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A Fortress in Brooklyn: Race, Real Estate, and the Making of Hasidic Williamsburg
The epic story of Satmar Hasidic Williamsburg, from the decline of New York to the gentrification of Brooklyn
"Groundbreaking. . . . To fully understand Satmar, of course, one has to be born into it. But to understand how political prowess and real-estate know-how shaped the group’s current iteration in Brooklyn, it would be wise to start with this outstanding book."—Laura E. Adkins, LA Review of Books
The Hasidic community in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn is famously one of the most separatist, intensely religious, and politically savvy groups of people in the entire United States. Less known is how the community survived in one of the toughest parts of New York City during an era of steep decline, only to later resist and also participate in the unprecedented gentrification of the neighborhood.
Nathaniel Deutsch and Michael Casper unravel the fascinating history of how a group of determined Holocaust survivors encountered, shaped, and sometimes fiercely opposed the urban processes that transformed their gritty neighborhood, from white flight and the construction of public housing to rising crime, divestment of city services, and, ultimately, extreme gentrification. By showing how Williamsburg’s Hasidim rejected assimilation while still undergoing distinctive forms of Americanization and racialization, Deutsch and Casper present both a provocative counter-history of American Jewry and a novel look at how race, real estate, and religion intersected in the creation of a quintessential, and yet deeply misunderstood, New York neighborhood.
"Groundbreaking. . . . To fully understand Satmar, of course, one has to be born into it. But to understand how political prowess and real-estate know-how shaped the group’s current iteration in Brooklyn, it would be wise to start with this outstanding book."—Laura E. Adkins, LA Review of Books
The Hasidic community in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn is famously one of the most separatist, intensely religious, and politically savvy groups of people in the entire United States. Less known is how the community survived in one of the toughest parts of New York City during an era of steep decline, only to later resist and also participate in the unprecedented gentrification of the neighborhood.
Nathaniel Deutsch and Michael Casper unravel the fascinating history of how a group of determined Holocaust survivors encountered, shaped, and sometimes fiercely opposed the urban processes that transformed their gritty neighborhood, from white flight and the construction of public housing to rising crime, divestment of city services, and, ultimately, extreme gentrification. By showing how Williamsburg’s Hasidim rejected assimilation while still undergoing distinctive forms of Americanization and racialization, Deutsch and Casper present both a provocative counter-history of American Jewry and a novel look at how race, real estate, and religion intersected in the creation of a quintessential, and yet deeply misunderstood, New York neighborhood.
408 pages, Hardcover
First published May 11, 2021
73 people are currently reading
956 people want to read
About the author
Nathaniel Deutsch
10 books13 followersNathaniel Deutsch is a professor at The University of California, Santa Cruz, where he is also the Co-Director of the Center for Jewish Studies and the Director of the Institute for Humanities Research.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 58 reviews
July 6, 2021
This is a mostly fascinating history of the Satmar's hold on Williamsburg, and the existential threat posed by the hipster invasion. Be warned that this is an academic history. For those of us used to getting our nonfiction from journalists trained to engage the reader it is a whole different experience to read a work of thorough scholarship intended to inform and not to entertain. It some ways this is a wonderful shift which delivers a great deal of foundational information which lends the necessary context to understand the ways in which the Satmar have worked the system to their advantage and also to the impacts of gentrification, both positive and negative. (I know I am supposed to hate all gentrification. I do not.) The downside of going from pop history to academic history is that there are stretches of the book essential to solid scholarship that while good for the reader are also dead boring.
Several of the Hasidim interviewed in this book mention that they consider Jews who choose not to isolate themselves and engage in 24-7 19th century cosplay to be their greatest enemies, and I am not sure they are wrong. As one of those Jews, I will say that I have a lot of issues with the way the Haredi impact my life as a Jew and as a New Yorker and this book intensified my frustrations. Nonetheless this is an important read recommended for anyone interested in NY real estate, public housing, and public accommodations.
Several of the Hasidim interviewed in this book mention that they consider Jews who choose not to isolate themselves and engage in 24-7 19th century cosplay to be their greatest enemies, and I am not sure they are wrong. As one of those Jews, I will say that I have a lot of issues with the way the Haredi impact my life as a Jew and as a New Yorker and this book intensified my frustrations. Nonetheless this is an important read recommended for anyone interested in NY real estate, public housing, and public accommodations.
December 18, 2021
Incredible! I’m not just liberal with platitudes. This blew my mind.
I’ve been a tour guide in Hasidic Williamsburg for many years and I pretty much always did my own research because the stuff that’s published on this community is usually not good. This book GETS IT. And it does so with:
1. A staggering scope of research spanning from after the Holocaust until today, using sources formally and informally published in the community in Yiddish and Hebrew and English, Jewish religious texts, city records, records from the black and Hispanic and other local groups, media coverage, message boards, Hasidic forums, lots of interviews, on and on — the authors investigated every avenue.
2. Correct, careful, sensitive framing to contextualize stories into the wider context of gentrification, ethnic minorities, nyc immigration, Jewish history, and so on. The individuals who are assholes in the Williamsburg story come through as individuals who are assholes (and there are a lot of colorful characters), not as representative of whole groups.
3. Beautifully written. I love some of the quotes in the book from black community leaders, Hasidim, hipsters, etc. Often spicy or funny or just very intelligent.
It’s a shame about the afterward though. For such a carefully written, wholly iconoclastic book, the afterward repeats superficial stereotypes. Maybe the authors were in a rush to get some timely commentary in, but I think those are very surface readings.
Big thanks to the authors for the labor that went into telling this exceptional story. It will be a classic in history books. I might do a book reading tour! Use small bits and read them to my tourists at different sites…
If you are not up for reading the whole book, I suggestion you read the introduction.
I’ve been a tour guide in Hasidic Williamsburg for many years and I pretty much always did my own research because the stuff that’s published on this community is usually not good. This book GETS IT. And it does so with:
1. A staggering scope of research spanning from after the Holocaust until today, using sources formally and informally published in the community in Yiddish and Hebrew and English, Jewish religious texts, city records, records from the black and Hispanic and other local groups, media coverage, message boards, Hasidic forums, lots of interviews, on and on — the authors investigated every avenue.
2. Correct, careful, sensitive framing to contextualize stories into the wider context of gentrification, ethnic minorities, nyc immigration, Jewish history, and so on. The individuals who are assholes in the Williamsburg story come through as individuals who are assholes (and there are a lot of colorful characters), not as representative of whole groups.
3. Beautifully written. I love some of the quotes in the book from black community leaders, Hasidim, hipsters, etc. Often spicy or funny or just very intelligent.
It’s a shame about the afterward though. For such a carefully written, wholly iconoclastic book, the afterward repeats superficial stereotypes. Maybe the authors were in a rush to get some timely commentary in, but I think those are very surface readings.
Big thanks to the authors for the labor that went into telling this exceptional story. It will be a classic in history books. I might do a book reading tour! Use small bits and read them to my tourists at different sites…
If you are not up for reading the whole book, I suggestion you read the introduction.
June 26, 2021
This was an amazing read and hats off to Nathaniel Deutsch and Michael Casper for writing this. I'll further state that this book is extremely timely given the effect COVID-19 has had on all cities, but particularly New York City where population has decreased and there seems to be a sense the city is facing danger and decline, and the recent NYC Mayoral primary in which a working-class multiracial coalition, including the Satmar Hasidim of Williamsburg, boosted Eric Adams to first place leaping over the candidates preferred by wealthier mostly post-ethnic whites (Garcia for Manhattan yuppies and Wiley for the hipsters of the "gentrification belt").
There are really two main parties to this story: Satmar Hasidim and hipsters. The third and fourth elements of Williamsburg, older and dying out Italians and Poles along with Puerto Ricans and African-Americans, are discussed mostly in the first half of the book. In this post-war era when the white middle-class is fleeing NYC by the millions, most especially Jews, the Satmar (along with Chabad and many other Brooklyn Jewish communities) decide to stay put. Satmars become one of the very few groupings within white urban America to openly seek living in public housing with African-Americans and Puerto Ricans. During decades of severe disinvestment and crime the Satmar largely stayed put often falling victim to crime. Defying the image of the weak and docile Jew who willingly is marched out of the ghetto the Satmar even founded vigilante groups, as many others did during this period, to protect their community.
Moving into the current era (1990's to the present) we're presented with the familiar hipster vs. Hasidim struggle that has been covered in the media.
While hipsters are gentrifying working-class communities throughout New York and America these communities are most often previously Black and Latino neighborhoods. In many respects the gentrification of Williamsburg is an easier task politically for hipsters.
Gentrification is largely a young, affluent, overly educated, and upwardly mobile phenomenon of the White Left. The same white progressives who are responsible for the personal turmoil in the lives of Black Brooklynites causing families to uproot to the American South put Black Lives Matter signs in their windows, attend Black Lives Matter rallies, stan "The Squad" on social media, have Marc Lamont Hill and "White Fragility" on their bookshelves, and chastise their working-class Black neighbors they are driving to near homelessness as "sellout corporate Dems". While many hipsters support "defunding the police" few of them are murdered or victims of violent crime, unlike their Black neighbors, yet "stop and frisk" wasn't designed to protect Black and Latino residents of places like Williamsburg, Crown Heights, and Bed-Stuy- it was designed to protect new white residents from getting mugged on their way to a hot yoga class or an abolitionist book club meeting. Aggressive overpolicing in American cities from the 1990's and forward has largely been driven by protecting white progressives from their Black and Latino neighbors who they haven't successfully removed as of yet.
Having said all of this even as gentrification moves on via the combination of demand, capital, and human resources, all united on racial and class lines there exists a distaste and discomfort from gentrifiers. They can put a red rose on their Twitter bio, quote Marx, and throw water bottles at cops, but at the end of the day they know their presence and collective being is detrimental to their working-class neighbors and especially their Black neighbors. If they were serious about racial justice, and they most certainly aren't, AOC and Wiley would be holding rallies and encouraging their base to move back to the suburbs of Ohio and Illinois unless their presence in the city is helpful and beneficial. However, as we all know, blowing the family fortune on expensive housing, weed, and avocado toast is more important than racial justice to the majority of that demographic.
White Guilt may force hipsters to hire a Black dominatrix, adopt an African kid on vacation, or bizarrely become apologists for Nicolas Maduro or Bashar al-Asad, but when gentrifying Jewish neighborhoods no such guilt exists. In fact many of the gentrifiers may be secular assimilated Jews with a particular disdain for Hasids. The current racial dogma being offered by academics and progressive activists holds to racial absolutes where white people are monolithic and all-powerful. Working-class white people don't fit well into this narrative and Satmar Hasids face another double whammy in that they are Jews, who are stereotypically believed to be all affluent even by educated people, and they are religious. Despite NYC being a devoutly religious city with Orthodox Jewish enclaves, the largest Muslim community in America, a vibrant and diverse Black and Latino Church, devout Catholics, and numerous Orthodox Churches, the reputation of the city is that it's secular because secular media and academic types in Manhattan and Brooklyn frame the narrative. Hipsters, representing a post-ethnic and secular demographic only united by whiteness and wealth, often hold a particular disdain for the faithful.
The book goes into great detail to note the beginnings of the Satmar community in Williamsburg and how the Satmar Rebbe escaped Hungary, left the land of Israel as an ardent anti-Zionist, and set up a "holy community" in Williamsburg. The Satmars weren't the first Jews in Williamsburg. Other Orthodox Jews were already established, but like the Lubavitchers in Crown Heights, they are the ones who remained after white-flight and stayed for the invasion of the "artists". These communities were largely founded by holocaust survivors many who spent time in Nazi death camps.
The book paints a predictable tale: the Satmar expanding outside of their neighborhood boundaries to neighboring Black neighborhoods and Upstate New York, young Satmars being influenced by hipsters, Satmar real estate people getting rich off real estate deals, Black and Puerto Rican neighbors mad at exclusionary Satmar housing tactics, and more.
I'll just share these final three points
1. Bikes
The subject of bike lanes inevitably came up. Throughout America bike lanes have been bizarrely placed in neighborhoods they are seldom used. These are most often Black and Latino neighborhoods that are either being gentrified or will soon be gentrified. The message is clear: your time will soon be up.
White urban progressives hold a particular disdain for cars. Cars are produced by blue-collar workers making a decent living and in America these are largely union jobs, larger families need bigger cars and in America these tend to be more religious families, professional driving jobs are the most popular job for American men without college degrees so snobbery and class-bias kicks in. On any given day in New York working-class residents are working as cab drivers, ride share drivers, delivery drivers, truck drivers, bus drivers, ambulance drivers, and the list goes on. Satmar families and others are also schlepping their kids all over the place. From the vantage point of these people bike lanes are a nuisance. From the vantage point of ideological and wealthy white hipsters bike lanes are an essential part of infrastructure. Not like they have a lot of kids anyway or need a professional driving job. In the event they find a Black or Latino supporter that person will surely be their local face to the public. In this I liken the bike lanes and the rallies of hipsters they often organize to the Panzer Division of Erwin Rommel. Bike lanes are the infrastructure of conquest and the "midnight rambles" and nude biking events are a message that the conquerors rule the day and can do as they please. As one astute Satmar elder observed in the book these artists and hipsters may look, and often behave like bums, but they most certainly aren't. These are largely the children of wealthy suburbia, the bored kids of the country club, white people who view themselves as heroic and interesting pioneers, and some are even the children of tycoons of industry and the uber-wealthy.
2. Antisemitism
Antisemitism cannot be erased from this discussion especially after a year of sustained unprovoked attacks of Jews in Brooklyn and the murder of Jews in Jersey City. As the book correctly notes that even when Hasidic Jews are the victims of murder they are still vilified. When New Yorkers have a problem with a Jewish landlord the entire Jewish people are to blame. When Satmars are criticized they are often referred to as "Zionist Jews" despite the community being opposed to Zionisim and the Jewish State. We are in an era of increased antisemitism and visibly Jewish people are the most vulnerable at this time. Unlike other vulnerable groups Jews aren't popular with the "intersectional allies" crowd so even after numerous attacks on Jews everyone from progressive activists to Mayor Bill DeBlasio were reluctant to speak up.
3. Coalitions and the future
After reading this book it seems the Satmars of Williamsburg have three great weaknesses. Weakness 1 is that a segment of the community is getting rich selling out the community to hipsters, weakness 2 is that due to theological differences the Satmars of Williamsburg and Lubavitchers of Crown Heights have failed to create a coalition in which they could face the problem of gentrification together, and the Satmars have failed to make coalitions with other communities negatively impacted by gentrification: African-Americans, Latinos, Muslim immigrant groups, and others. Working together, not in the sense of the Marxist fallacy that the workers of the world will unite, but in the sense coalitions can accomplish more together makes the most sense. It's my hope that Eric Adams as mayor could bring some relief to Satmars and others and COVID-19 may have taken some stress out of the real estate market for working-class New Yorkers. If there is no relief it's not inconceivable to see Jewish Williamsburg go the way of Jewish Brownsville and completely relocate to upstate New York, New Jersey, and Long Island and Jewish Crown Heights to Kfar Chabad and Jerusalem in Israel.
There are really two main parties to this story: Satmar Hasidim and hipsters. The third and fourth elements of Williamsburg, older and dying out Italians and Poles along with Puerto Ricans and African-Americans, are discussed mostly in the first half of the book. In this post-war era when the white middle-class is fleeing NYC by the millions, most especially Jews, the Satmar (along with Chabad and many other Brooklyn Jewish communities) decide to stay put. Satmars become one of the very few groupings within white urban America to openly seek living in public housing with African-Americans and Puerto Ricans. During decades of severe disinvestment and crime the Satmar largely stayed put often falling victim to crime. Defying the image of the weak and docile Jew who willingly is marched out of the ghetto the Satmar even founded vigilante groups, as many others did during this period, to protect their community.
Moving into the current era (1990's to the present) we're presented with the familiar hipster vs. Hasidim struggle that has been covered in the media.
While hipsters are gentrifying working-class communities throughout New York and America these communities are most often previously Black and Latino neighborhoods. In many respects the gentrification of Williamsburg is an easier task politically for hipsters.
Gentrification is largely a young, affluent, overly educated, and upwardly mobile phenomenon of the White Left. The same white progressives who are responsible for the personal turmoil in the lives of Black Brooklynites causing families to uproot to the American South put Black Lives Matter signs in their windows, attend Black Lives Matter rallies, stan "The Squad" on social media, have Marc Lamont Hill and "White Fragility" on their bookshelves, and chastise their working-class Black neighbors they are driving to near homelessness as "sellout corporate Dems". While many hipsters support "defunding the police" few of them are murdered or victims of violent crime, unlike their Black neighbors, yet "stop and frisk" wasn't designed to protect Black and Latino residents of places like Williamsburg, Crown Heights, and Bed-Stuy- it was designed to protect new white residents from getting mugged on their way to a hot yoga class or an abolitionist book club meeting. Aggressive overpolicing in American cities from the 1990's and forward has largely been driven by protecting white progressives from their Black and Latino neighbors who they haven't successfully removed as of yet.
Having said all of this even as gentrification moves on via the combination of demand, capital, and human resources, all united on racial and class lines there exists a distaste and discomfort from gentrifiers. They can put a red rose on their Twitter bio, quote Marx, and throw water bottles at cops, but at the end of the day they know their presence and collective being is detrimental to their working-class neighbors and especially their Black neighbors. If they were serious about racial justice, and they most certainly aren't, AOC and Wiley would be holding rallies and encouraging their base to move back to the suburbs of Ohio and Illinois unless their presence in the city is helpful and beneficial. However, as we all know, blowing the family fortune on expensive housing, weed, and avocado toast is more important than racial justice to the majority of that demographic.
White Guilt may force hipsters to hire a Black dominatrix, adopt an African kid on vacation, or bizarrely become apologists for Nicolas Maduro or Bashar al-Asad, but when gentrifying Jewish neighborhoods no such guilt exists. In fact many of the gentrifiers may be secular assimilated Jews with a particular disdain for Hasids. The current racial dogma being offered by academics and progressive activists holds to racial absolutes where white people are monolithic and all-powerful. Working-class white people don't fit well into this narrative and Satmar Hasids face another double whammy in that they are Jews, who are stereotypically believed to be all affluent even by educated people, and they are religious. Despite NYC being a devoutly religious city with Orthodox Jewish enclaves, the largest Muslim community in America, a vibrant and diverse Black and Latino Church, devout Catholics, and numerous Orthodox Churches, the reputation of the city is that it's secular because secular media and academic types in Manhattan and Brooklyn frame the narrative. Hipsters, representing a post-ethnic and secular demographic only united by whiteness and wealth, often hold a particular disdain for the faithful.
The book goes into great detail to note the beginnings of the Satmar community in Williamsburg and how the Satmar Rebbe escaped Hungary, left the land of Israel as an ardent anti-Zionist, and set up a "holy community" in Williamsburg. The Satmars weren't the first Jews in Williamsburg. Other Orthodox Jews were already established, but like the Lubavitchers in Crown Heights, they are the ones who remained after white-flight and stayed for the invasion of the "artists". These communities were largely founded by holocaust survivors many who spent time in Nazi death camps.
The book paints a predictable tale: the Satmar expanding outside of their neighborhood boundaries to neighboring Black neighborhoods and Upstate New York, young Satmars being influenced by hipsters, Satmar real estate people getting rich off real estate deals, Black and Puerto Rican neighbors mad at exclusionary Satmar housing tactics, and more.
I'll just share these final three points
1. Bikes
The subject of bike lanes inevitably came up. Throughout America bike lanes have been bizarrely placed in neighborhoods they are seldom used. These are most often Black and Latino neighborhoods that are either being gentrified or will soon be gentrified. The message is clear: your time will soon be up.
White urban progressives hold a particular disdain for cars. Cars are produced by blue-collar workers making a decent living and in America these are largely union jobs, larger families need bigger cars and in America these tend to be more religious families, professional driving jobs are the most popular job for American men without college degrees so snobbery and class-bias kicks in. On any given day in New York working-class residents are working as cab drivers, ride share drivers, delivery drivers, truck drivers, bus drivers, ambulance drivers, and the list goes on. Satmar families and others are also schlepping their kids all over the place. From the vantage point of these people bike lanes are a nuisance. From the vantage point of ideological and wealthy white hipsters bike lanes are an essential part of infrastructure. Not like they have a lot of kids anyway or need a professional driving job. In the event they find a Black or Latino supporter that person will surely be their local face to the public. In this I liken the bike lanes and the rallies of hipsters they often organize to the Panzer Division of Erwin Rommel. Bike lanes are the infrastructure of conquest and the "midnight rambles" and nude biking events are a message that the conquerors rule the day and can do as they please. As one astute Satmar elder observed in the book these artists and hipsters may look, and often behave like bums, but they most certainly aren't. These are largely the children of wealthy suburbia, the bored kids of the country club, white people who view themselves as heroic and interesting pioneers, and some are even the children of tycoons of industry and the uber-wealthy.
2. Antisemitism
Antisemitism cannot be erased from this discussion especially after a year of sustained unprovoked attacks of Jews in Brooklyn and the murder of Jews in Jersey City. As the book correctly notes that even when Hasidic Jews are the victims of murder they are still vilified. When New Yorkers have a problem with a Jewish landlord the entire Jewish people are to blame. When Satmars are criticized they are often referred to as "Zionist Jews" despite the community being opposed to Zionisim and the Jewish State. We are in an era of increased antisemitism and visibly Jewish people are the most vulnerable at this time. Unlike other vulnerable groups Jews aren't popular with the "intersectional allies" crowd so even after numerous attacks on Jews everyone from progressive activists to Mayor Bill DeBlasio were reluctant to speak up.
3. Coalitions and the future
After reading this book it seems the Satmars of Williamsburg have three great weaknesses. Weakness 1 is that a segment of the community is getting rich selling out the community to hipsters, weakness 2 is that due to theological differences the Satmars of Williamsburg and Lubavitchers of Crown Heights have failed to create a coalition in which they could face the problem of gentrification together, and the Satmars have failed to make coalitions with other communities negatively impacted by gentrification: African-Americans, Latinos, Muslim immigrant groups, and others. Working together, not in the sense of the Marxist fallacy that the workers of the world will unite, but in the sense coalitions can accomplish more together makes the most sense. It's my hope that Eric Adams as mayor could bring some relief to Satmars and others and COVID-19 may have taken some stress out of the real estate market for working-class New Yorkers. If there is no relief it's not inconceivable to see Jewish Williamsburg go the way of Jewish Brownsville and completely relocate to upstate New York, New Jersey, and Long Island and Jewish Crown Heights to Kfar Chabad and Jerusalem in Israel.
August 12, 2021
In the late 1940s, two nascent Orthodox groups in the United States were Satmar Hasidim in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn and the German Breuer's kehila in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan. At that time, if someone were to conjecture which group 70 years later would have multiple exponential growth, and be a significant player in New York City politics, and which group would be a shell of its former self, I think it would be unanimous that Satmar Hasidim would be seen as a forgotten relic. God obviously had a different calculus, and the opposite is true.
In A Fortress in Brooklyn: Race, Real Estate, and the Making of Hasidic Williamsburg (Yale University Press), authors Nathaniel Deutsch (professor of history at the University of California, Santa Cruz) and historian Michael Casper has written a spellbinding narrative of how the Satmar community went from a small group of post-war stragglers in Brooklyn to significant players in the New York City political and real estate worlds.
Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum, founder and first Rebbe of Satmar in America, who took an isolationist approach, is perhaps the least likely candidate for someone to develop a thriving and progressive community in the one of the roughest sections of New York City. However, once again, God had a different calculus, and the opposite is true.
The neighborhood of Williamsburg was named in honor of Jonathan Williams, a grandnephew of Benjamin Franklin, who first surveyed the territory in the early 1800s. The book explores how this neighborhood became a site for a uniquely American epic of religion, race, class, politics, and above all, reinvention.
While the term reinvention is not likely to be associated with Hasidim in general and Satmar specifically, the book details the series of extraordinary reversals and reinventions that mark the history of Hasidic Williamsburg. Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum of Satmar initially saw the United States in a most negatively light, a place that had to be avoided at all costs. He later reimaged America as the very center of an epic theological drama that would lead to the arrival of the messiah and redemption of the Jewish people. Furthermore, this process, he felt, would begin on American soil before culminating in Israel.
With his isolationist approach and the goal to create a holy camp in Brooklyn for his followers and recreate the European Hasidic experience, the Satmar Rav also showed he had a relatively flexible approach to rebuilding in American and showed extreme pragmatism in how to do that.
Furthermore, Satmar succeeded because of a potent, though at times, seemingly paradoxical commitment to both ideological purity on the one hand and a remarkably flexible pragmatism on the other hand. Maintaining this dynamic enabled Satmar to change without changing. And the group from Satu Mare, Romania (which the author's note means big city and not as commonly said St. Mary) could change without changing. This change without changing enabled Satmar to become a success story in the American dream.
Rebuilding Satmar in America was like fighting another war. And as Dr. David Myers (professor of history at the University of California, Los Angeles) writes in "Commanded War": Three Chapters in the "Military" History of Satmar Hasidism, the pronounced role of military language and a martial outlook has long been a decisive factor within Satmar. They used and still use the pervasive language of war, which emerged from a sense of the grave perils posed by modernity.
The most recent aspect of this war is detailed in the book where Satmar saw a threat in the hipster movement (known within Satmar as the artistn), which was making significant inroads into Williamsburg. This, in turn, leads to the situation where rents were no longer affordable to many of the working class Hasidim.
For the most part, Satmar Hasidim is a poorly understood group, and many writers try to cover them, but their articles and books are often filled with misunderstandings and countless mistakes. While the book is not meant to be a comprehensive overview of Satmar, the authors provide an interesting and nearly flawlessly researched portrayal of this unique group in American life. Satmar comes out in these pages as a modern-day Horatio Alger story.
With a decade of research going into the book, based in part on numerous interviews with Satmar community members, the authors have written a fascinating and engaging work that captures the remarkable story of the rebuilding of the Satmar community.
While they may dress in austere black and white clothing, the book captures how Satmar has been able to be both loyal to tradition and highly dynamic. A Fortress in Brooklyn: Race, Real Estate, and the Making of Hasidic Williamsburg (the title is a tribute to the legendary novel A Tree Grows in Brooklyn) is a fascinating story of change, not changing, tradition, and pursuit of the American dream.
In A Fortress in Brooklyn: Race, Real Estate, and the Making of Hasidic Williamsburg (Yale University Press), authors Nathaniel Deutsch (professor of history at the University of California, Santa Cruz) and historian Michael Casper has written a spellbinding narrative of how the Satmar community went from a small group of post-war stragglers in Brooklyn to significant players in the New York City political and real estate worlds.
Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum, founder and first Rebbe of Satmar in America, who took an isolationist approach, is perhaps the least likely candidate for someone to develop a thriving and progressive community in the one of the roughest sections of New York City. However, once again, God had a different calculus, and the opposite is true.
The neighborhood of Williamsburg was named in honor of Jonathan Williams, a grandnephew of Benjamin Franklin, who first surveyed the territory in the early 1800s. The book explores how this neighborhood became a site for a uniquely American epic of religion, race, class, politics, and above all, reinvention.
While the term reinvention is not likely to be associated with Hasidim in general and Satmar specifically, the book details the series of extraordinary reversals and reinventions that mark the history of Hasidic Williamsburg. Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum of Satmar initially saw the United States in a most negatively light, a place that had to be avoided at all costs. He later reimaged America as the very center of an epic theological drama that would lead to the arrival of the messiah and redemption of the Jewish people. Furthermore, this process, he felt, would begin on American soil before culminating in Israel.
With his isolationist approach and the goal to create a holy camp in Brooklyn for his followers and recreate the European Hasidic experience, the Satmar Rav also showed he had a relatively flexible approach to rebuilding in American and showed extreme pragmatism in how to do that.
Furthermore, Satmar succeeded because of a potent, though at times, seemingly paradoxical commitment to both ideological purity on the one hand and a remarkably flexible pragmatism on the other hand. Maintaining this dynamic enabled Satmar to change without changing. And the group from Satu Mare, Romania (which the author's note means big city and not as commonly said St. Mary) could change without changing. This change without changing enabled Satmar to become a success story in the American dream.
Rebuilding Satmar in America was like fighting another war. And as Dr. David Myers (professor of history at the University of California, Los Angeles) writes in "Commanded War": Three Chapters in the "Military" History of Satmar Hasidism, the pronounced role of military language and a martial outlook has long been a decisive factor within Satmar. They used and still use the pervasive language of war, which emerged from a sense of the grave perils posed by modernity.
The most recent aspect of this war is detailed in the book where Satmar saw a threat in the hipster movement (known within Satmar as the artistn), which was making significant inroads into Williamsburg. This, in turn, leads to the situation where rents were no longer affordable to many of the working class Hasidim.
For the most part, Satmar Hasidim is a poorly understood group, and many writers try to cover them, but their articles and books are often filled with misunderstandings and countless mistakes. While the book is not meant to be a comprehensive overview of Satmar, the authors provide an interesting and nearly flawlessly researched portrayal of this unique group in American life. Satmar comes out in these pages as a modern-day Horatio Alger story.
With a decade of research going into the book, based in part on numerous interviews with Satmar community members, the authors have written a fascinating and engaging work that captures the remarkable story of the rebuilding of the Satmar community.
While they may dress in austere black and white clothing, the book captures how Satmar has been able to be both loyal to tradition and highly dynamic. A Fortress in Brooklyn: Race, Real Estate, and the Making of Hasidic Williamsburg (the title is a tribute to the legendary novel A Tree Grows in Brooklyn) is a fascinating story of change, not changing, tradition, and pursuit of the American dream.
September 9, 2021
Fantastic! As a native NYer, history buff, former real estate professional and a Jew I loved it. Tons of detail, vocabulary words that sent me to the dictionary and best of all - very objective! Couldn’t have been easy.
July 8, 2022
really interesting stuff, but pretty hard to swallow a tale of hyperlocal urban political economy with the layers of sociopolitical and ethnic/racial conflict that this has that lands this squarely on only highlighting antisemitism (and not precipitating/responsive violence, racism, etc). also sat very oddly with me how prone this book is to referring to the hasidic settlers of williamsburg as...the ~original~ residents
September 17, 2021
Firmly rooted in the reality of the community it's describing.
September 5, 2021
"A Fortress in Brooklyn" is a well-researched and well-written account of the history of the Satmar Chasidim in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn.
I remember having a conversation with one of my Graduate School Professors who claimed that Chasidim could not be classified as a culture. He claimed that cultures, by definition, evolve while Chasidim do not.
Casper and Deutsch join a growing body of literature that demonstrates that this is not the case. As the authors clearly show, the history of the Satmar community in Williamsburg is one of significant cultural evolution and change.
That cultural change is both internal, as illustrated by changing norms, as well as external, as evidenced by the way the community reacted to the political and racial realities that dominated the communal agenda for over half a century.
More books like this, please.
I remember having a conversation with one of my Graduate School Professors who claimed that Chasidim could not be classified as a culture. He claimed that cultures, by definition, evolve while Chasidim do not.
Casper and Deutsch join a growing body of literature that demonstrates that this is not the case. As the authors clearly show, the history of the Satmar community in Williamsburg is one of significant cultural evolution and change.
That cultural change is both internal, as illustrated by changing norms, as well as external, as evidenced by the way the community reacted to the political and racial realities that dominated the communal agenda for over half a century.
More books like this, please.
May 11, 2023
Listen. I read this book for class and man is it dense. Since I had to write a book review and dissect the main argument it took all the fun away from reading, though I wouldnt have enjoyed it if I was reading it for fun! Actually, I wouldnt have ever read it if I wanted fun. Read this book if you hate yourself.
Ok that’s too far, the book actually was interesting and it was fascinating to see how American this determinately self-proclaimed unamerican society came to be. And it was crazy to read about the turmoil and neighborhood clashes in Williamsburg. Also like that chapter on self-policing?? Wowow.
But this books downfall is how dense it is and how buried the main argument is and how many examples they have that muddy the argument!!
Ok that’s too far, the book actually was interesting and it was fascinating to see how American this determinately self-proclaimed unamerican society came to be. And it was crazy to read about the turmoil and neighborhood clashes in Williamsburg. Also like that chapter on self-policing?? Wowow.
But this books downfall is how dense it is and how buried the main argument is and how many examples they have that muddy the argument!!
May 19, 2025
Having lived in Manhattan when I was younger, I recognized some of the issues Nathaniel Deutsch brought forth in A Fortress in Brooklyn. Deutsch's take is scholarly; this is a well-researched academic look at the gentrification of Williamsburg and the surrounding neighborhoods in Brooklyn. I learned about Satmar chasidim and found that very interesting. I was able to understand historical references to infighting among different groups in Brooklyn that I heard about when I lived in NYC. This erudite volume won't appeal to everyone. It's a very specific look at a slice of NYC.
November 17, 2022
4 stars
I really enjoyed this deep dive into the social politics of real estate in Hasidic Williamsburg. After learning SO much, I now want to go back to Williamsburg and see all of these policies in action! Thanks to Daniela for the glowing recommendation
I really enjoyed this deep dive into the social politics of real estate in Hasidic Williamsburg. After learning SO much, I now want to go back to Williamsburg and see all of these policies in action! Thanks to Daniela for the glowing recommendation
March 3, 2025
This book was so good but soooo long and also it kept getting returned to the library while I was reading g it on my kindle
October 8, 2023
A roughly 14 hour unabridged audiobook.
It was very interesting. Giving what came across to me as a balanced view on the issues it covered. Covering the history from first Jewish settlers to present day. I liked this book which says a lot because it's not my typical genre.
It was very interesting. Giving what came across to me as a balanced view on the issues it covered. Covering the history from first Jewish settlers to present day. I liked this book which says a lot because it's not my typical genre.
August 13, 2021
Although this book can at times read more like a term paper, it is in actuality a very well researched book that explores the Williamsburg, Brooklyn community of Satmar Hassidim. Of course, there is significant discussion about the religious aspect of this very insular sect of Hassidim. But the greater focus is on how this group has actually established their place in this neighborhood through several generations of challenges. As a group of Holocaust survivors under the leadership of their Rebbe, Yoel Teitelbaum, they sought to rebuild their lives as they once lived in Hungary. Gradually, they learned how to navigate life in this new country, and took bold steps to obtain housing in public housing projects. They became very savvy political players. And as the century changed, they established themselves as major players in the emerging housing boom. Driving past Williamsburg the other day on the BQE, I found myself looking at the luxury high rises that have sprung up in a new way. This is a very readable book.
October 11, 2021
Fantastic description of events and some interesting criticism of the historical debates within Williamsburg Satmar and between Satmar and others in the city, but the author's failures of understanding in terms of how cities and urban housing markets/politics work make it hard to recommend. If someone wrote a YIMBY revision on all the parts explaining the housing crisis/shortage and the drivers of gentrification/displacement, this would be a 5/5.
December 20, 2021
This book is about the Satmar Hasidim of Williamsburg and their use of political influence to fight for affordable housing: first in the 1960s (when they fought for public housing), then in the 2000s (when they fought gentrification) and later in the 2010s (when they expanded into nearby neighborhoods).
A side note: While some people blame the 2005 upzoning for rising housing costs in Williamsburg, this book notes that rents rose by 43 percent between 1991 and 2005.
A side note: While some people blame the 2005 upzoning for rising housing costs in Williamsburg, this book notes that rents rose by 43 percent between 1991 and 2005.
May 4, 2025
a decent history of the williamsburg hasidim that ultimately lacks even a mild sense of journalistic curiosity. the objective facts are well reported and interesting, but over and over again this plays out: the hasids say this, their critics allege this, the author says ah well we’ll never know the truth! if only there were some social scientists with the slightest inclination of getting to the bottom of the social systems they’re studying, darn!
January 16, 2022
In 2008, I wrote my thesis for my BA on the political mobilization of Satmar Williamsburg and how their political activism emerged in the context of Great Society programs and the Satmar self-image as a nonwhite minority in America. It was a really interesting topic and I always hoped that someone--not me!--would develop the idea further, with more comprehensive research, and make it a book. I was really excited to see "A Fortress in Brooklyn," no less because Nathaniel Deutsch's other book on the Maid of Ludmir was excellent.
"A Fortress in Brooklyn" was a great read, based on thorough research.
I appreciated the authors' framing that situates most of the developments of Hasidic Williamsburg within discussions of racial identity and the structural issues of real estate in the inner city. This is, by design, not an interior history of the Satmar community's religious or social or cultural development (although there is a fair deal of anthropological observation in the twenty-first century sections). It's a story of how a religious community that lives in a working class "ghetto" section of the inner city develops a unique identity based on those circumstances, and how that identity shifts when the neighborhood becomes hip and gentrified.
Many observations:
--The chapters about racial tension in the earlier decades were very well-done. I also really enjoyed the chapters about the women's hours in the public pool and the disputes over the bike lanes during the Bloomberg era. In these chapters, the authors maintained a painstakingly neutral tone about the Hasidim and placed their concerns within broader debates about the way governments interact with minority groups. The first half of the book has one thesis, and the latter half kind of has a different one, but the authors integrate the stories effectively. It was insightful.
--I enjoyed that the research within this book spanned the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and that the authors have the insight to recognize the monumental cultural and social changes that the internet has wrought on the Satmar community. This topic really deserves a whole new book of its own, but the authors use this topic to relate to the others in the book very deftly.
--The chapter about Hasidic participation in public housing was fascinating. I wished the authors carried that narrative past the 1970s and told more about how Hasidim left public housing. Or are they still there? This was a huge curiosity point by the end and I was really disappointed that it was not filled in more.
--I wish there was more care in how to use anonymous internet comments as a historical source. No doubt, they are rich. But I wish there was more care about the methodological pitfalls of what they reveal and what they obscure.
--The authors contradicted themselves several times over a key point: which neighboring community posed a greater threat to Satmar Williamsburg, the nonwhite ghetto communities, or the gentrifying hipsters? After reading an entire chapter, "Chaptsem!," about actual street violence and crime in the pre-gentrifying years, I was confused that the authors cited noncritically when community leaders proclaimed that the hipsters were the greater threat. The authors lean very deeply into the notion that the Hasidim developed in parallel ways to the Black and Hispanic ghetto communities--and I agree with the thesis!--but the suggestion that the hipsters were indeed a greater communal threat seems like a lazy read.
--This book, like those of Kranzler and Rubin and others who have written about Williamsburg, makes many observations about the unique ethnic and social-class elements of the neighborhood and how they've impacted Satmar, but is not careful enough to recognize that the developments of Satmar have analogs among the haredi communities in Boro Park, Rockland County, Lakewood, and other enclaves, and that for many of the book's observations, the Williamsburg framing can lead to somewhat spurious (or at least myopic) conclusions.
--For example, the conflicts between Orthodox Jewish religious values of asceticism and material indulgence (embourgeoisement, as the authors prefer) extend far beyond Williamsburg and far beyond the twenty-first century. Further, issues of metropolitan real estate prices driving out entrenched Jewish communities is also an issue that extends far beyond Williamsburg, and deserves attention with a broader scope.
--The chapters about real estate developers were not very analysis- or argument-driven and I found them quite boring. The rest of the book was very engaging!
All in all, I'm really glad I read this book and I think it contributes a great deal to the existing literature, with a very useful situating of religious communal development within the frameworks of racial minority status and the pressures of real estate.
"A Fortress in Brooklyn" was a great read, based on thorough research.
I appreciated the authors' framing that situates most of the developments of Hasidic Williamsburg within discussions of racial identity and the structural issues of real estate in the inner city. This is, by design, not an interior history of the Satmar community's religious or social or cultural development (although there is a fair deal of anthropological observation in the twenty-first century sections). It's a story of how a religious community that lives in a working class "ghetto" section of the inner city develops a unique identity based on those circumstances, and how that identity shifts when the neighborhood becomes hip and gentrified.
Many observations:
--The chapters about racial tension in the earlier decades were very well-done. I also really enjoyed the chapters about the women's hours in the public pool and the disputes over the bike lanes during the Bloomberg era. In these chapters, the authors maintained a painstakingly neutral tone about the Hasidim and placed their concerns within broader debates about the way governments interact with minority groups. The first half of the book has one thesis, and the latter half kind of has a different one, but the authors integrate the stories effectively. It was insightful.
--I enjoyed that the research within this book spanned the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and that the authors have the insight to recognize the monumental cultural and social changes that the internet has wrought on the Satmar community. This topic really deserves a whole new book of its own, but the authors use this topic to relate to the others in the book very deftly.
--The chapter about Hasidic participation in public housing was fascinating. I wished the authors carried that narrative past the 1970s and told more about how Hasidim left public housing. Or are they still there? This was a huge curiosity point by the end and I was really disappointed that it was not filled in more.
--I wish there was more care in how to use anonymous internet comments as a historical source. No doubt, they are rich. But I wish there was more care about the methodological pitfalls of what they reveal and what they obscure.
--The authors contradicted themselves several times over a key point: which neighboring community posed a greater threat to Satmar Williamsburg, the nonwhite ghetto communities, or the gentrifying hipsters? After reading an entire chapter, "Chaptsem!," about actual street violence and crime in the pre-gentrifying years, I was confused that the authors cited noncritically when community leaders proclaimed that the hipsters were the greater threat. The authors lean very deeply into the notion that the Hasidim developed in parallel ways to the Black and Hispanic ghetto communities--and I agree with the thesis!--but the suggestion that the hipsters were indeed a greater communal threat seems like a lazy read.
--This book, like those of Kranzler and Rubin and others who have written about Williamsburg, makes many observations about the unique ethnic and social-class elements of the neighborhood and how they've impacted Satmar, but is not careful enough to recognize that the developments of Satmar have analogs among the haredi communities in Boro Park, Rockland County, Lakewood, and other enclaves, and that for many of the book's observations, the Williamsburg framing can lead to somewhat spurious (or at least myopic) conclusions.
--For example, the conflicts between Orthodox Jewish religious values of asceticism and material indulgence (embourgeoisement, as the authors prefer) extend far beyond Williamsburg and far beyond the twenty-first century. Further, issues of metropolitan real estate prices driving out entrenched Jewish communities is also an issue that extends far beyond Williamsburg, and deserves attention with a broader scope.
--The chapters about real estate developers were not very analysis- or argument-driven and I found them quite boring. The rest of the book was very engaging!
All in all, I'm really glad I read this book and I think it contributes a great deal to the existing literature, with a very useful situating of religious communal development within the frameworks of racial minority status and the pressures of real estate.
August 26, 2021
There was a blurb in a Michael Lewis book that even if Lewis wrote a 600 page history of the phone book it would be worth reading. Deutsch is an excellent historian but the book feels dry.
That doesn't take away from the story which Deutsch tells about the Satmar Hasidic Community from its arrival after the holocaust through the tribulations of Covid. You may find yourself thinking "Taliban" at times about the willingness to impose religious hegemony even on non-Jews. But the strength of the community, and its ability to overcome so many obstacles makes the book an interesting read.
Many of the more interesting sections are about the conflicts with the Black and Latin communities and, while the authors try to be evenhanded, its hard not to believe that "whiteness" did not help the Hasidim's efforts.
Not an easy read and, at three hundred pages, so be prepared to spend some time,.
That doesn't take away from the story which Deutsch tells about the Satmar Hasidic Community from its arrival after the holocaust through the tribulations of Covid. You may find yourself thinking "Taliban" at times about the willingness to impose religious hegemony even on non-Jews. But the strength of the community, and its ability to overcome so many obstacles makes the book an interesting read.
Many of the more interesting sections are about the conflicts with the Black and Latin communities and, while the authors try to be evenhanded, its hard not to believe that "whiteness" did not help the Hasidim's efforts.
Not an easy read and, at three hundred pages, so be prepared to spend some time,.
November 17, 2022
This book was a fabulous and detailed (mostly) linear history of the Hasidic community in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
While I thoroughly enjoyed the granular level of detail and academic tone, I would say that if you are not entirely into the topics covered in this book (Orthodox Judaism/small religious communities, NYC History, Urbanism, Real Estate Development, and NYC politics), then you might not be giving this book 5 stars. It might be a little too detailed or dry for you, and there isn’t any “narrativization” to carry you through, although the writers take a linear path through history.
I mean, there’s an entire chapter about the background/history of the fight over the Kent and Bedford Ave bike lanes!
As someone who has overlapping interests in the subject matter, this book was like a big bowl of candy.
While I thoroughly enjoyed the granular level of detail and academic tone, I would say that if you are not entirely into the topics covered in this book (Orthodox Judaism/small religious communities, NYC History, Urbanism, Real Estate Development, and NYC politics), then you might not be giving this book 5 stars. It might be a little too detailed or dry for you, and there isn’t any “narrativization” to carry you through, although the writers take a linear path through history.
I mean, there’s an entire chapter about the background/history of the fight over the Kent and Bedford Ave bike lanes!
As someone who has overlapping interests in the subject matter, this book was like a big bowl of candy.
August 4, 2021
Far sighted.or.far.fetched?
Superbly researched and written, Deutsch gives a mini history of NYC politics through the lens of a community that is held together by its passionate rabbinate. Remaining insular will spiritually ruin Satmar. Its leaders believe that exposure to the world and its relativism will entice too many away. There is little.trust in human nature. Satmar can teach us something if they would be open to dialog that doesn't revolve around their parochial.needs. Yet they are welcome to.live amongst all.of us so as to.vindicate the American system.of religious freedom and tolerance. And that is something that Satmar may finally be comprehending.
Superbly researched and written, Deutsch gives a mini history of NYC politics through the lens of a community that is held together by its passionate rabbinate. Remaining insular will spiritually ruin Satmar. Its leaders believe that exposure to the world and its relativism will entice too many away. There is little.trust in human nature. Satmar can teach us something if they would be open to dialog that doesn't revolve around their parochial.needs. Yet they are welcome to.live amongst all.of us so as to.vindicate the American system.of religious freedom and tolerance. And that is something that Satmar may finally be comprehending.
November 15, 2021
Anyone who's lived in Brooklyn for a decade or more, especially north Brooklyn, knows about the batshit real estate market here. By focusing specifically on the growth of Williamsburg, the author illuminates a fascinating paradox--a hyper-conservative religious sect that was able to leverage the tools of capital and technology to ride the wave of growth while both benefiting and suffering from the consequences of wealth inequality in their own community. While the specifics are highly unique, it's a fundamentally American story that should prove interesting both to scholars of religion and urban studies.
February 24, 2024
If you want to understand how Satmar views themselves this book will provide that.
It reads like a Satmar follower's whitewashing of Satmar and Williamsburg's history. Like they handed the authors their book to edit and publish.
Not what i was looking for but great if that is what you are looking for. Though be aware it's missing and lying about almost all of the history and information. Therefore may only be used to spread misinformation.
It reads like a Satmar follower's whitewashing of Satmar and Williamsburg's history. Like they handed the authors their book to edit and publish.
Not what i was looking for but great if that is what you are looking for. Though be aware it's missing and lying about almost all of the history and information. Therefore may only be used to spread misinformation.
July 20, 2021
A great look at the development of the Hasidic community of Williamsburg and its interactions with other groups. The authors are specialists in Jewish studies, rather than politics or New York City, and the approach serves the topic well, as they're best placed to understand the development of the Williamsburg Hasidim (especially Satmar) and to explain it in context.
December 15, 2021
Deutsch's book is a history of the Satmar Hasid community in Williamsburg, Brooklyn from its founding to the present day. Structured as an institutional history it charts how the community was born and all of the struggles as it tried to maintain its individuality while surrounded by the changes around NYC and Brooklyn.
June 16, 2023
I appreciated how the author studied this topic and shared the info without exotifying or sensationalizing which is a common way this group is portrayed. I learned so much about why the neighborhood I live in is the way it is, ethnic relations, wburg Hasidic culture, city politics. A very respectful study
July 8, 2023
Comprehensive and full of fascinating information. Somewhat ironically, the book felt inaccessible at times, due to the volume of SAT-like words used. Reading it was a disjointed experience, with having to look up the definitions of numerous words every other page. It would have been an easier read with clearer and simpler language and it would have still been a great book.
June 3, 2024
An interesting history of Hasidic (mostly Satmar) Williamsburg, which I admit I hadn't actually known much about beforehand. I definitely learned a lot about the history of Hasidim in Williamsburg, as well as the fact that Williamsburg had been a major Jewish neighborhood with significant Orthodox institutions even before the Hasidim moved to the US after the Holocaust.
April 8, 2025
Very interesting to read all about this Hasidic "Jerusalem in New York."
Williamsburg explained to the gentiles.
I took my time and went off on many internet tangents while going through this book.
I really enjoyed learning about the culture, history, and slow expansion of the shtetl.
Worth your time to understand the Hasidim and their many traditions.
Williamsburg explained to the gentiles.
I took my time and went off on many internet tangents while going through this book.
I really enjoyed learning about the culture, history, and slow expansion of the shtetl.
Worth your time to understand the Hasidim and their many traditions.
July 27, 2025
"A Fortress in Brooklyn: Race, Real Estate, and the Making of Hasidic Williamsburg" is a fascinating look into one of New York's most reclusive communities. While it can get a bit bogged down in the weeds of New York City housing policy and politics, it opens a tantalizing window into a community that is both stuck in the past and moving rapidly into the future.
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