New York – The UJA Federation of New York has published a study on New York’s Jewish population. According to “Jewish Community Study of New York: 2011”, the population of New York’s Jewish community has grown nearly 10% since the previous study in 2002 with 1.5 million Jews now living in the eight-county New York area.
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The UJA-Federation’s study also found that the recent growth in Jewish population largely results from increased birthrates and longevity, rather than from immigration that previously drove the rise in the area’s Jewish population.
Yet the study also revealed that poverty among New York’s Jewish residents was also on the rise with nearly 1 in 5 Jewish households considered ‘poor’ with incomes under 150% of the federal poverty guideline.
The proportion of poor Jewish households is higher than it was 10 years ago. The relative increase has been especially dramatic in the suburbs, where 10 years ago there was very little Jewish poverty.
About 19% of all Jewish households are poor, as are 20% of all people in Jewish households — a considerable increase since 2002, when 15% of people in Jewish households in the New York area lived in poverty.
In terms of individuals, 361,000 people (both Jews and non-Jews) live in poor Jewish households.
There is an opld quote” give a man a fish and feed him for a day, teach a man to fis and you feed him for a life time”. Some in our comunity have become dependent on the measly fish that the government so graciously give the poor. It’s time that we act with the dignity of an “Am Chacham Venavon” and educate our children so that they can become dignified bread winners for their families. Having an education while not a guarantee to wealth, is still the surest way out of poverty and shame.
This article highlights (in code words) a growing time bomb for the frum community. The good news is that our numbers are growing. The bad news is are numbers are growing fastest among those least capable of sustaining that growth. As more frum families have children they cannot afford to feed, educate and provide health care for, and fewer of them actively participate in the work force, the burden falls on the smaller numbers of yidden who do work to sustain the others with tzadakah. The handouts from government (aka welfare payments, grants, and subsidies for social services) are also drying up. The answer is simple but it will take one of the gadolim to acknowledge this reality without simply intoning “the Ebeshter will provide”. What it will take is two things. First, after a certain point, don’t have more children if you cannot afford to take care of them. Two, go out for as many hours a week as you can and earn a good parnassah for whatever number of kids you have. This is nothing revolutionary. Indeed, this was the model for how yidden lived in the alte heim for centuries until the Gornishter Rav (or someone of that stature) concluded to the contrary.
The problem of the Jewish poor, is that it is not prevalent only in the New York City area, but all over the USA. Even within the Jewish community, there are those who refuse to admit that such a problem exists. In fact, if one looks at a listing of every Board of Directors of every Jewish Federation, Jewish Community Center, and Jewish Family Service in the USA, there is not one board, which has a person of modest means, to represent the Jewish poor. It appears that only people with gelt are appointed to those boards. As such, many of them have no insight of what it means to be poor, to live from paycheck to paycheck, and not have enough money to make ends meet. This problem impacts not only the very frum Yidden who have large families, but Yidden across all segments of the religious spectrum. When Rabbi Meir Kahane (z’l) was active, he had a plan called Operation Haganah, which was to move poor Jews from unsafe city neighborhoods, to safer areas. His plan received virtually no backing from the Federation, or other Jewish community groups. Forty years later, no much has changed, vis-a-vis the attitude of the mainstream Jewish organizations, towards the Jewish poor.
#2 . You have a point albeit not always (rarely) possible. I have a small family. My younger sibs have almost double size than me. My spouse works full time. I however am searching for a part time job to help with parnassa but at the same time godda look after house and kids. Yet there are o suitable part time jobs on the market. Either it’s from 8.30-2 or 11/1-6/7. How do I work and send my kids away in the morning at 9/9.30 and be home at 3 for them. The Heimishe businesses are non accommodating to their very own Heimishe oilam. Next choice is programs. Spouse earns far too little, also an abuse from Heimishe workforce.
While it is often said, rather cynically, that “the poor are always with us” this is all the more relevant to the charedi Jewish community.
All of us here know that charedi men – in their prime of life and at the peak of their potential earning power to support their wives and children – often prefer to “learn” in the various kolelim.
These kolelim then offer them pittances of stipends that are utterly insufficient to do what they are supposed to do.
In any other society, in any other community, these “students” would realize what their true priorities should be: to provide for their families – but *not* among our ehrliche yiddishe avreichim. No, they prefer to rely on ‘חסדי ה and the חלוקה doled out by נדבנים יהודיים
That, my friends, is the true reason for the fact that “19% of Jewish households are considered poor”.
I will agree that the overall international economic situation does not help but, if חז”ל all worked at their trades or professions why is not that the case today? After all, there are dozens of excellent מקורות to fall back on.
Put more brutally, the avreichim of today are congenitally lazy with a huge sense of entitlement. That’s WRONG!
It is just too bad that the only advice that people can suggest is DON’T HAVE ANY MORE CHILDREN! B”H I have 9 children, but it wasn’t easy. I was a stay-at-home mom and there were times when we used WIC coupons and food stamps. I went to community college and then university to get my degree and then went to work full time. Even with the education and work experience, the industry that I work in has had its problems and I have gone through periods of unemployment.
B”H I have a good job now, thanks to the auto industry bailout, but my family has always been more important to me than making money!
#8 nails it.
it seems that many would like to blame the current situation on large families etc. aren’t we in a recession? there are many more poor americans now then there were 10 years ago and many who don’t fit into the poor category are stuggling.