Chasidim in Brooklyn have complained of being treated like they are in “a zoo” after a sharp rise in the number of tourists visiting their neighbourhood and taking photographs without their permission.

The Williamsburg and Crown Heights neighbourhoods of the New York borough, both of which contain substantial Chasidic communities, have been inundated by hundreds of visitors each day over the summer as part of “cultural tours” operated by a number of companies, according to the New York Post.

It is believed that shows and documentaries about the Chasidic community such as Shtisel and One of Us have contributed to the recent tourism surge.

One Chasidic man told the Post that he felt like the tourists saw him “as a freak”, someone “from another world…not human”. Another, who told the newpaper that he would regularly be photographed like he was on display in a zoo, said “we are people, not animals to be photographed”.

Other members of the community took issue with the lack of modest dress worn by the tourists, who would be taken by the tours to kosher bakeries and other shops in the district.

Saturdays, when many Chasidic men wear a fur streimel as part of their Shabbat garb, is said to be a particularly popular day for tourists to be present with cameras, taking pictures of the Strictly Orthodox locals.

The tours, operated in both English and Spanish, can present a completely inaccurate view of Chasidic Jews — the Post said that one Spanish language guide it attended repeated the falsehood that Strictly Orthodox Jews procreate by having sex through a sheet with a hole in it, and claimed that marriages between family members were once frequent.

Even tours of the area run by Orthodox Jews have met with suspicion, with tourists taken, for example, into a sheitel shop which sells wigs for Strictly Orthodox women to cover their own hair.

On those occasions when a tourist does bother to ask permission before taking a photo, “the answer will always be no”, one Chasidic woman said.