City Pulls Yiddish Signs Ordering Women Aside
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
Municipal workers in Brooklyn have taken down signs directed at Hasidic women — not because they’re religious in content, but because of where they’re posted.
The signs, written in Yiddish, direct Hasidic women in the Williamsburg neighborhood to keep a distance from their male counterparts, telling them, “Precious Jewish daughter, please move aside when a man approaches.”
The signs were affixed to trees in the area, which is illegal, the city’s Parks Department says.
In addition to coverage in the New York Daily News, the signs’ removal has garnered attention on local blogs and television news. Hasidic residents of the neighborhood have defended the signs, with one resident claiming the community’s first-amendment rights had been violated. “It’s taking away freedom of speech,” 70-year-old Faye Grwnfeld told the Daily News.
City officials don’t know who posted the signs, but locals speculate that a “hard-line rabbinical group” may be behind them.
No signs were posted asking “precious Jewish men” to step aside when they see a woman.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
