Oprah Winfrey went on a tour of the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Crown Heights, Borough Park and Brooklyn Heights on Wednesday to get an inside look at the lives of America’s Hassidic Jews. The Hassidic Chabad organization reported on the visit on their online community chabad.org.
Oprah’s new show, Oprah’s Next Chapter , featured a discussion with Hassidic women about the ultra Orthodox community’s lifestyle as well as a trip to a mikveh (Jewish ritual bath).
In an exclusive interview for the organization’s video site, Jewish.TV , Winfrey told Chabad Rabbi Motti Seligson,
“I’ve, you know, walked down the street and seen Hassidic Jewish men in particular with the peyot [side curls] – now I know that’s what they are – and the yarmulkes and oftentimes with wearing the hats and the long beards and I’ve always found it somewhat formidable or intimidating. I’ve never actually spoken to anybody who was a Hassidic Jew because I always felt like I didn’t know whether I was allowed to or what was the whole issue with women or not with women. So this experience for me today has really confirmed and affirmed what I truly believe as one of my deep, spiritual principles and that is that we are all more alike than we are different.”
Oprah deemed the trip a complete success saying,
“There’s more Hassidic Jew in me than I knew!”
In sitting with one of the families in Crown Heights, Oprah was amazed that in a modern world a family could be happy when they and their children are completely unplugged.
She said,
“It’s amazing to me that you can raise children in this world and not have them” consume hours and hours watching television or texting friends or playing video games. What’s gonna happen when people see this family and see that it’s possible that in the United States of America, in Brooklyn, you can have nine children and none of them are watching television, and none of them are on computers all day long, and none of them are sassing their parents, and they’re well-mannered and live in harmony with their families.”
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