ShalomNewYork.com

Hasidic Judaism summons images of wide-brim black hats, curling side-locks called payots and Polish noblemen. Of stern veneers and high-minded, ritualistic devotion to religious study. It probably doesn’t conjure up the Kolakowski household in the near West End.There are signs of a strict Hasidic lifestyle, albeit a cluttered one: religious texts piled high on the dining-room table, a stack of boxes containing a variety of black felt hats threatening to avalanche onto the couch, not to mention a second-hand piano with replacement front legs made from what appears to be scrap lumber. The austere clothing and seemingly equally austere approach to religious life plainly identify Rabbi Joseph Kolakowski and his wife, Chavah, as among a handful of strictly observant Hasidic Jewish families in the Richmond area. But appearances are deceiving; this community also knows how to let their payots down. more@Style.com