New York – In a TABLET Magazine (http://bit.ly/10qBPZC) piece, Relgious Labor, Elliott Horowitz says that the in-fighting in the current Israeli government led him to research the history of Hasidic work history in Eastern Europe before the Holocaust.
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In noting his research, Horowitz cites several essays and exhibits that have depicted the history of ultra-Orthodox work history, including an essay for the two-decade-old Tracing An-sky: Jewish Collections From the State Ethnographic Museum in St. Petersburg, written by Ludmilla Uritskaya, in which after viewing photos of Jews working alongside gentiles in the multi-national culture of Russia, Uritskaya says, “Regretfully, this Jewish culture no longer exists.”
Horowitz then goes on to thoroughly document the story of Leigh Fermor, an English travel-writer, whose accounts of his travels across Western and Central Europe provide an in-depth, first-hand account of Hasidic work history.
Read the full story at Tablet
He should have traced the history of me first elitism and the practice of dynastic institutions. Then he could have correlated that with work history. Since the former goes back only 30 years, it would have been less work.
This is a real diversion of the truth and an attempt and successful execution to hijack the debate.
Orhodox Jews don’t want to work? They want to live in poverty? Orthodox Jews indeed work and are equally if not more successful the their secular counterparts, in the USA and in the UK. The real issue is the military draft that wont allow them to work. They should do a study on that and see how the religious feared when drafted.
This is a real hate campaign of the worst nature.
it’s not going to be a very thick book
1) A chasdic person owns B&H photo the biggest photo store in the world.
2) Another chasidic person from NY is doing the biggest Ferris wheel in the world.
the issue is not that the charadim dont work in the usa uk or canada they do and the ones whom work hard do well. the issue is in israel they are encouraged not to work,
without basic knowledge one wont be hired…thats the issue…charadim need to work hard in israel and stio coming here to shnor…when i asked one why he doesnt work he responded in israel its looked down to work outside kodesh… idiotic..!!!!
when I grew up the poverty was different.We poor didn’t have silver candlesticks or a silver kiddush cup in the house let alone a shtreimel. Father worked long hours Mother had no washing machine or mixers or vacume.There was no take out foods everything was cooked at home .No summer camps or bungalos.or air conditioning and no cash .
The comments on this article are frankly weird. Having lived for the past forty-five years in hasidic communities in Israel, the US and UK, and visited nearly all of the other centres, I can state from personal experience that, save for the first few years after their wedding – and that’s because they marry young – hasidim actually make a point of going to work. This was the policy of all the hasidic leaders since the war. However, in contrast to those who go into buisness and often become extremely wealthy, those who are employed usually work for a much smaller wage, as they have few qualifications. That really solves the work/family size/food stamps argument. Contrast that with the ethos of the non-hasidic orthodox who have, since, the war, evloved an ethos of refusing to work and devoting their lives to study. Until a few years ago in Israel this distinction was not realised by the hilonim, but for the past few years, a clear distinction has been regularly made by the media and politicians. It is telling that when people who are clearly outside both systems try to prove that hasidim don’t work, they cite Lakewood as an example – the citadel of the ‘Lithuanian’ ethos.
Look in the Talmud. Chareidi Jews always worked and learned, including the Gedolim. After WWII, when the Torah world was devistated and had to be rebuilt, the current system was created. B”H, the Rabbonim did a great job rebuilding the Torah world. It’s time for things to go back to normal. Real learners should continue learning, the pretenders need to join the real world and take responsibility for their families. In many respects, it’s not their fault. Their society forces them into this little box.
People can blame the draft issue all they want, but the truth is, you need skills to get a good paying job. The lack of skills is the primary reason many Chareidim can’t get good jobs.
You might ant to know that Ulitskaya, a writer who is quite famous in Russia, though ethnically Jewish, is a meshumad, a voluntary convert to Christianity (in fact, quite a few Russian writers are meshumadim). She is an ardent Christian. I heard her in an interview on Russian TV saying that her great-grandfather made no fewer than four attempts to teach her Hebrew alphabet, but every time she forgot everything, as if “something insede” her “rejected the letters.”
I can say from experience that Hasidim in all parts of the US I have visited including KY work very hard, but as has been said except for those who are successful in business most work in lower paid jobs.
Whether they are accurate or not I don’t know but census reports about poverty and level of food stamp eligibilty have to do with family size, i.e, a single person living on say $20000 per year might not be considered very poor and would probably not get food stamps, tax refund, etc, whereas the opposite would be true if they had 6-10 or more children. Now you can get into a debate about having lot’s of children, studying in college etc, but this is another matter, what we are discussing here is working which they actually do and they work very hard.
Allow me to help you out of your confusion. It’s really quite simple.
Facts1 repeatedly asserts that the Chareidim in Israel don’t work only because of the draft.
I pointed out that this is nonsense, because in the USA, where there is no draft, this is what happens:
1. Hardly any Chareidi (Litvish or Chassidish) works before he is married.
2. Even after marriage, many try to stay in full-time learning and put off working for as long as possible, even into their thirties. This includes almost all of the Litvishe community, and some Chassidic communities as wells.
3. Even when Chareidim do work, it is often off the books. (The biggest proof is Kiryas Joel where “everyone” works, and yet the median family income is $17,770 and over 60% are collecting food stamps.) This is not the type of “work” intended by the Israelis who call upon Chareidim to enter the work force. Israelis want Chareidim to work so that they will contribute to society, by paying taxes and not relying on government handouts. They do not want Chareidim to continue draining the country’s resources.
There, that was quite simple, wasn’t it.
contd.