HASIDIM
Jewish 'royal' wedding entwines 2 dynasties
20,000 from Israeli Brooklyn families attend grand event in Holy Land
Associated Press
BNEI BRAK. Israel - The tables were laden with loaves of bread it took
two men to carry, and thousands of guests flew in from the United States
for a wedding uniting Hasidic dynasties from Israel and New York.
Israelis compared the union of of 17-year-old Hannah Erentser and 18-year-old
Beazion Arieh Meislisch - attended by 20,000 people - to a royal wedding.
"Wedding of the year," said a headline Wednesday in the
Yedioth Abronoth daily newspaper.
The wedding united the 20,000- member Vishnitz clan, one of Israel's most influential Hasidic groups, and the 10,000-member Brooklyn-based Bobover dynasty, which originated in Romania and Hungary.
Erentser, granddaughter of Rabbi Moshe Yehoshua Hager, spiritual leader of the Visbnitz dynasty, wore a pearl-beaded head piece and white dress as she took the marriage vows on Tuesday evening in the Vishnitz grand synagogue in Bnei Brak, a religious suburb of Tel Aviv.
The groom, grandson of Rabbi Shlomo Halberstam, head of the
Bobover dynasty, wore a traditional black coat and fur-trimmed black hat.
Thousands of Hasidic men stood in the rain in the streets around the synagogue during ceremony, many with plastic bags covering tleir black felt bats as protection against the downpour.
After the exchange of vows, guests boarded buses for a recep tion at the Tel Aviv fairgrounds, where they filled four wedding halls. Men dined separately from women, in keeping with religious laws barring public interaction be tween the sexes.
Long braided loaves of bread shaped like fish to mark the current Jewish month of Adar covered the groom's table. Chocolate sculpted into horses and carriages decorated the womens' halls.
In keeping with traditions of the ultra-Orthodox banning court ships, the bride and groom met only three times before the wedding.
