20 April 2006 (Thursday)
swinging on a star
...or, I suppose, a tram stranded above the East River. I know everyone's heard the story by now (and if you haven't, well...now you can read it for yourself), but I have yet to come across a treatment of one little twist. In the rescue picture from yesterday's New York Times, Julian and I noticed what looked like two (maybe three) men in Hasidic garb (sect indeterminate) in the rescue basket used to offload passengers from Roosevelt-Island-bound tram. Since they were traveling so close to the start of yom tov, it's possible that R.I. was their destination, meaning that their ultimate arrival there several hours after sundown probably wasn't so terrible. But...what if it waas? What if they were just taking a little chol hamoed pleasure trip and planned to return to Manhattan right away? What if they were dropping off provisions for other Jews on R.I. and planned to continue on to Queens afterwards? What if they themselves were supposed to have been met there by others?
If anyone has the scoop on these guys, and how they managed the last days of Pesach, I'd love to hear it!
I don't know all that much, but a co-worker of mine lives on Roosevelt Island and is very involved with the Jewish community there. There is no Orthodox shul there, and even the Conservative/unaffiliated shul (the only one, I believe) is struggling a bit. I know that Chabad wants to move in and has had meetings with this co-worker, who used to be the president of the afformentioned shul. This Chabadnik (married with one small son, I guess a young shaliach) has been delivering challahs to my co-worker every week for awhile in an attempt to woo her (religiously speaking). Maybe these were Chabad emissaries. Otherwise, I don't know what Hasidic-garbed Jews were doing going to Roosevelt Island. (The NYT article said that they were given matzo upon their successful rescue.) I will ask my co-worker and get back to you. She would know--in addition to her involvement with the Jewish community there, she knows the tram operators by name, is on the historical society, and is involved in local RI politics.
Update from my co-worker, who was interviewed by the media in connection with the story: They were Hasidim riding the tram for kicks on chol hamoed, at about 5 pm. They did not intend to go to RI for yom tov. They were offered a place to stay over the chag on RI with someone who keeps kosher. Instead, they got some kind of heter to be taken home immediately by the OEM (Office of Emergency Management). So they got back to wherever they lived. I think that they had a bunch of kids--one had 5 and one had 7 or something.
The kids were with them? (I mean, what father of many takes the tram "for kicks" on chol hamoed without at least some of the kids along, right?) And from whom did they get the heter? Oh, I suppose they could have called for a heter before yom tov started, by cell phone, when they realized it was going to be a problem.
I'm not sure if any of the kids were with them, but that was offered (by my co-worker) as part of the explanation for why they had to go home and couldn't spend Yom Tov on Roosevelt Island. I mean, there wasn't really anywhere for them to stay there--there are a few people who keep kosher but not sure how strictly and I don't think they're shomrei yom tov.
Also don't know from whom they got the heter. My co-worker did say that they were taken straight home without being approached by any of the TV/newspaper people who were there to get interviews. Someone else told me that there is a frum or formerly frum person who is pretty high up at the OEM, and that they have some kind of standard procedure for dealing with frum people who get stuck places on Shabbat/yom tov! That is, they come for them, tell them to get in the car to be taken home, it's for their safety, whatever. They make it harder to say no.
They wrote all about it in the Hamodia from last week.
The Moral of the story is:
If it doesn't say you absolutely must take a chol hamoed trip to somewhere in shulchan orech, there's probably a good reason for it. So despite all the advertisements trying to sucker you into going someplace cho hamoed, it's probably a good idea to stay home.
