in Monsey
b. there are no normal restaurants in Monsey (the Purple Pear was only good because the woman who was behind it was a homey from Queens–a normal place for a young single guy to live, btw).
c. there are hardly any normal people in Monsey and if anyone tries to tell you so, don’t buy it. And to the genius anon above (sorry, I had a bad day) why would you ask someone to make himself a Karban so you could have a normal person join our pathetic existence here.
d. I am debating whether it is safe to out myself and invite you for Shabbos. I think we would enjoy your company and vice versa, but I am too old to be blogfodder–job, kids, etc. I’ll probably do it anyway. You’ll need some normalcy soon.
e. OY!
P.S. There’s a book called something like 100 hikes in the Hudson Valley. Yes, we do have nature and that’s what brought us here, G-d help us.
7 A23 // Feb 28, 2008 at 6:10 pm
So you’re going to Monsey as a black hatter? How soon until you think you can publish your Black Hat Like Me? I would totally buy “Frum Satire the Book”.
8 heshman // Feb 28, 2008 at 11:34 pm
Its funny you say that A23 because someone else has been pressuring me lately to self publish a compilation of some of my best posts and put it up for sale. It would be cool I just don’t think I can bust out my motivation.
Utube- do I sense a feeling of animosity towards your home town. Anyway I am pumped about Monsey mostly due to the hiking and biking and blog material- the less normal a shul the better. If I wanted normal I could have moved to Kew Gardens or something- I would probably rather live in salvation army then live in Queens or anywhere else in the city- I thrive on weirdos.
And yes you can invite me for shabbos and I would come. Wait judging from your last sentence you still live in Monsey. Ihave at least 100 charedi cousins in Monsey as well- which should make things interesting
9 acdc // Feb 29, 2008 at 12:53 am
I don’t think a book of stuff that’s available for free on the internet would sell very well. And no kike store would carry it anyway.
10 Rach // Feb 29, 2008 at 2:43 am
I actually think it would sell, if someone is a big enouh fan of someone and their work they’ll buy anything. Also you can read books on shab… then again you can’t discuss stuff with other random bloggers, which is pretty fun, i reckon i wouldn’t read half this stuff if i couldn’t discuss it…. hmmm, Hesh if you DID wanna make money off this thing, you could publish a book, make this website by password only and gve away one password wth each book….im too tired to explain everything, but i’m sure you can think up the rest on your own. Just don’t take my idea seriously till June, when i prob will be no longer blogging okay?
11 acdc // Feb 29, 2008 at 3:00 am
Good way to get more fans and recognition, password your website. I never saw someone that desperate to read a blog.
12 heshman // Feb 29, 2008 at 10:18 am
Its funy because as nice as it would be to make money- I really just want to be heard- you know 15 minutes of fame etc…
There is no way I would ever make this forum password only- it would not happen.
I sure as hell wouldn’t read a blog if it had a password- the beauty of blogs is that they are easy and accessible- no pesky half naked girl ads and no pop up ads.
13 s(b.) // Feb 29, 2008 at 2:00 pm
speaking of half-naked girls, I was out seeing some music last night at the venue had a playboy pinball machine. I LOVE pinball, but it was a rather adult-imagery-type cabinet/game. I realize that countertop touchscreen games sometimes have these images, too. I’d've much rather the bar had The Simpsons, The Sopranos or South Park (pinball games), even Austin Powers. I’m not turning into a prude, I just think … I don’t know what. A bar is for adults, and they have every right to have a Playboy pinball machine, if they want to. Prude isn’t the right word. More discreet, I guess. It’s different, but it feels right. (sorry, random ramble, folks)
14 M // Feb 29, 2008 at 3:05 pm
Enjoy Monsey- oh, and PS- it is VERY VERY hard to stay true to your ideals and ideas when everyone around you doesn’t live/endorse/understand them. Just a warning.
15 heshman // Feb 29, 2008 at 3:26 pm
Thats funny because everywhere else I lived no one had the same ideals and ideas- I have yet to live in the mountain time zone where people understand me the most.
I think people who succumb to peer pressure just aren’t strong people.
16 utubefan // Mar 1, 2008 at 8:16 pm
Just to clarify, I’m from KGH and I currently live in Monsey so I know what it was like to grow up in a place where people accept each other for what they are and to live somewhere we they can’t live and let live. My problem with Monsey and it will become yours–and that is what saddens me because I like your spirit–is that there is a tremendous amount of negative energy being directed from one group to the other. The non-Orthodox (I’m just lumping all of them together) speak out and write regularly in negative terms about the Chasidim and the other Frum people around here (this is partially due to the overbuilding and instances of really lousy judgment of the Frum people and partially due to their own biases and the fact that a good portion of them ran away from the Bronx to get away from the crazy religious folk), the Chasidim either don’t care about or don’t think too much about how they are perceived and about the other groups in general (btw, I have Chasidish relatives and relate more to Chasidus and Chasidim than other right-wing Jews and even some left-wingers), the Modern Orthodox speak negatively of the Chasidim and the other right-wingers and the right-wingers think the MO are the Anti-Christ. So, for me, it’s not about the different groups and the closed mindedness of some on both sides, but the utter lack of Ahavas Yisrael that I see here on a daily basis. So, if the blog and the whole comedy thing is where it’s at for you, ok, but I sensed that you have this whole spiritual side and that will in pain after you’ve been here a while. Now, I will stop the serious stuff and just wish you well. P.S. I have tons of Chareidi relatives too and–guess what–I love them. My spirit wants something different though, and it is easier to surround myself with that.
17 ConservativeSciFi // Mar 2, 2008 at 2:03 pm
Mazel Tov on the move. Hopefully you will find a niche that fits you. I actually think that if you become active in some organization, you’ll have the most fun (whether that is daf yomi or organizing nature trips).
18 heshman // Mar 2, 2008 at 7:51 pm
Sp are you going to have me over for shabbos? I just spent shabbos with a heimishe family over in the concord area- it was rocking- especially because I never met them before- so much fun I love Monsey. Went riding and hiking today- concert last night. Love nearly running over chassidim wearing all black hitchhiking. Oh and the food, frummies can cook my lord.
I love my charedi cousins- I just have nothing to talk to them about.
19 utubefan // Mar 3, 2008 at 11:41 am
You are about to date a “cool” out of towner so it looks like you might be saved or open to salvation. Enjoy the hikes/bikes! If you’re ok with more urban Monsey area hills–check out upper Pomona north of 202, new development overlooking the Hudson–not Frum, btw not that it matters. The hubbie and have gone there on occasion to watch the sun set. And–we do bring the kids too sometimes. Don’t tell anyone!
20 s(b.) // Mar 3, 2008 at 2:18 pm
methinks it’s time to Free Lipa.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/03/nyregion/03concert.html?ex=1362286800&en=96ec342abe64dd42&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
21 Jeffrey // Mar 4, 2008 at 5:19 pm
Feel free to join the Monsey Mountaineers. We go out every Sunday after Shachris
22 Hesh // Mar 4, 2008 at 5:38 pm
Thats coincidental because I just emailed Steve Fishman last week about doing stuff. I am buddies with his son Ariel.
23 Jeffrey // Mar 10, 2008 at 2:00 pm
Steve’s our “rebbe”. The insignia that’s on our web-site has Chaburat Elazar. Elazar is Steve. He has pretty much single handedly gotten us all to join him. We’re all his “talmidim”.
24 heshman // Mar 10, 2008 at 2:13 pm
This was emailed to me by another person having trouble with the comments- I am working on it.
You decided to analyze the word I labeled myself with. So let me give you my perspective, and hopefully I can shed some light on the situation.
Since most of Polish orthodoxy was wiped out by the Nazis, and most who survived either went off, or became chasiddish, and those are the ones that went to Ger, some Belz, a little Alexander. A few stayed frum but not chasiddish.
Form the Hungarian/Romanian side, the Casualties was much less, since the Nazis didn’t really take over Budapest until 1944, the orthodoxy stayed much more intact. Therefore, most orthodox people who came over from Europe after the war, where Hungarian. However, there was almost no of such a thing as Chasidis in Hungary. When they came to America the ones who established Yiddishkeit and provided for them both spiritually and physically, where Satmar, Tzehlem, Klausunburg, Pupa, who were are Hungarian Rabbi’s in Europe. They turned them all into Chasisdisis and all their followers gave in their caps for shtreimlich.
Both of my grandfathers where clean shaven, however all my uncles were shteimlich, well almost, but all their kids. Now even though we are not Chasidish per se, we all speak Yiddish, and we put on the garb because we don’t want them to kick our kids out from the school, but in general we don’t want to lead a very restrictive life. We don’t want to have to walk the streets in ninety degree weather with a fur hat on our head and a bekeshe, which is basically a black plastic bag.
Do we like it? Nah, but we have no choice, we love our families, our surroundings our Tahoes, our hot Chani’s, our Choolent, and all the amenities that come along, and not willing to give it up.
So “heimish” really, in our sphere, means Chasidic/Hungarian/warm background, but not necessarily willing to give up the Big Event, their Yankee/Mets baseball, or to swarm Miami every winter. We will sing Zemiros with our kids, Go to a rebbe to cut our three year olds’ hair, and put on his tifillin at the Rebbe, live the ghetto life, some go for a kvitill before Yomim NoRa’im, and if god forbid a tragedy happens. But in general non-affiliated.
Kind of a happy medium put it has many faults and in a different comment I will discuss those.
25 heshman // Mar 10, 2008 at 2:14 pm
Hey jeffery- if you could get me someone interesting to stay by for shabbos I am game. I just did an all day grueling solo hike yesterday and it was amazing. I am in love with the Lichen Trail
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