Jerusalem – Leaders of the extremist ultra-Orthodox Eda Haredit strongly denounced the practice of home foreign currency trading, saying they take the matter as seriously as violations of the Sabbath.
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“Many people are tempted to start off by playing ‘demo’ games, and when success shines on them, they start actually trading. From here, the path to losses can be short, and the investor can lose everything,” said the dayanim (“judges”) on the Eda Haredit rabbinic court in Jerusalem last week.
They called for “decisive action” against the phenomenon, such as the protests against parking lots and factories that are open on the Sabbath. Jerusalem has seen weekly protests over the latter two issues, some of which have turned violent.
The declaration came during a run-of-the-mill case involving a delinquent loan, the weekly Bakehila reported. The complainant had loaned NIS 100,000 to the defendant, the owner of a charity. However, the second man invested all the money through a forex company, and lost it all.
Rabbis Moishe Sternbuch and Yaakov Mendel Yurovitch said foreign currency trading should not be discussed for any reason other than making a living – meaning, gambling is off-limits.
The Haredi community in particular has been hard-hit by the growth of forex companies, since many young people see them as an opportunity to improve their modest lifestyles.
“These are young people who already have two or three children, and several more on the way,” said a source from the community. “They know that in another 20 years they’ll need to marry the children off. The average Haredi wedding costs about $60,000. It’s very hard to save this money from manual labor, and safe investments offer low interest rates, so they look to make quick, easy money. The foreign exchange companies offer them insane quantities of leverage – you can put up $2,000 but trade $2 million. Many ultra-Orthodox are tempted, because in theory, you can double your money in two minutes.”
Not surprisingly, many people lost big trying.
Moishiach is coming soon. For the first time in my lifetime, I agree 100 percent with a psak of the Eida. There are so many yiddin who have lost all of their savings and even borrowed funds in day trading. Its not just foreign exchange but also stocks (in fact probably more daytrade stocks than forex). The brokerage firms allow you to open an account on line with virtually no effort to confirm if the person understands the risks but more importantly, can afford to lose the funds they are putting at risk.
And what about doing this trading during the other six days of the week. Its a bigger aveyrah to go on the computer on shabbos than to gamble on foreign currency.
I lost a lot of money in the stock market a number of years ago in what I thought was investing….I read all the books and then the crash etc. I was living in Israel and part of the issue was the nagging thought of how am I going to marry off my kids while earning a Kollel salary. I think this is symbolic of the larger issue at hand, i.e. the system is broken when you don’t make any money and foresee large expenses in the future. I guess that’s nothing new…but it is another sign of how desperate people are. We need to fix this.
This can be extremely dangerous. Do not trade if you do not know what you are doing. An individual investor is at an inherant disadvantage to the institutional investors who have large information advantages.
FOREX trading is open 24×7 so trading on shabbos is a big concern.
When will people start taking responsibility for their own actions?
If someone speculates and loses, it’s his fault, not the brokerage fault.To gamble $100,000.00 of tzadaka gelt, is totally wrong period.Take the responsibility and pay up.
Statistics show that traders ( stocks, options, commodities,etc. ) lose 90% of the time. You get better odds from your bookie …
There is another tragedy in this story. There is no excuse why we have gotten to the point that a wedding should cost $60,000. I wish the leaders would put a stop to this and save people from this pointless waste of such a large sum of money in a few hours to feed hundreds of people one meal.
trading in foreign currencies just to make money seems unfair to me. someone must be losing out. if you have to exchange foreign currencies. do it becusae you are going to use those currencies in that nation. i am not economist but this must drive the economy down. not up .
“. What is described here is nothing more than legalized gambling — legal, that is, under secular law.”
That depends on who is putting down the money. Foreign exchange markets are very useful tools for many people and corporations. For example, a company that needs protection against fluctuation in the value of a foreign currency. That being said, for 99.9999% of Israeli charedim, it’s pure gambling. To that extent I agree with the eida. However, I believe that until they encourage legitimate ways of making money, they have no one to blame but themselves.
“FOREX trading is open 24×7 so trading on shabbos is a big concern.”
Yeah, and telephones work 24×7 so that’s a big shabbos concern too. Time to take a course in logic. Or, if college is verboten, I believe the ramchal has a book on the subject.
RE; to 10 . That is exactly what statistics are. Only app. 10% of traders have the knowledge and temperament to ,successfully , trade.
Why doesn’t the Eidau issue a ruling that all young men, at an early enough age, are obligated to learn a trade or profession so that they will be able to earn a livelihood to support their families, and not have to get involved in get rich quick schemes like Forex Trading. This is the real problem. Whatever happened to Torah Im Derech Eretz?
“Why doesn’t the Eidau issue a ruling that all young men, at an early enough age, are obligated to learn a trade or profession so that they will be able to earn a livelihood to support their families, and not have to get involved in get rich quick schemes like Forex Trading.”
The gemara and rambam already did that, but the eida knows better.
Currency Exchange can be a legit businesses, but thats not what we are a talking about here. The people doing it have no idea what they are doing, no training and in general will loose out to commissions etc. This is as much gambling as playing poker online, and for very high stakes.
The Haradi community needs to teach its sons a way to earn a living that can support their lifestyle.
By reading many of the comments here, if most of the commentors are to listen to such a psak…its a good psak…some of you really need help
Which rabonim ever said that its isur to do real work…find me one rabbi who says its isur for a yungerman to do real work and ill show you a liar
When a man has a house to feed, there are only a few logical ways to do that and all include real work of one degree or another
Anyone on here that wrote that yungerlite are isur to do real work, I say to you what are you doing on the internet??
I think the eida should rather say that supporting your child after he marries and even paying for wedding expenses is like being mechalel shabbos! With that takanah alot if things will be much better!
I don’t know anything about speculative trading etc. I have a beard, wear a shtreimel etc. I also go to work, do a full day’s work, get my wages at the end of the week and with Hashem’s help have always managed. and I daven with minyan and go to a shiur every day. See! it can be done:-) and I have many friends and family who are the same.
Anyhow who is this “Eidah”? Who appointed them? What contribution have they ever made to yiddishkeit b’eretz oy bagolah? What great geonim or poskim do they have? The only thing they have is a hechsher from which they are making a fortune and keeping it all for themselves.
Even Rav Weiss who is truly an erliche yid will admit, as will all his true friends, that he is not a particularly great talmid chochom and certainly not of the stature to issue world wide pesokim without reliable mekoros.
BTW I daven in the morning at 6:30 am, NOT 11:30 am. You understand, of course what I mean:-)
“the defendant, the owner of a charity”
There’s something I don’t understand here; how can anyone /own/ a charity?
Morai veRabossai,
May I suggest that all those readers who have suggested or implied that the forex trading may be done on shabbes re-read the first sentence of the original story:
“Leaders of the extremist ultra-Orthodox Eda Haredit strongly denounced the practice of home foreign currency trading, saying they take the matter as seriously as violations of the Sabbath. “
The all-important words are “as seriously as”.
with all due respect to the eida..
there is a difference between gambling and speculating
people who trade currencies( or any commodity fo that matter) do it primarily for speculation or for hedging.
true hedgers are actually very conservative business people or corporations who need to shed risk.. the speculator assumes that risk for the possibility of profit.
the big issue as i see it is inexperienced speculators dont understand the true risk they are assuming and sadly can lose large amounts of money very quickly..
on the other side there are many experienced traders who do make a living trading “risk” but as in any profession one needs to be trained and/or experienced before taking on large positions. these speculators add a useful function to the markets by adding liquidity..
ultimately commodity training is a business that requires capital, risk management techniques, experience and discipline to take a small loss before it is catastrophic.. (a blessing from God is also very helpful).
If Forex is asser why are Chinese Auctions ok?
While the forec is open 24 7 the susseccful people get in and get out in very short term trades. I know a friend who does 150 transactions a day and ony trades, Monday Tuesday and Wednesday.
If you want to make money in forex, open an account in a hesgdefunt that specializes in curency trading. There was an artical in the wsj this friday stating how SAC capital (greenwich CT) and a few others made Billions in trading the USD-EUro pair.
And yes 90% haven’t a clue what your doing leave it to a pro, and does lose your money.
“Why doesn’t the Eidau issue a ruling that all young men, at an early enough age, are obligated to learn a trade or profession so that they will be able to earn a livelihood to support their families, and not have to get involved in get rich quick schemes like Forex Trading.”
The gemara and rambam already did that, but the eida knows better.
“The gemorah never said that all young men should learn a secular profession. Otherwise, the eida would never have said its assur to do any “real” work. “
Another am haaretz. Don’t worry, you don’t have to learn any gemarah, just do what the eida tells youl.
“The problem in Israel is that in order to work men must serve in the army first, which is obviously not an ideal situation for most frum people”
No. This is completely untrue.
The problem in Israel is that parasitical extremist Jewish groups are quite prepared to leach the “Zionist” government for all sorts of hand-outs – and then to curse the donors for not being “Jewish”.
The problem in Israel is that those same groups are more than pleased to take advantage of municipal services provided by the “Zionist” city council – but not to pay for them..
The problem in Israel is that there are right-wing Jewish groups who are quite prepared for /other/ Jewish men to place their lives on the line, day in and day out, to defend them against the armies of Arab countries and terrorist groups from those countries, hell-bent on the destruction of Israel and Jerusalem. But they still go to Iran and curse Israel.
If they were true ‘Neturei Karta’ they would guard the city – literally – against the enemies who will not distinguish between them and the “Zionists”.
Think about it: you know it makes sense.
The Eida whips out that ban pretty quickly. Maybe if Chareidim had decent educations and were raised to believe that they should work for a living, their leadership wouldn’t have to make rules for them as if they were infants incapable of fending for themselves. But maybe that’s the whole point.