A savvy crop of panhandlers has been donning long skirts and head coverings to beg from Hasidic Jews in South Brooklyn neighborhoods before sabbath and religious holidays.
Armed with a few Hebrew words like “shabbat,” “shalom” and “tsedaka,” the word for charity, the impersonators stake out popular food markets.
“They go, ‘Sedaka.’ They’ll push a child in a carriage. A lot of non-Jewish people can’t pronounce the ‘T’ and the ‘S’ [in ‘tsedaka’], so you know they’re not Jewish,” Bernard Vei, 56, an Orthodox Jew, told The Post.
“We’re good people; we always give. That’s the problem — they think we have all of the money in the world!”
A young woman wearing a snood on her head approached a Post reporter last month on Coney Island Avenue in Flatbush with arms stretched out, saying, “Tsedaka.”
When the Hebrew-speaking journalist asked if she spoke Hebrew, she looked confused, said “Jewish,” then ran off.
Another panhandler, Vincent Maurizio, 47, who has begged at 13th Avenue and 43th Street in Borough Park for 18 years, said he collected $750 last month over the seven days of Passover.
“I learned how to speak Hebrew and Yiddish,” he said. “They’re good people. They’re righteous people.”