Ari’s way: Far from Satmar
Published in The Australian Jewish News
November 26, 2018
Ari Hershkowitz’s feet pound along the Melbourne pavement as he deeply inhales from his vaporiser. He walks with swagger, the outwardly cool confidence of a New Yorker – but beneath the brash veneer, flickers the fragility of someone who has endured.
And indeed, Ari has faced hardships beyond his years.
“Imagine this,” he challenges.
“A 12-year-old walking up to a stranger in the street, and asking in very broken English, sometimes even in Yiddish: Why do bad things happen to good people?”
This was Ari, nine years ago. And people ran away from him.
He was questioning life beyond the cloistered confines of the Satmar world of Williamsburg, Brooklyn.