She has compared the use of cell phones and the Internet by both chasidic Jews and the Amish in America, and has found that both groups struggle to police the use of modern technology by their respective followers. Whether or not a particular practice is allowed, Kraybill explained, depends on the bishop, ministers and deacons of the local congregation, who consult the Ordnung, a largely unwritten code of conduct that governs Amish life in much the same way as halacha (Jewish law) does for Orthodox Jews.įrédérique Green is a French-born independent scholar who lives in England. Kraybill told me that the Amish do resemble chasidic Jews in a number of ways, including their strong sense of community and profound respect for tradition, the Pennsylvania Dutch language that they speak (which, like Yiddish, is derived from a medieval dialect of German), and their decision to give their children only a basic secular education (most do not go to school past the eighth grade).īut Kraybill warned me against painting the 40 different tribes of Amish with a broad brush. And it made me wonder: Beyond surface visual similarities, are there deeper parallels between chasidic Jews and the Amish?ĭonald Kraybill, a retired professor at Elizabethtown College (located halfway between Harrisburg and Lancaster) is the foremost scholar on Anabaptist groups, including the Old Order Amish.

The episode made me think anew about glimpsing the Amish riding in horse-drawn buggies in Lancaster County, which is near where I live in Harrisburg, Pa. I felt like Gene Wilder playing the clueless Polish rabbi in the late 1970s Wild West comedy, “The Frisco Kid,” who embraces a group of Amish travelers, calling them his “landsmen” (fellow Jews). Ruefully, I realized my mistake he was Amish, not Jewish.

Yet when I asked him about kosher food, he looked at me blankly. I wondered what a chasidic Jew was doing in such a remote place, but then realized that he was probably an employee of the huge kosher meat processing plant in nearby Postville.

Several years ago, on a bus ride across Iowa on my way to giving a lecture at a university, I noticed a tall man in the seat behind me he had a craggy face, long beard, black hat, and glossy black coat.

Gideon's People by Carolyn Meyer