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Boychiks in the Hood: Travels in the Hasidic Underground |  | Author: Robert Eisenberg
Publisher: HarperOne
Category: Book
List Price: $13.95
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Seller: snowlionbooks
Rating:  23 reviews
Sales Rank: 304467
Media: Paperback
Pages: 256
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 8.1 x 5.3 x 0.6
ISBN: 0062512234
Dewey Decimal Number: 296.8332
EAN: 9780062512239
ASIN: 0062512234
Publication Date: October 18, 1996
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Boychiks in the Hood is your passport to the Hasidic "underworld" -- a destination far different from popular expectations. Join Robert Eisenberg as he hangs out with an ex-Deadhead in Antwerp, makes a pilgrimage to the grave of the revered Rebbie Nachman in the Ukraine, munches mini-bagels with Rollerblading kosher butchers in Minnesota, discovers the last remaining religious Jews in Poland, talks sex with a karate-champion-turned-rabbi in Israel, and more.Simultaneously respectful and hilarious, Boychiks in the Hood is a surprising and unforgettable journey through the world's flourishing Hasidic communities that reveals this vibrant tradition as never before.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 23
 Amazing Book! October 1, 2009
B. Gidaro (Philadelphia, PA)
After struggling with religious identity for a long time I was blown away by how these people live their lives in the complete service of Hashem. After devouring the book, I re-opened some doors and am now in the process of becoming a Lubavitcher Hasid. This book showed how although these people may seem different their lives are somtehing to be envied!
A wonderful,beautiful book which removes sterotypes about Hasids. August 24, 2009
Soldiers Come Home (Colorado Springs, CO United States)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I grew up as a casual,reform Jew in Brooklyn 58 years ago. The last 22 years, I have lived in Colorado.
In t he Midwood section of Brooklyn, I would see, what seemed like a march of the Hasidic Jews and their families to the Temple on Friday night.
In watching the men adorned in their black suits, it seemed like they were having the deepest type of conversations with their children, that always impressed me.
While I saw many Hasidic Jews, ate at some of their restaurants and been among but never conversing with them, they were a great mystery to me.
If there is anything to take away from "Robert Eisenberg's" marvelous, easy to read book about his travels among the Hasidic communities around the world, is how incredibly easy it was for Mr. Eisenberg, pony tail and all, to get into these communities, which I used to believe were very insular and secretive. I couldn't be more wrong.
Time and time again, the another Hasidic community would open their homes and their hearts to Mr. Eisenberg, as it seemed that with 24 hours, he was being served dinner at a Rabbi's home.
The other part was the diversity within the Hasidic community, where many did not grow up living the Hasidic Jewish lifestyle, but came from all sorts of lives before. Some were fans of the Greatful Dead (Deadheads), etc.
Great book that breaks down barriers that all of seem to make between people, whose dress and customs, only make them "appear", different from others, but in reality, we are reminded that we are all part of the human community and should throw away are sterotypes.
Jon
as readable as Studs Turkle! February 1, 2006
Virginia Dunton (San Jose, California USA)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book is great-& so easy to read, like the great Studs Turkle.-I hope Mr.Eisenberg is at his typewriter now, creating another book. Wonderful job.
Very well done, exceedingly informative. August 22, 2005
Phnom (Washington, DC USA)
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
I admit that I bought the book because the title suggested an almost rap-music reality behind the scenes of a New York Hasidic community. Yes, the title is plenty pop-culture, and it probably was part of a marketing plan. BOYCHIKS IN THE HOOD is a far better book than I had expected or hoped for, and the razzle-dazzle title does not at all suggest the complexity of a back-breaking world tour the mostly secular Eisenberg made, in a labor of love, to find and explore Orthodox, Satmar, Lubavitch, Hasidic communities thriving all over the world. As a non-Jew I perhaps know more about Judaism than some, but I have picked up both specifics and general ideas that have vitalized and deepened my respect for the Jewish world. In New York of course I have see "glatt" kosher restaurants, but here I learned that this step "up" from regular kosher means that the lungs of killed animals can show no flaws at all, while animals killed plain kosher can have slight sores---as long as the sores do not allow the passage of air. This kind of detail---and perhaps I pick one that may seem slightly sensational, and for that I apologize, for it is not presented that way by Eisenberg---suggests the level of detail, thought, discrimination, judgement, rule, and inevitable debate that runs through every inch of the Hasidic thought. Eleven nice chapters on the communities in Brooklyn, Minnesota, Ukraine, Israel, Poland, New Jersey, the Catskills, Belgium, and even a dynamite town in Iowa, etc. Full of surprises and wit (the wit sometimes diminished by Eisenberg's rather heavy handed sense of metaphor verging into pop-journalistic zing). But Eisenberg writes well, engagingly and informatively. I've picked up fifty Yiddish words which, discreetly, I'll be dropping at cocktail parties as I finger my rosary. A powerfully readable book about a people's resilience, savvy, spitituality, and about the curious seduction of their unique kind of life.
This is wonderful! October 8, 2004
Douglas Allen (South Orange, NJ)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I am amazed by the glow this book spreads over me. While reading this book, I feel like I have spent an afternoon with my favorite Bubbe.
My concern going into this is that the author would write this story from a secular point of view - harsh and judgemental. But this story is told with such gentleness and love that I feel drawn deeper and deeper into it.
I really appreciate that Mr. Eisenberg wants to understand his subject rather than tear their values down or dismiss them all together. Living in Manhattan and living in such close proximity to the Hasidim and yet not understanding their ways, I am excited to finally get a glimpse into a world I have only been able to witness from the most superficial level.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 23
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