Word: hasidim
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...Hasidim, in turn, are generally indifferent to or suspicious of outsiders. This makes all the more remarkable the achievement of Lis Harris, a secularized Jew and New Yorker staff writer, who worked her way into the Hasidic community and produced three lengthy articles for her magazine and a newly published book, Holy Days: The World of a Hasidic Family (Summit; 266 pages...
...mystical movement, founded in the mid-18th century by a rabbi known as the Baal Shem Tov (Master of the Good Name). His teachings, which emphasized the immediacy of God's presence in everyday life, quickly swept through the shtetls of Eastern Europe. Today there are 200,000 Hasidim in the U.S., divided into about 40 "courts." After several of these communities rebuffed Harris, she turned to the Lubavitchers, named after the Belorussian village adopted as home by their founder. The group, led by Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, 83, blends the rational and emotional aspects of religion, and actively seeks...
...devote years of effort to the Hasidim? Harris contends that they once constituted three-fourths of East European Jews and consequently a majority of U.S. Jews probably have Hasidic forebears. "I felt like putting them back in the world in some manner," says Harris, adding that they "represent some antique version of myself...
...also ventured over-seas, setting up small family-run polishing centers in Antwerp and Tel Aviv, and slowly elbowing into the U.S. as diamond sellers. In Manhattan's midtown diamond district, Palanpuri businessmen sitting beneath portraits of their saint, Mahavira, now run shops side by side with black-coated Hasidim from Brooklyn...
...Although relations between the Palanpuris and the Hasidim are cordial, Surat's diamond traders admit that India's sudden rise to prominence has caused some resentment in Israel and Belgium. One Israeli analyst frets that Surat's bustling workshops are flooding retail stores with diamonds, which could depress prices for years to come. ABN AMRO's Patnaik points out, however, that the market for diamonds could expand quickly as the burgeoning middle classes of China and India develop more of a taste for diamond jewelry. To make sure they secure a foothold in the Chinese market, some Surat businessmen have...