ABSTRACT
Before the Hasidim came to the United States, they visualized America as a goldene medinah —full of plenty and economic security—as a frei land, in the sense of "liberty", and also in the sense of "unconfined, uncontrolled, and loose". America meant liberty because the Americans were the liberators of Jews from the various German concentration camps in which many of the Hasidim had been confined and tortured during the Nazi regime. The Hasidic Jew was made aware of the crucial circumstances surrounding religious observance in America. The Hasidim were urged not to believe, if a non-Hasidic person were called a "rabbi" or a "rav", that his decisions on religious matters could be ipso facto competent. As the Hasidim view the larger Jewish community and observe that the rabbis do not meet Hasidic standards and qualifications and that the ritual slaughterers, too, look like assimilated Jews, they conclude that most food products are nonkosher.
