September 30, 2005--Friday Feature: Fanaticisms II
In New York City, actually in Manhattan, so much revolves around parking. Street parking for you car. We have Alternate Side of the Street Parking rules that require moving cars from one side of the street to the other at least four times each week so the streets can be cleaned. Street parking is at such a premium (monthlies for garage parking can exceed $500) that some have even been known to hire car movers who will sit in their car all day while waiting for a space to open up.
But as with so much else in the Big Apple, parking is about a lot more than a space in a No-Tow Zone. It’s also about ethnic and religious identity.
Take Diwali, for example. For Hindus, Diwali is an annual festival of lights and the latest parking cause in the on-going Culture War. There are 33 holidays in New York when Alternate Side of the Street Parking rules are suspended, days when cars do not have to be moved. For holidays such as Yom Kippur, Christmas, Immaculate Conception, Asian Lunar New Year, Shemini Atzeret, and Id al-Fitr among others. Most of the world’s major religions and ethnic groups have a parking day of their own. But not Hindus. Therefore, the battle in the City over Diwali [see the report in the NY Times, “A Hindu Festival of Lights, and Parking?” (link below)].
The City Council this week unanimously passed a law to include Dawali; but Mayor Bloomberg, in spite of being in the thick of a reelection campaign, has indicated he will veto it, risking the lose of the Hindu vote (though probably assuring at least 90 percent of the Staten Island vote). Not that he is anti-Hindu; it’s just that the streets have to be swept (we should be so lucky).
Hindu business leaders showed up at City Hall the other day to demand “respect and equal treatment.” I say amen, or whatever.
And then there is the business of Rabbi Schneerson. You may remember him as the Grand Rebbe of the Brooklyn-based Lubavitchers. He died back in 1994, but apparently is still exerting his influence from beyond the grave [see the Times piece, “Fertile Blessings Indeed” (link also below)]. He is interred at Old Montefiore Cemetery and his gravesite has become a sort of pilgrimage site for Lubavitchers. Most who make the trek there are hoping to be witnesses when he arises as the meschiach, or Messiah. Though this has not happened as yet, others, while waiting, have also taken to asking his help with another matter—fertility.
When he was still alive, he received his followers each Sunday at his house on Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn. Jews from Russia to Roslyn would come to him seeking various forms of assistance, including and especially in conceiving children. He would give each person a dollar and a blessing, “Easy pregnancy, healthy child.” It worked so well that infertile couples now come to visit him at the cemetery. Of course they no longer receive dollar bills, but they do appear to get pregnant. One couple, for example, that tried unsuccessfully to conceive for nine years recently had triplets as the result of the Rebbe’s intervention, and, as the Times reports, with “the help of in vitro fertilization.”
This couple returned to Montefiore the other day, with their three children, to thank the Rebbe and then to go to the nearby visitors’ center where they had bagels and whitefish salad.
New York, as you know, has the best bagels in the world.
But as with so much else in the Big Apple, parking is about a lot more than a space in a No-Tow Zone. It’s also about ethnic and religious identity.
Take Diwali, for example. For Hindus, Diwali is an annual festival of lights and the latest parking cause in the on-going Culture War. There are 33 holidays in New York when Alternate Side of the Street Parking rules are suspended, days when cars do not have to be moved. For holidays such as Yom Kippur, Christmas, Immaculate Conception, Asian Lunar New Year, Shemini Atzeret, and Id al-Fitr among others. Most of the world’s major religions and ethnic groups have a parking day of their own. But not Hindus. Therefore, the battle in the City over Diwali [see the report in the NY Times, “A Hindu Festival of Lights, and Parking?” (link below)].
The City Council this week unanimously passed a law to include Dawali; but Mayor Bloomberg, in spite of being in the thick of a reelection campaign, has indicated he will veto it, risking the lose of the Hindu vote (though probably assuring at least 90 percent of the Staten Island vote). Not that he is anti-Hindu; it’s just that the streets have to be swept (we should be so lucky).
Hindu business leaders showed up at City Hall the other day to demand “respect and equal treatment.” I say amen, or whatever.
And then there is the business of Rabbi Schneerson. You may remember him as the Grand Rebbe of the Brooklyn-based Lubavitchers. He died back in 1994, but apparently is still exerting his influence from beyond the grave [see the Times piece, “Fertile Blessings Indeed” (link also below)]. He is interred at Old Montefiore Cemetery and his gravesite has become a sort of pilgrimage site for Lubavitchers. Most who make the trek there are hoping to be witnesses when he arises as the meschiach, or Messiah. Though this has not happened as yet, others, while waiting, have also taken to asking his help with another matter—fertility.
When he was still alive, he received his followers each Sunday at his house on Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn. Jews from Russia to Roslyn would come to him seeking various forms of assistance, including and especially in conceiving children. He would give each person a dollar and a blessing, “Easy pregnancy, healthy child.” It worked so well that infertile couples now come to visit him at the cemetery. Of course they no longer receive dollar bills, but they do appear to get pregnant. One couple, for example, that tried unsuccessfully to conceive for nine years recently had triplets as the result of the Rebbe’s intervention, and, as the Times reports, with “the help of in vitro fertilization.”
This couple returned to Montefiore the other day, with their three children, to thank the Rebbe and then to go to the nearby visitors’ center where they had bagels and whitefish salad.
New York, as you know, has the best bagels in the world.
posted by Steven Zwerling at
11:45 AM
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