c. 1996 Religion News Service

(RNS)-Robert Eisenberg urges you to imagine an America in which the only Jews will be Hasidim and other Orthodox. It’s not merely possible, he says. By the year 2075, it’s likely.

The vision shapes Eisenberg’s new book,”Boychiks In The Hood: Travels in the Hasidic Underground”(Harper San Francisco), an irreverent, detail-packed tour of the classic closed community. The book picks up on some of the community’s more unlikely characters, including health food devotees, guys who cover their heads with cowboy hats and folded newspapers instead of yarmulkes, and a teen-age Deadhead in Antwerp, Belgium.

Through their stories, rabbinic teachings and ecstatic dancing and singing, the Hasidim have always tapped into the at-times dormant strain of Jewish mysticism. During the European Holocaust, their numbers were nearly decimated and, for a time, it seemed that their revival would occur only in the stories of Isaac Bashevis Singer and other Yiddish writers about a lost world.

But now comes Eisenberg, a non-observant, wise-cracking journalist. And through his eyes, the Hasidim-unlike the weary old men and women in many of Singer’s stories-are not merely thriving, they’re hip. “There is no atrophy,”says Eisenberg,”only a sense that things are getting better all the time.” In fact, the Hasidic population worldwide is exploding because of a high birth rate and a flood of new converts. And with the rate of intermarriage among American Jews now more than 50 percent, it is Eisenberg’s contention that the only observant Jews left in 80 years may well be the Hasidim and Orthodox.

Hasidic Jews emphasize an emotional connection to God and are generally led by a charismatic rabbi, while most other Orthodox Jews prefer an intellectual approach to understanding God. Both groups are equally strict in following Jewish law.

Though they separate themselves from modern society-shunning movies, theater, art and even secular college educations-the Hasidim are not reluctant to use technology. They are hooked up by e-mail and the Internet, searching for marriage partners, Torah interpretations or explanations of Jewish law. Rabbis in Los Angeles teleconference in Yiddish with rabbis in Jerusalem and New York. Hasidic groups charter jets to visit the graves of long-deceased rebbes, as their rabbinic leaders are called in Yiddish, in remote parts of Poland and Russia.

Eisenberg’s free-wheeling style sometimes borders on disrespect, if not downright sacrilege. He depicts a mother of five as”a pear-shaped 39-year-old who could easily pass as a subject for Archimboldo, the 16th-century artist who used food to depict his characters-but a Jewish version, with cheeks like matzo balls, complexion the consistency of challah, and the eyes of a smoked whitefish.” Eisenberg is strong at drawing the differences between the different Hasidic groups-from the Satmars, who refuse to recognize the State of Israel, to the Lubavitchers, who insist that Israel shouldn’t give up the West Bank.

Eisenberg, who lives in Omaha, Neb., is working on a new book about Hasidism. He spoke recently with RNS. Here is an edited transcript.

Q: What do Hasidim share with other closed communities, such as the Amish and the Mennonites?

Eisenberg: They share a dogged determination to shut out the intrusions of contemporary culture, which is so incredibly pervasive and almost subversive in its ability to erode tradition. And that demands a tremendous amount of vigilance.

And they share a determination to convey their beliefs and customs to the next generation. Continuity. They lose very, very few people to the outside world. They have a disdain for birth control, and consequently they’re growing rapidly. But, unlike other closed communities, the Hasidim are gaining adherents.

Q: There is no deviancy? Nobody leaves the community?

Eisenberg: Their rigid lifestyle is tied to a set of values that are profound in nature. The child internalizes those values and feels no need to deviate. Occasionally-it’s very rare-someone will quit the community. It’s so rare it’s not even worth talking about.

The children feel a strong duty to uphold their tradition, and they realize how tenuous it is because most of them have lost grandparents or great-grandparents in the Holocaust.

They know how frail it is, even though they’re doubling in population every 14 years. Still, they’re under 1 million worldwide. There is a sense of purpose-to build up Orthodox Judaism after the Holocaust.

And there’s also a sense that there is no alternative: This is the world of God and you’re going to be afflicted with all the ills of ordinary society if you leave.

Q: You describe families of 10, 12 children. That’s almost unheard of these days.

Eisenberg: The Hasidim today are willing to have as many children as possible, regardless of the economic consequences-in order to obey the commandment to go out and be fruitful. There are families where the woman is 30 and she has eight children. That’s not unusual, that’s the norm.

This comes from a desire to follow the law, regardless of how much onus is put on a family. Money is not the most important thing. They forgo working on the Sabbath or going to college, where they’d be exposed to secular studies, even though many of them are quite brilliant. Some go to night school and take accounting where they don’t have to study history and literature.

Q: The Hasidim are introducing customs and rituals that (the Jewish philosopher) Maimonides said should be abandoned back in the 12th century. What’s going on?

Eisenberg: There’s a desire to go one better against the path, to always strive for a more strenuous observance and a more strict observance. They’re saying,”Let’s reinvigorate it, let’s make a higher wall between us and secular culture.” There’s law and then there’s custom. You know the difference? The menstrual prohibitions are law: For example, if a wife is having her period, she can’t pass any food to her husband-she has to be separated from the table by a division a certain number of hand-breadths high.

The Hasidim are taking on more customs. They wash each fingertip in the morning before they speak, because the fingers are thought to be the repository of bad energy, the”yetzerhora,”given off by the soul during sleep. They save bread crumbs, because they believe that if crumbs of bread are destroyed it can lead to poverty.

You know the prohibition against shatnes? That’s mixing linen and wool. There are these little laboratories where they buy clothes-shatnes labs-in every Hasidic community. There are guys who actually look under microscopes, inspecting to see if the two are mixed.

MJP END SOLOVITCH