City Workers Remove Sexist Yiddish Signs

City workers have removed signs warning women in a Hasidic neighborhood in Brooklyn to step aside for men. The signs were first reported on FailedMessiah.com.

City workers remove Yiddish signs directing women to move aside for men in Hasid neighborhood
BY Trevor Kapp and Tracy Connor • NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

City workers have removed signs warning women in a Hasidic neighborhood in Brooklyn to step aside for men.

But the Parks Department says the teardowns in South Williamsburg had nothing to do with the message itself; it's just illegal to post signs on street trees.

"We do not know who put up the signs," said Parks spokeswoman Trish Bertuccio.

The large signs started popping up in the neighborhood more than a week ago. They had a Yiddish message that translates as: "Precious Jewish daughter, please move to the side when a man approaches."

Neighborhood residents were annoyed the plastic signs, which were bolted into the wood, were taken away.

"The signs don't bother anybody," said Abraham Klein, 18. "Men and ladies don't go together. It's just our religion."

Faye Grwnfeld, 70, said the signs were "a private thing" - even though they were posted on public property.

"It's taking away freedom of speech," she said.

The signs didn't indicate who put them up, but talk in the neighborhood suggested they were posted by a hard-line rabbinical group.

Deborah Feldman, an ex-Hasid and author of "Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of my Hasidic Roots," said no one in the neighborhood, where she once lived, would have been surprised by the signs.

"This is standard practice in Hasidic communities all over: Step aside when a man is approaching you from the opposite direction," she said.

She said the signs likely were posted as part of a crackdown on rebellious behavior by women.

"It's a way of the community reminding people to stay in line, so to speak," she said.

Feldman noted that similar signs can be seen in Hasidic strongholds like upstate Kiryas Joel and New Square - and they didn't make the papers like the ones in Williamsburg did.

"This is nothing new. It's getting attention because it's Brooklyn, and Williamsburg is no longer an isolated bubble," she said.

Here's a lesson in journalism for you.

I broke this story a week ago.

Several publications picked it up, including the Brooklyn Paper. In its report, the Brooklyn Paper cites FailedMessiah.com as the source of the story.

The Gothamist does the story and cites FailedMessiah.com as its source.

WPIX does a report that I did not see that apparently does not cite FailedMessiah.com or the Brooklyn Paper. (Update 7:30 am CDT – And so did ABC. I've now posted that video below.)

Ha'aretz and Gawker do the story and cite only the Brooklyn Paper.

The Daily News does the story and cites…nobody.

The News does credit the Brooklyn Paper for the photo it used, but that's because a photo editor, rather than a news editor or a reporter, had to get permission to use it.

WPIX, Ha'aretz, Gawker and the Daily News are wrong. They all have the obligation to cite the actual source of the story, FailedMessiah.com, along with the Brooklyn Paper for its addition that the city had removed the signs.

But many newspapers refuse to cite blogs, and they steal stories first reported on blogs and report them as their own on a near daily basis. And they treat small local papers no better than blogs.

Gawker is usually much better about citing sources. Why it failed to correctly do it this time I don't know.

At any rate, realize that when you read the Daily News and the NY Post, some of what you read was first reported by bloggers, and that many of the reporters who work for these tabloids mine blogs for their story ideas and for potential sources but rarely cite those blogs as sources.

Some of the time that's not such a big deal.

But other times, like this one, where the provenance of the story is crystal clear, there's really no excuse.

Related Post: Illegally Posted Signs Tell Women To Step Aside To Make Way For Hasidic Men.

[Hat Tip: Ruthie.]

Update 5:28 pm CDT – The LA Times picked up the story today and correctly cites FailedMessiah.com, the Brooklyn Paper and…today's Daily News piece.

Update 7:30 pm CDT – ABC News also did a report that does not mention Failedmessiah.com or the Brooklyn Paper. Here's the video:

 

Update 12:36 pm 10-12-11 – Watch WPIX claim credit for breaking the story and for the signs being taken down, even though that credit belongs to FailedMessiah.com and the Brooklyn Paper:

   

Comments

[abcdef]

Wah wah... A taste of your own medicine. How often do you steal from other bloggers while reporting it as if you discovered it yourself.

They you moan and complain when others do it to you.

That's the thing about you, your standards apply to everyone else but not you.

Process that!

[abcdef]

Sorry for the typos. Before the grammar and spelling idiots jump on me, let me correct my mistakes by reposting here:

Wah wah... A taste of your own medicine. How often do you steal news items from other bloggers while reporting it as if you had discovered it yourself?

Then you moan and complain when others do it to you.

That's the thing about you, your standards apply to everyone else but not to you.

Process that!

[Ethel Mertz]

While I agree with you in principle, Abcdef, this is not a case of tit-for-tat as you imply.

The NYDN's story was about the removal of the signs. They did their own reporting, interviewed people, and the story is in fact rightfully theirs.

If the story were about the placement of the signs, then provenance would indeed belong to FailedMessiah, and this blog should get a mention, even if subsequent stories about the placement added content to the original story, such as naming the people responsible.

[Ken]

Time to organize topless marches through haredi neighborhoods. It's legal in NYC.

[OMG]

Posted by: abcdef | October 11, 2011 at 09:02 AM

You stupid moron, Shmarya will always give a tip of hat to the original source.

[Levi]

Shmarya, while I may be wrong, I believe that you only wrote about it going up, not that the city took it down.

[chaim36]

The lunatic fringe. They can be separated in Ottissville.

[Laura]

If they were so precious the men would be stepping aside for them and showing them respect.

[p]

WPIX, Ha'aretz, Gawker and the Daily News are wrong. They all have the obligation to cite the actual source of the story, FailedMessiah.com,

It is not fair, finally we break a major story and we get cheated from our 15 minutes of fame. I feel like we are like the late Rodney Dangerfield - we get no respect.

[chaim36]

The lunatic fringe. They can be separated in Ottissville.

[seymour]

Faye Grwnfeld, 70, said the signs were "a private thing" - even though they were posted on public property.

it is a bigger issue since it was on a tree with is a whole different issue

bolts like this can harm a tree

but what do they care or know

they are ignorant of such matters

[Deremes]

"Posted by: seymour | October 11, 2011 at 11:27 AM"

Hypocrite.You don't have to look to hard and you will see signs posted on trees in all neighborhoods like:flats fixed,garage sale,computer repair and more but those signs don't damage trees,hu?

[Waiting4Moshiach]

So it is ok for the goyim to cut down trees and make a wooden X to hang on their necks or an xmass tree but it is not ok for yidden to nail a poster to a tree to warn against bad behavyour?

[p]

"Posted by: seymour | October 11, 2011 at 11:27 AM"

Hypocrite.You don't have to look to hard and you will see signs posted on trees in all neighborhoods like:flats fixed,garage sale,computer repair and more but those signs don't damage trees,hu?

Posted by: Deremes | October 11, 2011 at 12:08 PM

The haredim are using special tree killing nails. Just like they like to torture animals they like to kill trees. They are a vile people and must be stopped - hence the need for FailedMessiah.

[Ethel Mertz]

In general, W4M, Christians don't cut down trees belonging to the City of New York. If they did, there would be an outcry against them too.

[Mendy Hecht]

Hi all,

In short, the reason they do this is actually because they want to keep alive a sociocultural standard that was probably the overwhelming ironclad norm in the Jewish ghettoes and shtetls of Europe but has been apparently eroding in recent weeks/months/years due to inroads made by the surrounding secular atmosphere.

The first thing you gotta understand if you want to understand this community is that they keep (or try to keep) a very high level of sociocultural isolation.

Now, as to why the sociocultural standard, let's just say they maintain a very high level of a certain sensitivity.

(And, no, you won't see it--you're not supposed to see it. That's the idea.)

This sensitivity has been by and large lost by mainstream society what with the reduction of men and women to asexual, generic people in the name of "equality"--with gender identities whose anemic absence is in direct inverse proportion to its purported strength and liberation.

In other words, the best-kept secret here is: Less is more.

Today's society, on the other hand, says: Get as much as you can as often as you can. But society is clearly wrong. About the only place where women are still feminine in the classic time-tested and extremely healthy and satisfying way, and men are likewise masculine, is in the Orthodox Jewish community (and perhaps, to a lesser extent, in Muslim and other gender-delineated cultures).

[seymour]

Posted by: Deremes | October 11, 2011 at 12:08 PM

thsoe sign are wrong too, so I am not a hypocrite.

and there is a big difference putting paper on a street lamp and bolting a huge sign to a living tree.

how many garage sales signs do you see bolted to a tree on any given day.

none

[seymour]

So it is ok for the goyim to cut down trees and make a wooden X to hang on their necks or an xmass tree but it is not ok for yidden to nail a poster to a tree to warn against bad behavyour?

Posted by: Waiting4Moshiach | October 11, 2011 at 12:26 PM

these tress are owned by the public and the parks department wants them alive not dead or damaged

[seymour]

Posted by: Mendy Hecht | October 11, 2011 at

putting down woman, making them move when you come walking

is not manly at all

it is cowardly

[Shmarya]

…In short, the reason they do this is actually because they want to keep alive a sociocultural standard that was probably the overwhelming ironclad norm in the Jewish ghettoes and shtetls of Europe…Posted by: Mendy Hecht | October 11, 2011 at 06:17 PM

It wasn't the standard, Mendy. Not by a long shot.

Men and women mixed at the market and in shops and women did not step aside for men.

Anyone who lived in Israel 25 years ago can tell you that haredi men and women sat together on buses and entered by the same door – often at the same exact moment.

I can't tell you the number of times at the kotel and in Geula and Mea Shearim that I saw haredi men push haredi women aside so they could enter a bus first and get a seat.

This hyper sniut we see today is a modern innovation.

[SkepticalYid]

So women who might even be pushing baby carriages or walking with small children are directed to move into the street? Just goes to show how little they value their health and safety ,when it may conflict with a new extremist religious stringency they create.

[Shmarya]

Shmarya, while I may be wrong, I believe that you only wrote about it going up, not that the city took it down.

Posted by: Levi | October 11, 2011 at 09:55 AM

Do you ever read the posts? Or do you always blabble on?

O broke the story. The Brooklyn Paper credits me for that and then reports that the city took down the signs.

Other publications picked up the story then – remember they have not previously reported that the signs exist or are nailed to trees in Williamsburg – and many give incorrect or incomplete credit, or no credit at all.

Ethically, they need to cite me and cite the Brooklyn Paper.

And there is no comeback for this, Levi.

They have an ethical obligation which was not met.

[Gefilte Fish]

Mendy, you couldn't be more wrong. In Europe, 99.9999% of men and women went to the market on the SAME day, at the SAME time. They ate meals at the SAME table. They rode public transportation at the SAME time. It's only because the lunatic fringe has taken over, and they now make the rules. That's why I haven't been to Williamsburg in more than 20 years---it sickens me to see how Judaism has been corrupted to the point that it is barely recognizable.

P.S. Props to Shmarya!!

[Boo Hoo]

Didn't Circus Tent / the Tzig have the issue you when took his picture and didn't cite that it came from him?! You imply in your article that taking a picture is a greater ethical/legal issue so what are you crying about now?

[Shmarya]

1. I didn't take anything from Tzig. I don't read him.

2. The person who sent it to me took it from Twitter, I think, and there was an issue about making that clear.

3. If Tzig really had it first, before anyone else, he was ripped off by at least one other person before the picture got to me.

4. Tzig's final decision was that its better that I was credited rather him, because he would have been the subject of some pretty intense heat from his community.

5. As usual for people who hate first and look at facts second, you confuse a very fundamental point: The newspapers who did not cite me all knew the origin of the story.

Some credited the Brooklyn Paper, which credits me in the second paragraph of its article. Others credited neither the Brooklyn Paper or me, even though their sources for the story are the BP and me. And some credited both of us.

In other words, in this case, the provenance of the story is clear – as is the intent to steal by the Daily News, WPIX and ABC.

In the case of Tzig and that picture, there isn't a clear provenance. Someone could spend a lot of time cross checking dozens of blogs and Twitter (and doing some other things) to get close to a provenance. But without a lot of work, there isn't one.

What that means is that even if Tzig really had it first, anyone who innocently used the pic because someone emailed it to him as if it were his own scan hasn't stolen anything. There's no intent to steal.

But, again, in the case of this post, the Daily News clearly had the intent to steal – and it stole.

As I told Tzig then, I post hundreds of documents and pictures every year and I rarely watermark them.

Do people take them and reuse them elsewhere?

Sure.

But when I have something special and the time to do it, I watermark.

If Tzig had done that we wouldn't be having this discussion today.

[Shmarya]

And I forgot to add that Tzig posted false information about me on his blog and refused to check the information with Chabad rabbis who would have told him the information was false.

He also refused to remove that false information from his blog.

The information was used to defame me and that was clearly Tzig's purpose.

Someone like that is not trustworthy, and I take everything he tells me – or anyone else – with a giant grain of salt.

[Married To A Mick]

Hey Mendy, how in the world did you keep a straight face whilst typing the last sentence? Hasids masculile? What planet? These yeshiva buchers are so inbred and sickly that little 5'3" me can knock em over with a pinky!

And i agree with the pp about a topless march; might i suggest a GAY topless march so we can add insult to injury?

[Married To A Mick]

**masculine

[taylor]

Shmarya is upset that NY Daily News did not give him a hat tip. He needs the fame.

[Shmarya]

Shmarya is upset that NY Daily News did not give him a hat tip. He needs the fame.

Posted by: taylor | October 11, 2011 at 10:52 PM

No, little man.

I dislike people who lie and people who steal from others – especially people who steal from those smaller and weaker than they are.

I get ripped off almost every week.

As for fame, look at the media mentions in the far right sidebar and then multiply by 50 and you'll have an idea of the media coverage I get.

Even so, I don't crave fame and I don't use the fame I have.

I just keep doing my job exposing the crimes of the men you cover for.

And that's what you don't like.

[A E ANDERSON]

It gets worse. A Lubavitcher girl, aged 18, just told me she and her friend were walking down Kingston Av today when a round-hatted hagas hasid, apparently wishing to pass, snapped his fingers whilst approaching from behind expecting the "nekayvos" (literally, "slitted ones") to move aside. Needless to say, the girls ignored the moron.

[Mendel Mendel]

Credit should be given to those who put up these signs. They are true liberals, non-racists. The sign says women should move aside when A MAN comes opposite them. Any man, not limited to "unzerer" (a Jew dressed like me). In other words they include Puerto Ricans, blacks, Chinese, stam goyim, secular Jews, etc. Kol HaKavod.

[Ethel Mertz]

The story was about taking DOWN the signs, not putting them up.

The NY Daily News interviewed people (which you didn't), and wrote its story. I'm sure the signs went down because someone called 3-1-1 complaining that trees were being defaced.

You aren't entitled to any credit from the NY Daily News, nor from any other news outlet that merely reported that the signs were removed.

In addition, you're a crybaby.

[Gefilte Fish]

This isn't a Talmud class, so stop with the convoluted logic. Shmarya reported on the EXISTENCE of the signs---he should get some credit.

[Ethel Mertz]

Fine. If the NYDN reported on the existence of the signs, they should have given Shmarya credit. But they didn't.

[Shmarya]

The NYDN's story was about the removal of the signs. They did their own reporting, interviewed people, and the story is in fact rightfully theirs.

If the story were about the placement of the signs, then provenance would indeed belong to FailedMessiah, and this blog should get a mention, even if subsequent stories about the placement added content to the original story, such as naming the people responsible.

Posted by: Ethel Mertz | October 11, 2011 at 09:27 AM
Ken

Please.

The Brooklyn Paper broke the story of the signs' removal and credited me with reporting that the signs existed.

The Daily News had never reported the existence of the signs. It did a story that announces the signs were posted and then removed.

That means it should have credited FM and the BP just as I wrote in my post.

But you're dumb as a tree stump and far less honest.

This is the fourth alias you've used Uzi, or Mr. A or whatever your name is.

You're a pompous ass, a liar and a coward.

And you're banned – again.

[Gefilte Fish]

Ethel, what planet are you on? If no one (except for Yiddish-speaking Williamsburgers) knew that the signs existed, they would not have been taken down so quickly. You just have a grudge against Shmarya and it irks you to give him any credit whatsoever.

[anuran]

Dang. I wanted one of those signs.