Othodox Jews give walking tours to Amish visitors in NY

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090331/ap_on_re_us/amish_in_brooklyn

NEW YORK – The city's ultra-Orthodox Jews took the Pennsylvania Amish on a walking tour of their world Tuesday, saying their communities are naturally drawn to each other with a commitment to simpler lifestyles. "It's reinforcing to the Amish community to see us Jews living the way the Bible says Jews are supposed to live, and have lived since the time of Moses and Abraham," said Yisroel Ber Kaplan, program director for the Chassidic Discovery Center in Brooklyn.

"The Amish are also living their lives as the Bible speaks to them."

Dozens of Amish residents from Lancaster County, Pa., toured a Hasidic neighborhood in Brooklyn's Crown Heights to learn more about their culture.

Rabbi Beryl Epstein called the experience "living Judaism."

The neighborhood is home to an ultra-Orthodox Lubavitcher sect born about 200 years ago in Russia.

Today's Lubavitchers wear the black hats and beards of their 18th-century forebears, speak Yiddish and refrain from turning on electricity or driving cars on the Sabbath.

The Amish get around in a horse and buggy, living off the land.

However, both groups use one modern amenity — cell phones that kept ringing as they wandered through Crown Heights. And the Hasids ironically operate the famed B&H electronics retail store in Manhattan that serves customers from around the world.

I thought this was a fascinating NYC vignette, the mental picture (for me) is heavy woolen garments. And granted, the writer is oversimplifying the various sects of the Amish religion, but the idea to me is quite interesting.

And I love the "they live a simple life of horses and buggies, but they all have cell phones".