“Mitzvah tanks,” the brightly painted minivans operated by adherents to the Chabad-Lubavitch branch of Hasidic Judaism, arrived at the junction in the afternoon, broadcasting a sort of Hasidic disco. Their passengers, young men in Hasidic dress with wildly flowing sidelocks, spilled out of the vans dancing and singing, some leaping onto the tanks.
“We’re here to entertain the troops,” a man with a footlong beard shouted from atop one of the vans. Another group handed out white knit skullcaps bearing the words “Nachman of Uman” in blue Hebrew letters, a reference to Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, the founder of another Hasidic branch. “They protect the soldiers’ lives,” one of the Nachman followers said of the caps...
Cf. NY Times, July 25, 2006, "The Front Line: A New Generation of Israeli Soldiers Confronts the Unknown Across the Lebanon Border”
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