Great post. Except I live in a hareidi community, am very functional, and can barely get a job.
Let's face it, it works for the chasidim. For the Litvaks? Bmg sucks on their working class teats and gives zilch in return. No community, no jobs. Not even schools you could get your kids into without begging.
Lots of Litvak businesses in Lakewood, Monsey area. Crossriver Bank, for instance, was a great and heimishe place to work for years and years until they brought in a bunch of corporate zombies and trashed it up.
BMG is terrible for everyone, and I am constantly discovering how maladaptive the Litvishe approach of making an Avoda Zara out of this https://substack.com/profile/439659525-275d75e85d32/note/c-287388218 '100,000 plus yeshiva students' is. So many of those in leadersip positions care naught for anything else, not for people not for Yiddishkeit, only for the numbers of 'people learning'. So Adirei haTorah is the greatest thing because after all BMG now has close to 10,000 students, despite the fact that that itself is the worst thing for almost everyone involved. We shouldn't care about the shidduch crisis because it may cause some damage to some yeshivos. And when we do care about the shidduch crisis we should pretend that the growth of the community is still high even over 4%, despite the most reliable data (here, measured by growth from grade 8-1 https://avichai.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/AVI-CHAI-Census-2018-2019-v3.pdf) shows the opposite etc.
Yes, fine, great. Compare Lakewood with, I dunno, Afula. Or the Harries of Patterson, NJ.
Compared to a supermodel, your wife might have some flaws. Compared to whatever the next best thing you could have pulled was…
Don’t get me wrong-I don’t live in Lakewood. I don’t WANT to live in Lakewood. The Lakewood philosophy, party line and actual lifestyle don’t do anything for me.
It’s just that most of the other Jewish communities of comparable size have worse issues along these lines.
Haredi hashkafa and lifestyle has a lot to be said for it, but it isn't for everyone and it really seems like the haredim don't even want it to be for everyone. I really do think that the haredim would prefer that most Jews remain non haredi.
Overall the haredi worldview reminds me a bit of the Kahanist/Feiglin worldview in that it is essentially just a reaction to the nonsensical gestalt of the dominant community while also containing a huge amount of nonsense itself. However, because the dominant community (secular Zionism) really does have an illogical worldview of its own, it's completely incapable of pointing out the flaws of haredim/kahane without resorting to retarded cliches (ex. when Amir was put on trial for assassinating Rabin, the clueless chiloni judge asked Yigal if he was familiar with the commandment "Thou shalt not kill", causing Amir to, justifiably, laugh in the judges stupid Chiloni face. There are so many rabbis who could have provided a comprehensive halachic case to Amir as to why what he did was wrong, but the aforementioned judge was too ignorant and arrogant to do so and he chose to go with an argument that Amir correctly saw as retarded. The end result being that Amir and others who supported Amir's actions likely felt even *more* justified in their belief. The same effect certainly happens when secular Zionists and RZ's tell the haredim "in David's army, everyone fought!", as if they haredim didn't know that already)
Entertaining and thought-provoking read as usual, from the outside-in perspective of a non-Israeli, non-religious Jew.
I have no way of calibrating your writing to a lived experience, but it's intriguing to get the view of someone who does - to be filed with other, antithetic Israeli and/or religious perspectives. In combination, a stereoscopic picture of a dynamic Israeli society emerges.
I take everything too seriously. This is probably supposed to be like a joke on some level. It’s a masculine joke type thing I cannot grasp.
But I do think that if someone cares about the truth, the Charedi way of life is better and more authentic than you describe. At least at its essence.
Haredi bashing is the most overdone unimaginative bashing.
You consistently have good points. I might not (I don’t) agree with all of them (some I deeply disagree with) but there is an authenticity in your writing that I admire.
When I was in law school, everything was very PC. 1999-2002. There were only two groups you were allowed to make fun of- fat people and people from the South.
The Haredim are the proverbial fat people from the south. No one will pop up and defend Charedim. Except for me.
In the context of Haredi draft protests, Goldknopf dismissing the DL whose kids are fighting with "they should keep their basket of problems and we'll keep ours," that one dipshit rabbi announcing that the Haredim don't owe any more gratitude to the soldiers of the IDF than to the plumber, etc., how else can I defend them without being a liar?
Again, you dilute ideology to it's pragmatic consequence, but the main component of Haredi is the spiritual strive to serve Hashem in the way they believe is the best. Many kids, jobs, political cover, are all secondary consequences, except for the in-the-closet atheists (Orthopraxes), who IMO are very overrepresented.
“Spiritual striving to serve Hashem”-my nigga in Torah, come on. Have you met my friends Aryeh Deri and Yitzhak Goldknopf. The level of healthy cynicism in the Haredi world is pretty high.
Well, by no means let that stop you from lecturing me about how I've got Haredim all wrong and that the actual main component of their society is spiritual service
Haredi society is great, unless you're neurodivergent, can only handle having 2 kids, six figure credit debt, and don't want kids to be parentified living in cramped mouldy squalor. It's that or being surrounded by apish chain smoking loud mouth arsim.
“All of these formulas mask the true underlying point, which is “we must do what our forefathers did, and raise our children to do so.” This is true even when those observant forefathers were virtual, and your actual forefathers were total shkutzim, or even goyim, which is the case for Haredi baalei teshuva and converts.”
Not being Orthodox was invented in 1810. Besides those willing to risk everything to go against G-d. Besides converts, who one should be more gentle to, everyone’s great grandparents or great grandparents were frum.
Even so what? The Haredi shtick is "I'm doing what my greatgrandfather did." Meanwhile, your greatgrandfather was, likely as not, some Neolog Commie from Budapest who thought saying "Burich Hee" and wearing a shtreimel was the dumbest, cringest thing possible.
My point is that it doesn't matter. "I'm doing what my greatgrandfather did" is a good Schelling point, better than the alternatives for now.
It's just that it turns you into hypocritical parasites on a social level, and that you become completely dependent on people for whom you have mutual contempt on the most basic level.
Perhaps an economy rooted in the dream of a socialist utopia with onerous taxation creates dependency. Perhaps the original economic infrastructure and the new aims of a start up nation clash. Perhaps the uncertainty of redistribution of wealth vs free market leave Israel in an uncomfortable position and pointing to Haredi dependence is far easier than making some difficult economic decisions.
As I alluded to in the article, the basic dependent nature of Haredi society remains unchanged in Israel vs ChUL. I'm not even talking about economic dependency.
By the way, which Haredi voices in Israel have ever demanded more economic freedom and spoken against onerous taxation and dependency? I mean, come on, LOL. LMFAO. If anything, they want way, way more socialism.
“Of course they don’t actually believe that, because they take breaks to sleep, and learn in shifts, and send their yeshivot home when the cities where they live are getting rocketed, instead of having all the students manning Emergency Battle Shtenders around the clock”
Great post. Except I live in a hareidi community, am very functional, and can barely get a job.
Let's face it, it works for the chasidim. For the Litvaks? Bmg sucks on their working class teats and gives zilch in return. No community, no jobs. Not even schools you could get your kids into without begging.
Lots of Litvak businesses in Lakewood, Monsey area. Crossriver Bank, for instance, was a great and heimishe place to work for years and years until they brought in a bunch of corporate zombies and trashed it up.
My friends is a Litvak running a construction company in Tom's River. Couldn't have gotten to where he is without his community.
Precisely my point. It's now to be big to be anything but parasitic. Once people cared about the others . Now we just ponzi them.
In your opinion why do people stay?
BMG is terrible for everyone, and I am constantly discovering how maladaptive the Litvishe approach of making an Avoda Zara out of this https://substack.com/profile/439659525-275d75e85d32/note/c-287388218 '100,000 plus yeshiva students' is. So many of those in leadersip positions care naught for anything else, not for people not for Yiddishkeit, only for the numbers of 'people learning'. So Adirei haTorah is the greatest thing because after all BMG now has close to 10,000 students, despite the fact that that itself is the worst thing for almost everyone involved. We shouldn't care about the shidduch crisis because it may cause some damage to some yeshivos. And when we do care about the shidduch crisis we should pretend that the growth of the community is still high even over 4%, despite the most reliable data (here, measured by growth from grade 8-1 https://avichai.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/AVI-CHAI-Census-2018-2019-v3.pdf) shows the opposite etc.
Yes, fine, great. Compare Lakewood with, I dunno, Afula. Or the Harries of Patterson, NJ.
Compared to a supermodel, your wife might have some flaws. Compared to whatever the next best thing you could have pulled was…
Don’t get me wrong-I don’t live in Lakewood. I don’t WANT to live in Lakewood. The Lakewood philosophy, party line and actual lifestyle don’t do anything for me.
It’s just that most of the other Jewish communities of comparable size have worse issues along these lines.
Haredi hashkafa and lifestyle has a lot to be said for it, but it isn't for everyone and it really seems like the haredim don't even want it to be for everyone. I really do think that the haredim would prefer that most Jews remain non haredi.
Overall the haredi worldview reminds me a bit of the Kahanist/Feiglin worldview in that it is essentially just a reaction to the nonsensical gestalt of the dominant community while also containing a huge amount of nonsense itself. However, because the dominant community (secular Zionism) really does have an illogical worldview of its own, it's completely incapable of pointing out the flaws of haredim/kahane without resorting to retarded cliches (ex. when Amir was put on trial for assassinating Rabin, the clueless chiloni judge asked Yigal if he was familiar with the commandment "Thou shalt not kill", causing Amir to, justifiably, laugh in the judges stupid Chiloni face. There are so many rabbis who could have provided a comprehensive halachic case to Amir as to why what he did was wrong, but the aforementioned judge was too ignorant and arrogant to do so and he chose to go with an argument that Amir correctly saw as retarded. The end result being that Amir and others who supported Amir's actions likely felt even *more* justified in their belief. The same effect certainly happens when secular Zionists and RZ's tell the haredim "in David's army, everyone fought!", as if they haredim didn't know that already)
Entertaining and thought-provoking read as usual, from the outside-in perspective of a non-Israeli, non-religious Jew.
I have no way of calibrating your writing to a lived experience, but it's intriguing to get the view of someone who does - to be filed with other, antithetic Israeli and/or religious perspectives. In combination, a stereoscopic picture of a dynamic Israeli society emerges.
I take everything too seriously. This is probably supposed to be like a joke on some level. It’s a masculine joke type thing I cannot grasp.
But I do think that if someone cares about the truth, the Charedi way of life is better and more authentic than you describe. At least at its essence.
Haredi bashing is the most overdone unimaginative bashing.
You consistently have good points. I might not (I don’t) agree with all of them (some I deeply disagree with) but there is an authenticity in your writing that I admire.
When I was in law school, everything was very PC. 1999-2002. There were only two groups you were allowed to make fun of- fat people and people from the South.
The Haredim are the proverbial fat people from the south. No one will pop up and defend Charedim. Except for me.
I'm defending them. What do you want from me?
In the context of Haredi draft protests, Goldknopf dismissing the DL whose kids are fighting with "they should keep their basket of problems and we'll keep ours," that one dipshit rabbi announcing that the Haredim don't owe any more gratitude to the soldiers of the IDF than to the plumber, etc., how else can I defend them without being a liar?
I only criticize you because you say things worth responding to. Unlike everyone (?) else.
What do you think the Haredi leaders' plan is for when they become the majority?
Plan? Lmfao
Again, you dilute ideology to it's pragmatic consequence, but the main component of Haredi is the spiritual strive to serve Hashem in the way they believe is the best. Many kids, jobs, political cover, are all secondary consequences, except for the in-the-closet atheists (Orthopraxes), who IMO are very overrepresented.
“Spiritual striving to serve Hashem”-my nigga in Torah, come on. Have you met my friends Aryeh Deri and Yitzhak Goldknopf. The level of healthy cynicism in the Haredi world is pretty high.
No, I did not meet them. I only know of their carefully cultivated public personas.
How was Elad? A society built around spiritual service of Hashem, am I right?
Maybe, I was never invited. Just cause I rented an apartment in a haredi city, doesn't mean I was automatically allowed entry into its society.
Well, by no means let that stop you from lecturing me about how I've got Haredim all wrong and that the actual main component of their society is spiritual service
It's stupid to keep halacha if you don't believe it's divine.
🙄
Haredi society is great, unless you're neurodivergent, can only handle having 2 kids, six figure credit debt, and don't want kids to be parentified living in cramped mouldy squalor. It's that or being surrounded by apish chain smoking loud mouth arsim.
I already addressed the case of dysfunctional weirdos who can't get their shit together
" Neurodivergent"
I'm sorry, it must be my neurodivergence. Are you being obtuse, or an ignorant scoffer?
“All of these formulas mask the true underlying point, which is “we must do what our forefathers did, and raise our children to do so.” This is true even when those observant forefathers were virtual, and your actual forefathers were total shkutzim, or even goyim, which is the case for Haredi baalei teshuva and converts.”
Not being Orthodox was invented in 1810. Besides those willing to risk everything to go against G-d. Besides converts, who one should be more gentle to, everyone’s great grandparents or great grandparents were frum.
1810 was 10 generations ago
Even so…
Even so what? The Haredi shtick is "I'm doing what my greatgrandfather did." Meanwhile, your greatgrandfather was, likely as not, some Neolog Commie from Budapest who thought saying "Burich Hee" and wearing a shtreimel was the dumbest, cringest thing possible.
My point is that it doesn't matter. "I'm doing what my greatgrandfather did" is a good Schelling point, better than the alternatives for now.
It's just that it turns you into hypocritical parasites on a social level, and that you become completely dependent on people for whom you have mutual contempt on the most basic level.
Perhaps an economy rooted in the dream of a socialist utopia with onerous taxation creates dependency. Perhaps the original economic infrastructure and the new aims of a start up nation clash. Perhaps the uncertainty of redistribution of wealth vs free market leave Israel in an uncomfortable position and pointing to Haredi dependence is far easier than making some difficult economic decisions.
As I alluded to in the article, the basic dependent nature of Haredi society remains unchanged in Israel vs ChUL. I'm not even talking about economic dependency.
By the way, which Haredi voices in Israel have ever demanded more economic freedom and spoken against onerous taxation and dependency? I mean, come on, LOL. LMFAO. If anything, they want way, way more socialism.
“Of course they don’t actually believe that, because they take breaks to sleep, and learn in shifts, and send their yeshivot home when the cities where they live are getting rocketed, instead of having all the students manning Emergency Battle Shtenders around the clock”
Isn’t that what happened during covid?
Is it?
Yes.