New York Times journalist Joseph Berger writes in his book The Pious Ones: The World of Hasidim and Their Battles with America:
In the secular realm, the laws of the Russian or Polish state persecuted Jews and barred them from whole territories or occupations, so Hasidim paid lip service to those laws, observed them in fear but, like the Sicilians did with various conquerors, ignored or broke them outright when they could because they were the oppressive laws of a powerful invader. What was paramount was the the Torah, as enforced by the rabbis and rabbinic courts, where the reckoning for transgressions was divine or in some cases could lead to communal ostracism. That history of a dual system sometimes explains, though it does not excuse, what outsiders today view as a cavalier disregard that Hasidim have for America’s tax laws, fire codes, educational standards and other manifestations of the governmental authority.
