Photos: The Faces of Purim in Crown Heights

Photographer Chaim Perl sought to capture the sights of Purim in the neighborhood in a ‘different’ style. His unique gallery of hands and faces is presented here for your enjoyment!

Check out last years ‘uplifting’ photo gallery by Clicking Here.

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35 Comments

  • How low we have fallen

    Is this now considered normal, to have women’s portraits posted for everyone to look at?!!! The is the opposite of Tznius!!!!

    • hersh

      You’re right but the problem starts at the top.
      Merkaz allows the Kinus HaShluchos pictures to be posted online – how can you have a taane when those that are supposed to be the standard bearers are doing the same thing.

      As a side note, the other community site will not post any comments that criticize them for posting female pics as they clearly know that they are in the wrong.

    • what?

      Why don’t you open a Shulchon oruch and see what is written… then come back and post an apology.

  • Amazing to look at

    I just wanted the pictures to go on and on. Love our neighborhood .

  • me and you

    to #1
    just move to Saudi Arabia or Williamsburg.
    pollllease!

    Hey these pics are great – so nice you posted them all – beautiful!!!

    I shpy shmuly borenstein!!!

  • Chaim...you are a talent!

    Such fantastic pictures! I didn’t want them to end! You have an artistic eye!!! Keep ’em coming!!!!

  • Paul Palnik

    I am a former university art professor and working artist …. really nice job on the photos. Love the black and white. Joyful and soulful … The Spirit shines through. Well done. You get an A.

  • what happened

    What happened to people dressing up as a Sefar Torah, Queen Esther, Mordachi,or any thing with a Jewish theme!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Most of the pictures are people dressed up in none Jewish theme which is not appropriate for frum people.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  • AGREE WITH #1

    It’s that we lost the sensitivity to it…
    Now nobody thinks it’s wrong…

  • To #1 and friends...

    By all means, make your own website geared toward a male readership (and not the community as a whole or the great number of people with more secular sensibilities who also read Crown Heights Info.) And, by all means, stop looking at this site if you find its content objectionable. But to argue that someone else’s website should present Purim as an all male event is a bit much. Anyone who actually walked our streets either saw women or was so busy avoiding the nightmare that he bumped into one. Crown Heights women spent countless hours planning and designing costumes, meals, parties, shalach manos. But, in your opinion, we should be satisified with invisibility, with our community news sources reducing our active participation to an unacknowledged role in impacting the men around us. It’s not enough that coverage of weddings and l’chaims pay lip service to the presence of women and suggest to the uninitiated that maybe, maybe a bride and the occasional five year old girl show up. There is no website on earth that presents the world as it really is, so if you would like to create a virtual world without women, go for it. If you don’t want to imagine life in someone else’s shoes, don’t. But if I were a secular woman and I caught a glimpse of your dream, I’d go miles out of my way to avoid the local Chabad house and run screaming from teenagers bearing Shabbos candles. And then I’d cry for them.

  • positive lens

    The thing is, unless anyone would actually take the time to start something like a blog that’s for women, by women, the idea of having pictures is not going to change. Someone wrote how it’s because of the women’s kinus. Anyone who doesn’t attend wants to see the pictures. If it bothers people, you can be proactive and do something nice for the women of the community instead of just complaining. The point is valid and if the Rebbe was physically here there probably wouldn’t be picures of women up, but there’s no use in sharing how you feel without doing something about it. Kudos to Chaim Pearl for at least just doing pictures of faces.

  • #26 I know you mean well...

    Ok, so I make my women’s website and you make your mens’ website and we both acknowledge that neither is the definitive website that speaks for the entire community. Until that day comes, our existing sites shouldn’t deny the existence of half the population or make editorial decisions that suggest that men are normative human beings to be celebrated by everyone while women are just cesspools of temptation whose achievements should be carefully tucked away behind closed doors. And, if we want to get down to it, #1 was the complainer, so the onus is really on him more than it is on either of us. You can be grateful for your privilege and acknowledge that you have the power to make decisions about the media you consume, and I can argue that there’s more than a fine line between modesty and disappearing entirely from the greater discourse. Maybe if we try to imagine a mile in each other’s shoes, we’ll get somewhere.
    Oh, and kudos to Chaim Perl for making work that speaks to our shared humanity above all else.

  • All are Jewish themes

    Jews are cowboys, sailors, fisherman, boxers, Teachers, lawyers….. What ever you do, do it as a Jew : )

  • Shliach

    Rabbonim in Eretz Yisroel wanted to ban Lubavitcher websites. They allowed them to continue operating with three clauses-no women or girls’ photos, no comments and no politics.
    This is the psak. No ands ifs or buts. I don’t know if they all keep to it stringently, but those are the guidelines. Shmais is great in this aspect.
    I would like to see someone handing in an album of the above to the Rebbe, or the video of those 8th graders in Melbourne. And yet people are justifying it all, having lost track of who we are and what our guidelines are. And just because Merkos does something it doesn’t mean that they haven’t lost their way as well.
    When we are so mixed up as to commend things done against halocho and Chassidishe hanhogo, Moshiach better come pronto!

  • Not My Shliach

    “Who we are” is complicated at this point- let’s not try to define “who we are” on behalf of others who may not agree. Clearly there is a segment of the population that is uncomfortable with images of women. You have a responsibility to choose what you read. (Even within this website, you are presented with headlines and thumbnails that allow you to make choices.) If you don’t care for the available options, it is your prerogative to create media that reflects your worldview. But please call it “news about men.” When you use just the word “news” and exclude half the population as though they are incapable of doing anything newsworthy, you have created second class citizens. You reduce women, regardless of who they are or what they do or how they present themselves, to the mere fact of looking female. Don’t kid yourself or lie to me- this is objectification. I am begging you to imagine for a moment how you would feel if the roles were reversed tomorrow. Please sit down with your daughters and tell them that their faces are dangerous temptations and that you, as a man don’t want to see, let alone celebrate, what their peers have achieved. With the possible exception of blood relatives, you’re incapable of viewing them as full human beings. And that is their problem.

  • Hopefully a Chossid

    Other websites post news about women in general, Shluchos etc. They use illustrations and not photos. Can you accept the Torah’s prohibition of v’lo sosuru? This was not invented by website editors.

    The true problem is that almost all the sites are one big hefker velt with no vaad ruchni/censor, run by private people who have lost their sense of what is a Kiddush shem Lubavitch or etc. Anything goes, especially if it controversial or sensational and will pep up the rating. (Not that the “official” sites are better with their own agendas calling the shots). Sad indeed.

  • I Don't Exist to Solely to Distract You

    Obviously nothing in the Torah differentiates between photographs and illustrations, so I believe we’re arguing about the repercussions of how we interpret of a very broad concept. A drawing can be far more s–ualized than a photograph, so we really do need to consider tone and intention. If being a chossid means that you have no problem finding images of, say, school aged girls ice skating personally problematic, I honestly can’t help you, nor can you argue that it is wholly my responsibility or a ten year old girl’s responsibility to disappear from public view to save you from indulging your unchecked instincts. You need to take some ownership here. An accident of birth hasn’t endowed you with the right to be you on ten while I pay for your freedom with my marginalizion. I can do my part when I maintain a professional tone in conversation or cover my knees, but at some point you have a part to play, too. Remember that time Hillary Clinton was photoshopped out of an iconic image of Bin Laden’s capture? Can you honestly tell me that decision didn’t say something about what was more important- her work or her femaleness? I cannot reiterate enough that if we view people of both genders as human beings first and foremost, we will struggle far less and we won’t be debating how far we need to fall down either of the slippery slopes we fear.
    And if we take the time to remember that we’re ALL flawed and human, that we’re not that fundamentally different at the end of the day, maybe some of the rampant negativity that’s the real downside to our community sites will ease up a little.

  • Dallas

    The photos are beautiful! Photographer is very skilled. I don’t object to photos of women. I am repulsed, by a photo of a woman wearing tefillin. No call for that! Its not cute , its not heimishe , it would not please the Rebbe. As a Jewish woman thats the only one I would have left out