Thousands of Hasidic women turn to Balebusta, a Yiddish-language magazine, as a resource for homemaking, parenting tips, and advertisements for the latest goods and services. Last week, the magazine published anti-Black jokes as part of a fictional, serialized story.

The magazine is distributed weekly to heavily Satmar communities in Kiryas Joel and Williamsburg. According to its website, Balebusta – which means ‘good homemaker’ in Yiddish – distributes 9,500 hard copies each week. Like most Hasidic publications, Balebusta does not publish images of women.

The jokes repeatedly use the phrase “schvartze goy,” which refers to a Black non-Jewish person. The word “schvartze” refers literally to the color black, but it often functions as a pejorative referring to Black people. The word “goy” literally means “nation,” but is most often used to refer to non-Jewish people, and is also often seen as a pejorative. 

In the story, a woman named Esther is trying to get three boys to go to sleep, but one of the boys is overly energetic and makes jokes that delay bedtime.

"What’s the difference between a 12-year-old schvartze goy and a 13-year-old schvartze goy?” the boisterous child, Shimshon, asks, before revealing the punchline: “One black year.” The phrase, “a black year,” in Yiddish, “ein schvartze yor,” is a “curse wishing someone a terrible year,” according to Eddy Portnoy, an advisor at YIVO, an institution focused on studying Eastern European Jewry.

Another boy laughs, then Shimshon cracks another joke: "Why is there such thing as white chocolate? So the schvartze goy can also get dirty."

Esther is exhausted. Ignoring the content of the jokes, she renews her efforts to get the children ready for bed. “Shimshon, I’m begging you, grab your stuff and go get dressed,” she says.

In response to an inquiry about the jokes from Shtetl, an unsigned email from Balebusta’s email address read, “We'll be investigating this matter, and addressing it to the right party.”

According to an editor’s note that appeared in the first installment of the serial, the narrative is reviewed by attorney Rabbi Mattisyahu Wolfberg, a Jewish nonprofit called L’Asurim, a mental health professional who was not fully named, and an unnamed “well-regarded rabbi.” Neither Wolfberg nor L’Asurim immediately responded to Shtetl’s requests to confirm whether they had read the jokes prior to publication.

A recent editor’s note said that the serial is based on true events and is meant to be instructional, provide relatable scenarios, and be uplifting to the readers.

Experts said the jokes were harmful, especially since the story was meant to be educational.

“Racist jokes, in particular, represent a potent form of informal education that can significantly contribute to nurturing hatred,” said Nechumi Malovicki-Yaffe, a professor at Tel Aviv University who studies the Haredi world, and is also Hasidic. “It seems that within Hasidic society, while absorbing external prejudices from outside, there is also a troubling tendency to generate animosity towards outsiders and foreigners.”

Michael Billig, a psychology professor at Loughborough University who has studied antisemitism and racism, said the story, “makes the only entrance of a Black person into that story as the object – not a real person, but a figure of mockery.”

Further, Portnoy, the YIVO scholar, said, "The association of a black year with a Black person is clearly negative."

Dainy Bernstein, a researcher at the University of Illinois who studies Haredi children’s literature, wondered about the consequences of such content. “If you’re growing up with these messages constantly in the background, and then you go out and you see your Black neighbors, what are you going to do?”

The Anti-Defamation League did not immediately respond to Shtetl’s request for comment on the jokes.

Hasidic leaders have occasionally made public statements in Yiddish that contain racist sentiments. In 2021, a popular Satmar Hasidic newspaper, Der Blatt, was criticized after publishing a column with racist messages, according to the New York Post. In 2022, Aaron Teitelbaum, the grand rabbi of the Satmar Hasidic sect in Kiryas Joel, gave a speech in which he referred to state legislators as “schvartze” and “shucher,” a Yiddishized Hebrew word with a similar meaning, as Shtetl reported.