Orthodox Jews sick of being 'photographed like animals' by tourists [View all]

[Demovictory9]

Brooklyn’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish residents are fed up with tourists who swarm their insular neighborhoods by the busload — all to gawk at their clothing and customs.

“People snap pictures of you like you’re on some sort of display — like you’re in a zoo,” said Chaim, 42, who lives in Williamsburg’s Satmar community and asked that his last name be withheld. “We are people, not animals to be photographed.”

Sightseeing groups venture into Williamsburg and Crown Heights several times a week, some via tour-bus companies InterviajesNY, Tour America and Civitatis. The three offer so-called “contrast” tours of various cultural communities in Queens, Manhattan, Brooklyn and The Bronx — with one touting the “numerous memorials to gang members who were killed in shootouts” in that borough.

The tours — which cost from $40 to $70 — have been going on for years, but locals say that this summer the throngs, and the tensions they cause, have reached a new high.

“Lately they’re out there every day by the hundreds, and it’s become a ‘must see’ for tourists,” said Max Hauer, 41, who lives in Williamsburg’s Satmar area. He added that he has been photographed many times without his consent.

“They see me as a freak,” said Hauer. “They see us as people from another world [and] if you’re not seen as human, then they think it’s OK” to take photos and stare.

Hauer blames the uptick on a recent cultural obsession with his way of life, thanks to the documentary “One of Us” and the Israeli series “Shtisel,” both popular on Netflix

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https://nypost.com/2019/09/07/orthodox-jews-sick-of-being-photographed-like-animals-by-tourists/