Another well-written article by Sharyn Jackson over at the Columbia University's Brooklyn Ink- Passed Over, Borough Park Gets a Recount, and it offers a glimpse not just into the importance of being counted, but also the diversity within the Boro Park:
There was silverware to change, food to prepare, and bread to burn. One thing there wasn’t, for more than half the residents of the Borough Park section of Brooklyn, was time to fill out the 2010 census, mailed to Americans less than two weeks before Passover. The eight-day holiday commemorating ancient Jews’ exodus from Egypt requires intense preparations for the observant; because of a restrictive diet that week, houses must be scoured from top to bottom for any residual crumbs from the rest of the year. “When it comes to Passover, we put everything aside,” said Chaya Konig, 37, a Hasidic Jewish resident from Borough Park who works as an enumerator, the official name for census counters. “By the time we got to the mail after Passover, it was too late.”
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For Konig, who speaks both Yiddish and Hebrew, there was no learning curve regarding dress and language. Still, she found herself outside of her own world upon meeting many Hasidim from different sects. A member of the Belz sect, Konig said one of the highlights of her job was the opportunity to become friends with her crew leader, a Satmar. “We have no way to meet,” said Konig. “We don’t meet at shuls or family affairs.”
The insularity of the sects was another challenge for da Costa Graeff, because there was no singular way to get the census’s message out to all of the Hasidim here. She partnered with Rabbi Yechiel Kaufman, executive director of the Borough Park Jewish Community Council, who translated census flyers and postcards into Yiddish and fostered cooperation with major synagogues serving the Belz, Bobov, Munkatch and Satmar sects, as well as the non-sectarian Shomer Shabbos synagogue. Da Costa Graeff trained members of these synagogues to work as enumerators at their temples as a catch-all for residents who do not feel comfortable talking to strangers at their front doors.
Stationing enumerators in places of worship is unique to Borough Park, according to da Costa Graeff, who was quick to point out that the option would be available in other places if it was needed. “There’s a distrust of the secular world here,” she said. “That’s why you have to include the synagogues.”