I produced this series of images for Flemish-language newspaper De Morgen’s weekly magazine, to accompany a story by journalist Margot Vanderstraeten who had spent time with young Modern Orthodox Jewish families from Antwerp who were now living in New York City. The only hitch: None of the subjects she interviewed wanted to be photographed.

Shabbat candles.

The result: a parallel visual reportage to accompany Margot’s article, for which I researched opportunities to photograph in NYC’s Modern Orthodox community that would illustrate some of her key themes and questions, seeking to show how this current generation of young, global professionals combines strict religious traditions with life in the modern world. Under the time constraints of our deadline, I was able to visit synagogues and places of learning, dressmakers and sheitel machers, a singles mixer and a hip new kosher bar/restaurant in SoHo. I was able to attend the rehearsal for a beautiful cantor and choir performance, and talked at length with a female scholar about the role of women in Modern Orthodox religious services. A helpful French family showed me their Shabbat meal set-up. Only, on Sunday, when I would be allowed to photograph it.

Reciting a prayer.

Tallisim – prayer shawls.

A table set up for the Shabbat kiddush.

This is but a brief glimpse into parts of NYC that aren’t often noticed by those outside of this community. Over the course of ten days, I visited the Bronx, the Five Towns on Long Island, parts of Brooklyn, and, repeatedly, the Upper West Side. The push and pull of how much to engage with the outside, secular world is an ongoing balancing act for each individual and family, within the context of their larger community.

While the subjects of the story who had left Antwerp to make their homes in NYC were open to the idea of participating in an extended media piece, their families – the older generation left behind in Belgium – as it turned out, were not. This reflects the younger generation’s dual identity of growing up in, but leaving behind, a European community that is very insular and suspicious of the outside world, for obvious and understandable reasons. The article focuses on the liberating experience of discovering a much more open, proud and assertive Jewish culture in the U.S., and the implications that this has for the Jewish Orthodox communities in Europe, with so many young professionals migrating to Israel and the United States.

Diamond District, Midtown Manhattan.

The diamond trade links Antwerp’s Jewish community with New York City.

Miri Urbach’s fashion and bridal designs cater to Modern Orthodox women across the generations, with stores in the Five Towns, Long Island, as well as NYC, London and Israel.

Hindel, sales rep at Freeda Wigs in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.

90% of Freeda Wig’s customers hail from the market of married religious women who cover their hair for modesty reasons.

Zlata’s caters to Orthodox women through modest elegance, designing, altering or retrofitting dresses to comply with the religious concept of Tznius.

At Jezebel’s, a trendy new kosher restaurant and bar in SoHo.

An Introductory Genetics lab course at Yeshiva University’s Stern College for Women.

Chaim David Berson, cantor at the Upper West Side’s Jewish Center.

Izchak Haimov of the Hampton Synagogue Choir rehearses for Shabbat of Song at the Jewish Center.

Final touches are being made to the new Lincoln Square Synagogue on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.

Community Scholar Elana Stein Hain, MPhil., in the Lincoln Square Synagogue’s new sanctuary.

A recently engaged couple at a wine tasting hosted by JICNY, the Jewish International Connection of New York.

JICNY events cater to professional singles from around the world who want to network and socialize among observant peers.

Putting a NYC Jewish spin on the classics at Jezebel bar and restaurant.

Friday evening in Riverside Park, the Upper West Side boundary of Manhattan’s Eruv, the virtual enclosure demarcating the geographic limits of the community within which certain tasks are permissible during the Sabbath.