Meet this young Jewish collector | Samuel Marks

Añadido: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]So, initially the hats look like this.

[00:00:02]They're very rounded at the top. They're made in Hungary. They're a little less [music] firm. They're a little bit more fragile.

[00:00:10]This one is from a brand, I don't know if this is going to come into the camera, but called that [music] is produced in Vienna. Um, and the inside says Chidco Super, which is the non-Jews attempts [music] to indicate this is a hidic hat that they're making for the hidic community. But today, they look somewhat more like this.

[00:00:28]>> [music] >> You can see that they're squared off.

[00:00:31]You know, they're a little bit taller.

[00:00:33]There's some differences.

[00:00:34]>> Hello and welcome or welcome back to this program. My name is Freda Visel and here I explore topics related to Judaism, Hidism, Yiddish, New York City, and more in long- form tours. For a while now through my work, I've been in touch with Samuel Marx. Samuel is a collector of amazing artifacts from a whole collection of vintage acidic clothing to old Talmuds to pamphlets in Yiddish of acidic sects. He can [music] tell us so much more about it. How he has come to have this collection and what his backstory is and what the collection is all about has fascinated me for a [music] while. And I'm so glad that Sam agreed to answer my questions and show us some of his amazing collection today. Here's the bio I have for Samuel. Samuel grew up in a secular Jewish community in Boston in a family where expressing Jewish identity remained controversial as a result of the Holocaust and the trauma surrounding anti-semitism. In college, he connected with his Jewish identity by engaging in ways he never could when he was young and discovered a deep interest and love for the hetic world whose approach to trauma was completely contrary to that of his own familial experience.

[00:01:47]Additionally, he faced significant anti-semitism in college, leading him to work for Jewish nonprofits and eventually attending law school, the University of Michigan. Most recently, he worked for the Louis D. Brandai Center during the summer of 2025, where he worked on some nationwide anti-semitism cases against universities and on fighting anti-semitic employment and licensing discrimination. Samuel, it is so nice to finally meet you. It's so great to meet you as well, Freda. Thank you for having me.

[00:02:19]>> Oh, thank you. Um, I'm so excited. So, here's the plan for the program today because you have some things you're going to show us today and also some things you can show us from your collection. My plan is uh to first look at one item just to give the viewers a sense of what you have and then I want to talk about you and then we want to talk about some amazing talmuds and um the stories around that and and of course you're going to show us what you have. Sound good?

[00:02:53]>> Yep. Great.

[00:02:55]>> Okay. Great. because you you have so many different things that figuring out how to like approach this interview the angle was a little bit like this is what I came up with. Okay, let's try let's talk about this 1977 Yiddish B which is the SMAR girls school book school. It's a it's a book for teachers who teach their students. So let's have a look at the cover. I have to say you really were a saint for scanning all 147 pages of this. Yeah, I spent uh late nights in the Michigan Law Library underneath their very expensive scanner trying to get it right. Um, in part because I understand how scarce some of these materials are and how fragile and um, you know, I'm very into preservation and keeping things available for future generations to see and study. So, you know, I I was happy to do it and I didn't mind uh, you know, took a couple hours, but, you know, I thought it was worth it.

[00:04:00]Can you can you read Yiddish?

[00:04:03]>> Yes, I can. Um much better than I can speak it admittedly. Um often I'll have to look up a vocabulary word here and there, but uh you know I can read at least enough to get a good sense of what's being said and and and you know maybe not with exact precision, but I can at least get an overview. Um I I have a bunch of copies of uh you know the different Sabber newspapers somewhere and you know the different publications that I've gone through over the years you know some big headlines in Yiddish about you know current event news stories and you know so I I I do enjoy reading this stuff and I'm a little bit new to Yiddish but I'm I'm learning and so it's been a great experience getting to do that and I think the fact that there's a lot of Yish material now that is about contemporary life and the modern world I think has been super helpful in actually making that that jump.

[00:04:56]>> Yeah. Let's let's talk about um how you learned Yiddish in a minute. This book uh from 1977 now that I think about it.

[00:05:06]I was born in ' 85. So let's say in 1990 when I was a first grader approximately we had this. We had essentially books like this. It was like handdrawn class. It says it's produced in Brooklyn. It has a hexure, right? Is that a hexure or is it just the printing?

[00:05:24]>> Um, that's just the print house. Uh, it does have, you know, kind of the equivalent of a hexure in the sense that there's rabbitic appribations and I can get into later what that means cuz the hexure and the nature of that for printing has changed significantly over history. right now. And with these books that are going to be like the class ion or, you know, if you go to your local store and buy a Talmud, those hectures are basically going to be what you think of with a hecture, like this is kosher reading and the rabbis looked at it. Um, that's not historically what it meant, but that's what they came to mean. So, for much of the modern stuff that I have, uh, when you see that, it'll often be accompanied with like a long paragraph or something saying, "This is kosher reading. This is great."

[00:06:09]something maybe about what the rabbi thinks about it or his own theological bent. But that's exa essentially what you get. But that's the print mark for whatever the the bicycle print house or sat printing institution that printed this uh was at the time.

[00:06:25]>> This looks like it was typed in on a typewriter.

[00:06:28]>> Yeah. Um, you know, with the earlier Satmer stuff, especially when you get back to like the 50s, it's basically like a typewriter type. I have, you know, some early stuff that's like right after they come to America where you'd think that literally someone sat their typewriter with pieces of paper and type this up by hand, each individual copy, uh, with how crudely some of the stuff is made. So, that I think is probably how they did it. um or at least the font and the printing for this was was affordable enough and reasonable enough that that it was just the right way to go.

[00:07:05]>> So all of this is black and white and a lot a lot of illustrations. There are a lot of illustrations of everyday life.

[00:07:12]Very wholesome everyday life. No people a lot of kitchen school um and lessons a lot of moral lessons in here. What popped out to you in this Yiddish lesson book?

[00:07:28]>> Um, a few things piqu my interest. One is that you have kind of like the sautmer uh pa vine kind of like if you think of the major hidetic sects in Williamsburg that tend to kind of reflect that type of hidic mindset approach philosophy. uh they have the kashra symbol on one of the pages for you know almost I think for the purposes of showing the recognition uh very late in the book they have a TV uh with I don't remember what it says exactly on the TV but it says like this is forbidden or like you're not allowed uh which reflects really like the the battles of the era right if you're in the 70s the issues the hetic Jews are worried about is not the internet there isn't really an internet yet it isn't even computers. You know, there's there's some early interviews withum in the 70s and basically saying, "Our yeshivas are so great. Like, we have these these young men who go out and learn computer programming and do quite well on these computers that have no internet connection or basically like fancy calculators, fancy kind of efficiency tools, uh that don't have the same baggage that they'll come to have later. Uh but uh back then it's not as you know Freda it's not about you know these kind of battles that we think of today it's about television it's about movie theaters and movies and kind of the secular media that exists that might actually undermine or be contrary to the ethos and the kind of upbringing the hidic community is trying to instill.

[00:09:00]And of course, I've heard plenty of stories from older generations in Williamsburg about, you know, going into a a non-Jewish shop that they had the TV and watching, you know, uh, you know, some famous TV show from the 50s and 60s with like the son of a famous rabbi who became like a very famous and prominent member of like the the Williamsburg community and how they go would get in trouble for that or or things along that that those lines. So, you know, this was a real live issue at the time and this was, you know, I I just love the fact that you can open up this book and really just see into the era and kind of get a sense of like what was the zeitgeist, what was like happening at the time, what is kind of happening within, you know, these discourses in the hidic world as opposed to, you know, when you open up some books and you and you look through them and you just see, okay, well, this seems kind of timeless.

[00:09:52]This seems very specific.

[00:09:54]>> Yes. Yeah.

[00:09:55]>> Yeah. the the television. Um I have that particular page here. It says Manudnish, also handwritten with nice letters. Um and it's a very old school television with three antennas sticking out and it says you're not allowed to. Um of course it's it's like so interesting because it's the battle of the era and it also shows how much more controllable media was at the time because it was this that was cancelled, not a tiny phone. Um, but also for me something I've been interested is how much more porous the connections in the world used to be that people would have non-farm neighbors and they would interact or or neighbors that were not from to their degree. They would they would interact with other Jews or other people that were not of their community. And so this story in particular with the television is this woman who invites a young child into her house and the child watches TV like you said. And this is so many stories I've heard from people like my father grew up super sheltered but he watched JFK um assassination coverage something that I didn't watch any coverage after September 11 my like big moment. So, it's really interesting that there there there was a real challenge with a TV being accessible because the neighborhood was more diverse. What became of Williamsburg later was such a homogeneous world. So, this is like really capturing what like you said what was worrisome at the time. Anything else here that you really loved?

[00:11:30]>> Yeah, I haven't looked at this uh since I made the scan admittedly. So I'm sure there are other things in there that speak to these types of stories. I one thing actually that you've scrolled past now that I remember is if you scroll up a bit there's picture of clothing. Um, I'm really, you know, I mentioned to you before that I do have I do like to collect older hedish clothing, like the old flat stry moles and and things where there seem to be trends and changes. And I think often times those trends and changes are allowed because uh they're from something traditional, right? That doesn't have hypothetically any any at least in theory outside influence that you know might you know mean you're following the trends of popular culture of non-Jews. And you see in that picture right there an old hat. And you know that's the old style hat that they wore at the time. I actually have one in this room. Uh >> can we see it?

[00:12:25]>> Yeah. Here. Let me here. Let me grab it.

[00:12:27]Originally the hats that are associated with Sautmer come from and this you know we'll give you a taste of maybe some of the collection. I can't show you uh because I actually don't have it here.

[00:12:37]I'm we'll get to maybe my background later but I'm currently a student so I'm traveling around a lot. Uh but uh essentially there's a Hungarian style hat that clergy wore that was very popular among the Hungarian hidic uh hidish sects. Um and so initially the hats look like this. They're very rounded at the top. They're made in Hungary. They're a little less firm.

[00:13:00]They're a little bit more fragile. Um this one is from a brand I don't know if this is going to come at the camera but uh that is produced in Vienna. Um, and the inside says chased co super, which is the non-Jews attempts to indicate this is a hidic hat that they're making for the hidic community. But today they look somewhat more like this. You can see that they're squared off. You know, they're a little bit taller. There's some differences. And >> can you hold them one on top of the other?

[00:13:30]>> Oh, like this?

[00:13:32]>> Yeah.

[00:13:33]>> Here. And you can see that there's some real changes here. They're, you know, they're not something the average viewer is going to notice. You know, I have friends who say, "What are you talking about? They look the same to me." Um, >> they do not look the same to me.

[00:13:45]>> But, you know, to me, they look very distinct. And, you know, a lot of this comes down to changing trends, changing suppliers for the hat makers in in Williamsburg and Burough Park and these places. Uh, but I love to see things like that where you can see the hat or like, you know, a shorter jacket which was indicative of of the era or things that kind of indicate kind of what was popular at the time. And I think I've sent you some ads of uh of of Yiddish uh you know for Stryal makers or clothes makers making fun of like the old man's clothing and saying you need like an update almost. Uh not so mean as making fun of but like kind of saying it light-heartedly. Uh and so there is a sense of trend in clothing and that I really enjoy that for a community that's so set on tradition, so big on nothing, you know, at least in the in the in the popular framing is changing to see where the changes are occurring, where shifts happen. And I really just love to to see that engage with that. So that also stood out to me also as a clothing someone with a clothing interest.

[00:14:46]>> Yeah, the the illustrations of the clothing here are um just to totally a relic. And the women's clothing have so so many trends. They're now so different from this shoulder pad with all the ornate jabos is what we called it. I'm not sure if that's a word to the general public when you have like a little like frilly thing here, but whatever it is, it has a lot of It looks 1950s to me and it looks like very like prim proper and very different from the trends now and the men's trends are the most interesting. Um, can we can we talk a little bit about you and how how did you come to collect this stuff? You want to start by sharing a little bit about your background? Did you grow up with this?

[00:15:37]>> I grew up in kind of a collector family.

[00:15:39]Um, my dad is a secular Jew uh who collects uh things related to Egyptology. not like you know artifacts of ancient Egypt but you know documents about the discovery of tombs like you know the the process of archaeology the process of study um and he actually has done a lot of interesting work with that he's had uh a lot of his manuscripts published by famous authors in that space and he's done a lot of very interesting work so I've always been around kind of collectors um I was collecting since I was a kid uh it starts off when I was like five with like model trains uh and you know starts with musical instruments when I get a little bit older and I think as I reconnect with Judaism later in life uh it extends to also books uh especially and I think the interest in the books largely comes from a sense of kind of intellectual curiosity which I think has always been at the heart of my Jewish practice and my Jewish identity which I I can I can speak to more um in a minute. Um, essentially not just the books as study tools, you know, in, you know, a a house of learning, a base medish or, you know, wherever someone is using them, but as they reflect kind of, as we discussed earlier, the the wider world, uh, the the fights of the time, the arguments, the way that rabbis are looking at appribations, the way that, you know, women might be engaged in in in books and reading in ways that seem counterintuitive to our modern, you know, sensibility of view in the Orthodox world or even people who might have some misconceptions or kind of outsider views of the orthodox world.

[00:17:17]Um, and so I just love things that provide greater context, provide a greater depth. And I love going into the deep history of of why the books we have today and whether it's you know we talk about the Satmer community with books like Vile Mosa or um kind of other books that the Sautmer Rebby wrote which Vile Mosa is his kind of magnum opus on the uh on Zionism and the different issues surrounding Zionism of the era. Uh and seeing how that evolves, seeing how the Talmud evolves over time as a printed book. Um, and really getting a sense of how we get to the point we're at, uh, as as Jews who study. Uh, I've really love that. Uh, and there's a lot of great scholarship, a lot of people interested in this. So, there's a lot of great work done on this. Uh, and it's just been a blast for me really diving deeply and finding a book where not only can you get a sense of like the cultural moment, but the individual, because often Jews sign their books, you know, they'll say, "This belongs to, you know, Samuel." Uh, and then they might date it. The most common signatures in all the books I have are name and date.

[00:18:26]Probably second, very close second, name, date, and place. And I I really love to see because often times these are rabbis. You can look up who they were, what they thought, what battles they were involved with, what sides they took on issues, and you can kind of get a sense, you know, of these people as people. Uh, and I really love that. And I really love the individuality of some of these books as well. I think that's also a big a big role in what drives me to collect these.

[00:18:50]>> Can I ask how old you are?

[00:18:52]>> Yeah, I'm 26 going on 27. I'm a young guy, I guess, in terms of uh the grand scheme of things. Uh I don't feel that young anymore, [laughter] but uh but I've been collecting since I was a kid.

[00:19:04]Uh Hebrew books, it's been years now. Um and uh you know, I've been, you know, I'm now in law school doing legal stuff, which has helped uh helps to expand the collection greatly. Um, but you know what made this work for me as a young person collecting for so long is I think in most collectible fields, no matter whether it's Jewish, non-Jewish, kind of just across the spectrum, if you're willing to put the time and effort in, you can always find those kind of gems in the rough. Like, you know, that bicycle class book, I'm sure people who are really into, you know, the history of Satmer and the hetus world might pay decent money for that. I think I paid five bucks. uh if you're willing to go through >> I got it from a book a Hebrew book dealer um uh that that kind of yeah online who I deal with a lot uh who had who you know will post these very cryptic listings of what he has and the updates and you have to kind of know what you're looking at and reading to get a sense of what is being listed but um if you do get a sense uh you you can kind of say oh my gosh I think in this case uh it was something that uh I think Sopr was misspelled you know not not even in like the old school like Sakmer, you know, if you hear those stories about people not wanting to say the name because of the all these myths about it being named after St. Mary, it just means little village or little town, something along those lines. Uh and uh but so it was misspelled in the listing and it said by publishing in like a very Yiddishized English that you wouldn't search, right? So it's not something that someone would just come across probably when they're searching through cataloges or through listings. Um, I spend time in the basement of old book Jewish bookstores where they have stuff from like 50 years ago in boxes just looking for something special and you know, well, every once in a while you get that thing. Uh, and I have a few examples that hopefully I'll be able to show today. Uh, where that was actually the case where I was looking through all boxes and something special came up and and something exceptional that really brought me a lot of joy and I think is really just fascinating as a as an individual book or item. At what age did you start your Jewish artifacts collection?

[00:21:08]>> That's a good question. I don't have an exact date for you on that. Uh mostly because it happened very organically. Um as I be began kind of becoming more engaged with Jewish life. Um just to kind of give some background as to how that that looks. I think that might speak to why the date is a little bit imprecise. Um you know I grew up in a secular home in a very secular community. um the Holocaust and anti-semitism as traumatic events were big in kind of the narrative not so much as you know in Satmer a lot of it is about like you know your great-grandfather was the last surviving I think I sent you a video from um the celebration in Satmer of the Sautmer Reby's rescue that they do every year uh from the Holocaust where they tell this whole story about you know all of our great-grandfathers all of our grandfathers who survived the Holocaust and through kind of blood sweat and toil kind of were able to raise up these generations and kind of preserve what was so close to being lost. I think the opposite was true with my family which is more of we saw what was lost. We saw the pain and suffering and I think members of my family basically were horrified at like what dangers does being Jewish impart on you both in the professional world as well as just going out you know and and existing. Um, and there's a lot of, you know, kind of underlying trauma there that's resolved very differently. But when I get to college, uh, it's the first time I can really engage with being Jewish kind of in a setting that isn't maybe biased towards the secular or biased towards, you know, kind of [snorts] avoiding Jewishness. Um, and I decide, why not study the Tanakh? Why not study, you know, the Hebrew Bible, if not just to understand kind of the most printed book in history, right? like the the Bible and all these things and at least know what I'm talking about. And I learned biblical Hebrew as part of that um and really just got into it and I read the whole thing, studied it deeply and I was I said to myself, "Wow, this is a really rich tradition, all the layers of commentary, all the layers of debate. I start hosting my own showroom on campus at a at a liberal arts college where there's not a whole lot of Jewish presence." Sworthmore College. Um, wow.

[00:23:19]You know, they actually opened a kabad house there recently and you know, in part, I was told because they saw the successes of what I was doing and that there's a demand, right? There are people showing up to my shirim and and putting on to fill in a year or two later. Uh, you know, as a result of me as a secular guy sitting there with like a bunch of a bunch of uh five books of Moses copies in English around the table and discussing and I was really into the history and the background. And so I'd say like, you know, here's what they think about like the the critical scholarship things. Here's what an Orthodox Jew might think. Here's what the reformed Jew might think. And I just dove really deeply into it. And over time, part of that intellectual interest, I think grew into like, you know, collecting the books themselves, right? Because if I have an interest in like the source hypothesis, you know, scholarship, I have an interest in some of the more kind of the various streams of thought that undergo Jewish religion and practice. Um, you know, it makes sense to to start looking at how this developed and seeing kind of firsthand, well, how did people practice, you know, Jewish religion in 1600? How did they print, you know, the Bible? What issues did they face? What problems came into being there that might be counterintuitive and might even impact the way that we study and practice to this day? And that always really interested me. So I think from there from the initial interest of I want to buy as many books as possible to be as learned. I want every commentary every acidic tract. I want you know every minor acidic reby's commentary on X Y and Z to you know let's look at kind of the history like what how do we get here and and I think that's what really pushed me. So I'd say that probably starts as early as the end of college and it really picks up basically in a year or two after college when I'm first exposed to the villas as a as a as a book like I find an original villas and essentially brand new condition not the whole set of books the you know the vill which is >> the standard uh the standard version that's used in yeshivas today >> uh and I found one edition I think it was Bahoros which is like the laws of you know like children and redemption of children and all these things along those lines. And I I thought it was so interesting because you have like the Russian sensors box in it, all these, you know, issues that come up with it, which I can get into when we get more into the tomoods. Uh but I think that really sparked a deep interest in not only the Talmud, but you know, how in the hidic world do ideas develop? How in the yeshivist world do ideas develop?

[00:25:53]How as Jews do we look at memory? you know, all these kind of broader, deeper questions. And I think that's that's how I get to where I'm at, where if you look behind me, there's just stacks and stacks of books. And uh I have other bookshelves in parts of the room that you can't see right now that are uh filled with old volumes with crumbling binding and in various various conditions. And uh and yeah, so that's I think how I got here.

[00:26:18]>> You ended up going to Williamsburg, it seems, and Barara Park where you hung out quite a bit. Was that like a a a journey towards becoming orthodox or just curiosity?

[00:26:30]>> Probably both I'd say. Um I think what happened there is that I used to part of my curiosity was I love to listen to different you know shore or kind of like classes on Jewish theology that are given in orthodox spaces often because I found the Orthodox discourse to be much more thorough and in depth. You know, they're citing sources that are hundreds of years old that might only be attested to in very few places of commentaries.

[00:26:58]We don't have an original. Or they might be citing events in history of, you know, Jewish rulings and law that are beyond, you know, kind of a mere entry level that I found to be really fascinating. And what happened there was I was listening to a sheer online that I really liked um that was done by an orth I could tell it was Orthodox. You know, you can tell by the yeshivish accents or the Yiddish accents kind of in the background as people discuss and debate.

[00:27:26]And I thought, you know, I'm living in New York, so I moved to New York after college. Uh, you know, probably 50-50 chance this is in Brooklyn or some of the surrounding area versus Israel or maybe another community. I might as well reach out and see if it's in person to see if I could attend. And so I find the phone number I and the email address of the of the guy running it. I email him and I say, "Hey, um, I really like this year. this in person and he says, "Yeah, uh, Hooper Street, this address >> this time. Show up." And I show up looking probably like I do right now.

[00:27:59]Um, which is, you know, kind of like Yeshivish. You know, I didn't have my I have a lot of hats that I wear now, but you know, back then just looking like this. Uh, kind of maybe a little bit more modern orthodox or uh kind of yeshiva university boy if you if you even know the archetype. uh into this base Madrish in Williamsburg. Um and I sit down at one of the tables thinking, "Okay, where's she uh and um everyone around me is in is speaking Yiddish with, you know, the Longapis and Longa Reckle and and the whole the whole package." And um the rabbi of the Shu comes up to me and says, "Oh, hi. Like, who are you? Nice to meet you." Super nice, kind to me. tells me his whole life story as to then so then [laughter] I would tell him his uh turns out his family goes back to Bubbos and all these things and he tells me how they got to Satmer etc etc and then I just start attending the sheer weekly um I meet Balcha and Williamsburg I meet other members of the community um I kind of develop some personal connections with some kind of bigger players in the community in the background that I don't necessarily want to go into uh on the record as much but basically uh I become more and more familiar and integrated uh with at least the culture even if I'm not myselfish. Uh so I'm in all the telegram chats. I have uh I get all the daily shill emails where there where they're telling me all the announcements and all the classified ads. You know, the stuff like, "Oh, I dropped my uh my, you know, my wife lost her earring on Hooper Street the other day and [laughter] Shabasa's earring lost gold." You know, text this number, right? All this just the the typical day-to-day and, you know, say haka safetro this Saturday.

[00:29:42]And so I I kind of got involved enough that I could know was when what was happening and I could, you know, basically had all the right connections to be, you know, not necessarily a part, but maybe someone who participated from afar and who and who got to visit and experience the culture. Um, and so that's I'd say how I I got involved. And um, also it helped too. I had a few friends who f who had family who were you know from the community who went back to bells or you know these different hosidic sects who could at least point me in the right directions when things were going maybe too far one way too far another way uh you know >> what does that mean >> you know um like you know you're getting too involved with some extremist or this or that and tell me oh no avoid that avoid you know so that was helpful too because you know there's a lot especially for Bali Chuhood uh if you're and I don't know what how I would describe myself in all honesty I I find that what I don't know what that term means for me but uh essentially uh for someone who's you know I guess you would call it like a like a repentant person a master of kind of coming back to Judaism someone who grew up secular and comes back uh to kind of orthodoxy as the idea but a lot of the hides baluva um there's range like there are people who you meet who are like you know you wouldn't know that they weren't grow they didn't grow up there and then you meet people who I think have something to prove and a little bit more intense and you know that might be fine for them but you always kind of want to be careful because then you get into kind of some more extremist ideas some extremist kind of incences where you know not because you know most people might think they became religious and they realized that they bit off more than they could chew and so they went to Smer thinking not really knowing what they're doing and you know kind of went through all the processes to join the hidic world and eventually end up uh you know finding it's not for them, right? And they might do something more lenient that gets them in trouble because they don't understand the social conventions, the kind of the smaller things that people might not pick up on that might get them in trouble. Um and what happened was in some instances is actually the opposite. They went too far to the right. They said, "I thought Smer was so holy. It's not as holy as I thought it was. It's not good enough.

[00:31:58]So, I'm actually gonna go against what the d like the the dian the rabbitic authority tells me I'm gonna you know whatever uh you know the the the bastin like the the kind of arbiters of the community that you're not supposed to push against but you said this is too lenient for me what they're telling me I'm actually violating this uh and so that can happen but very rare again this is not like a common phenomenon but it's more of an example just to explain to you that you know there's a wide range of people who kind of get involved later in life And I think, you know, it was always, you know, a good ba balance for myself, a balancing act, trying to keep myself in a position where where I felt comfortable. And I also wasn't getting myself too sucked in uh in ways that I think might have been unhealthy or or kind of maybe not conducive to kind of happy Jewish life and, you know, you know, a happy quality of life just generally.

[00:32:50]>> Yeah, that's a great attitude. Did you ever actually attempt to becomeish?

[00:32:54]>> Not really. Um, no. I was really intrigued by I think the approach and I found certain aspects of the lifestyle very beautiful. Um, and I loved when I'd come into a shul and there'd be kind of a pretty standard Jewish practice happening and, you know, they'd say, "Oh, well, you have to do this um this practice because it's sigula for this or it's, you know, kind of a how would you say sigula?" Like a good benefit, like a good omen, something along those lines.

[00:33:26]Like it's kind of like a almost like a folky tradition that's supposed to give you spiritual benefit. sense >> like um you know you know having certain foods or eating certain foods certain way like eating fish with your hands or doing right these doing these things that aren't you know maybe holotically required or like required under Jewish law but might be kind of extensions right like or beautififications or ways in which what I love the most and I think what is kind of the core to a lot of practice is kind of bringing religion cabala all these Jewish ideas or Jewish mysticism right into everyday practice and kind of beautifying everyday practice which sometimes manifests itself as intensity as trickness and other times it will be these really beautiful practices that that are kind of small or the way in which you do a certain thing and oftent times they're connected to the rabbi in Europe and what they did so in Satmer like the shalom melody which is very beautiful comes from pre-war eastern Europe and every year Sopr used to change the melody every year and the and the melody at least as I've been told that they currently use was the last melody before the Holocaust. Right. And so they're holding on [singing] >> Yeah. Yeah. And so there's a lot of things like that where that was like, wow, that's really seems special and really is profoundly beautiful. um at least to me and I really loved that. But at the same time, I think I could also see the other side of it as someone who didn't come from this world where you know it's not so idle or like um I don't know how to translate that well. You might have to help me for a woman to drive a car, right? Like in communities and that you know or things that to me felt a little bit beyond the scope of something I could quite understand for me personally. Um, especially too like if I have a daughter or something, how do you navigate that? Um, and like it just didn't reflect my own values. Uh, and so as much as I loved some aspects of of of the world, of the community, there were things about it that always felt, you know, like this isn't really where I belong and I can appreciate what they're doing and I can appreciate some aspects of it while also appreciating the reality, right? And appreciating, you know, this these are normal pe these are people, right? like these are people in a community who have normal lives with problems with you know beautiful lives very tough lives and it was a range and I think sometimes the Bali choover I met could really idealize things and say oh my gosh this is a holy community isn't this so great um everything's perfect and then you sometimes get people who leave who had horrible experiences which I I'm not you know I'm not saying that what they're saying is wrong but they're very scarred and very impacted who will paint it all the opposite way and I think that for me navigating that middle ground where I can kind of see here are the beautiful things that they're maintaining and doing and why they're doing it and here are the things that for me maybe aren't you know aren't aren't right right like I don't fit in but you know if it works for for someone I I can see how that's a beautiful life I can see how the wonderful kind of society that is built in some ways and you know the downsides for me and others so that's kind of how I looked at it >> it's testament to your ability to hold complex lexity that you were able to embody a space in a world that is very cynical of outsiders because of what you described. I think for instance, Satar Hassim are very aware that Baluchas can come in and idealize and expect them to be saints and then be disillusioned be like I thought these are holy people look at them they're sinning on the download they're watching stuff and whatever else they're doing I'm totally disgusted how they dare to be human and sat more people are usually aware of that and they're aware of there's a lot of complexity that that um happens when an outsider tries to center and so they are usually reluctant. Like there was a man at a shop in Williamsburg who said to a group of my tourists, they were Mormons and they were asking about missionizing.

[00:37:39]And this man said, "Anyone who wants to join our community, I don't know what's missing in his life." You know, like why why would he want to do like something is wrong that he would want to like it was the opposite of missionizing. If anyone is trying to do a sales pitch, this is the worst sales pitch is to say something is wrong, you know, go fix your life, don't join us. But that's very common in the attitude in this world and of course it's what is makes it so different from Kabad um which does outreach.

[00:38:08]I'm I'm just curious if you can this last question uh about yourself like how did you get credibility? How did you get people to accept you? I think part of it was I think I'm very good at understanding kind of some of the small social cues. I'm I'm I'm a very people describe me as a very conservative individual in terms of my own presentation generally. Um which I think helped. I think I often came off as very yesish. Um and I think it was enough that I was both you know orthodox enough but also disconnected enough if that makes sense. like I wasn't there to be brought in. Maybe I was visiting family who were hedish. Maybe there was some other reason for me to be there. Um another way was that I got involved with a few s organizations. Uh and and I was helpful as someone from the outside world in a few different ways uh with what they were doing. Um, and so that also helped build credibility because I had an affiliation where I could say, "Oh, you know, I I know this rabbi and you know, I've been helping with this mission that's been endorsed by both Rabbaran Titlebomb and Zman Li, which that gives a that gives a that gives like a nice, you know, I people ask me which sat were you involved with." I always say neither. Uh, because in reality the sh I actually went to for shorim or different things was neither faction. um and not benoy either like you know there's a million not really a million but there's so many s out there in terms of kind of the various communities and like little schuls kahillas that uh there's a wide diversity now uh not necessarily as much ideologically though if you get down into it you can see some of the differences at the the real microscopic level but I think from an outsider these they seem pretty similar but there's some there's some minor variation and uh So I think having those some credibility across the spectrum but also never being someone who was saying I'm joining or almost someone who said you know like I've read the the satu's swurum like the sat rebies religious text I've studied them where some rabbis basically said I probably knew them better than most of their congregants [laughter] was also helpful. So there's a sense of also too I think with some of the bala that you describe some of the idealization and some of the the coming into it. I think part of the worry too might be that someone who just sees a hedish person and sees this kind of holy Jew might not really understand what that entails what they believe how why Satmer is sat. Um, and I think having some familiarity with the actual underlying theology also helped in the sense that I could once people could see I've studied these these religious books and I knew some of the theology. I think that really let a lot of guards down too because it seemed like my interest was genuine and that you know I was scholarly and I I kind of had some credibility in terms of what I was doing.

[00:41:11]>> Did you teach yourself Yiddish or you formally >> largely through osmosis? I I think I tried dual lingo when it came out briefly too just to get because you know there's not really a standardized Yiddish but a lot of it was just reading newspapers and learning to read what was said on you know you walk around town and you see the the different pasium and I have some old pasium that aren't with me unfortunately but uh uh seeing the different announcements and the different warnings you know the more black and white you get the more the more dire those war warnings become but [laughter] uh but basically uh you know getting to engage with you know especially that world and I have some personal overlap with some of the players and some of the different you know kind of industries there too uh which helped too when you have someone who is used to kind of navigating both the Yiddish and English worlds where there's enough of that overlap in in kind of where they can kind of give you that that that kind of connection between the languages where you're confused which was helpful. Um, so that was, yeah, overall I'd say not great at Yiddish. I can read it well.

[00:42:18]>> Myra, my my my lotion is not super refined.

[00:42:24]Um, and you know, I I can hold a basic conversation sometimes, but I've also had moments where I'm buying something in a store, talking to someone in the street where I'll occasionally get a puzzled look and then I'll have to have to retool. [laughter] But but [snorts] largely, um, it's coming along. Um, I'd say >> it's it's very impressive. Could you for the viewers explain what your um place in Judaism is right now?

[00:42:47]>> To answer your question, um I'd say probably where I sit in Judaism is probably somewhere around what you might call him highish, which is that, you know, I'm not kidish. Uh I appreciate the hassidish world and some of the practices. I have some connections through life and family to that world.

[00:43:07]Uh but, you know, I attend, you know, like an Orthodox synagogue. I'm kind of what you might say if you think back to in Eastern Europe where you know there's kind of like a default level of Jewish religious practice where you know people were engaged with the community and were keeping a lot of the basics but also you know you might have been engaged in other communal activities that were adjacent to you like maybe there was a rebby in town you went to every once in a while or things along those lines. So I wouldn't call myself like you know really uh deep into like you know being or be becoming something along those lines. But I think it's about striking a balance between I guess some of the beautiful aspects of kind of more from life as well as the realities of kind of just being like a a normal Jew in the world who's navigating life uh as anyone else and who isn't, you know, just from my own upbringing, it's very difficult to kind of embrace the level of insolarity that the Heredi world expects. um in part because I you know and I think in part too there's less of a danger I think inherently if you're already exposed to this stuff you were able to navigate it and overcome those things there's there's not that same you know at least theologically and intellectually that same problem but uh yeah so I I'd say that's how I describe myself um currently I'm not big on labels for I do say I'm a Jew right like I never think of myself as like oh he's like yeshivish He is sat. He's modern orthodox. He's whatever the label may be. Um like a breast lover. All the different areas.

[00:44:45]Habad. Uh I'm just a Jew. I read everything and I engage with everything.

[00:44:50]I just love the diversity and breadth of Jewish life. And um I think I kind of embody that in my my own practice. So harder to pin down in that sense, but but uh yeah, I think I found a good a good ground. Yeah.

[00:45:04]>> Wonderful. Thank you for watching this conversation with Samuel Marks. After this discussion, Sam gave me a tour of his Talmud collection, telling amazing stories and showing really fascinating different tolets he has. That toal tour is being published as a separate video.

[00:45:23]Do check it out if it's available on my channel. If it's not out yet, make sure to stay tuned for its publication shortly. Thank you for watching and I'll see you in the comments. Bye-bye.

[00:45:35]>> [music]