Flights

POGO

Tomorrow is the Sabbath. Young fledgling Hassidim pogo dance on the boardwalk to the rhythm of a lively, trendy South American music. ‘Dance’ isn’t the right word. These are wild ecstatic leaps, twirling in place, bodies bounding into one another and bouncing back off – it’s the dance stamped out by teenagers all over the world at concerts, in front of the stage. Here the music comes from some speakers placed atop a car in which sits a rabbi, supervising everything.

Some entertained Scandinavian tourist girls join in with the boys and awkwardly, holding hands, attempt a cancan. But then they’re issued orders by one of the teenagers:

‘We ask that if women wish to dance, they do so over to one side.’