There is large yeshiva (Jewish religious high school) in Petach Tikva, near Kever Benjamin City, and they need a plumbing design. So I spent a few hours today at this yeshivah, which is not what you think. It is an ancient, unmaintained, cheap, three store concrete (bad concrete) structure, very dirty and smelling putrid sewage which was in fact dripping on the students in class. They didnt seem to take notice. The teachers have an authoritive stupid look, fat old women with funny hats, young Sepharadi men in second hand dirty shirts. The only person who had an idea from where the water was coming was Ahmed, a compact Arab, who sat in the table of the girls, visibly fascinating them with his masculinity. It was raining so the place was full of dog-excrement sludge.
Theoretically, I love Jewish religion and religious people, but when confronted with them in mass, I feel something in the stomach. All my life I wanted to be religious but cannot suffer the nonsense of Jewish prayers (which I understand), which are recited in superfast rythm because they are so interminable. I love Jewish tradition but I physically suffer when a religious analphabete tries to tell me an imbecile Hassidic tale with wolves and miracles, as it was the cusp of Jewish teology. And the superstitions, the magic, the amulets. And the dirt of the yeshiva.
14 comments:
Are these schools outside the government system of education? Or funded by the government?
Anon.
It's like looking back into the Dark Ages. A time when witchcraft was considered possible, the Earth was believed to be flat, and a superstitious priesthood ruled over illiterate peasants.
Is this the same religious school from a few months ago that you had to deal with after returning from Mexicali?
Kvetcher.net has a post today about Kiryas Joel, a Hasidic community in Orange County, New York, which has the highest poverty rate in the U.S. Many on food stamps and other benefits. It's because some of these extreme religious communities don't value work and money, they think if they're spiritual, the other things don't matter.
This is not the school I worked for before, this is a yeshiva in ¨good¨ middle class neighborhood. These schools receive State funding, but according what I see, they are very poor and also the quality of the students, the teachers and the pesonnel is very poor. Apparently the Government has no interest in maintaining or developing this religious educational system, which competes with the regular secular system.
This is what I had suspected. Still, "a mind is a terrible thing to waste".
Anon.
Ah, unserer Yid'n. You have to love them - they are all we have. Your grandfather or great-grandfather was surely one of them, with a big beard and tzitzis and many children. They are the only ones on our side in the demographic wars. Remember that each and every one of their children (or some of them at least) or his children's children has a Yiddische kopf and is capable of joining modern world, bathing and shaving and putting on clean clothes and becoming a water engineer. Your grandchildren on the other hand (if you have any) will become dissolute in the way of Western youth and will reject modern education and join an ashram or some such.
No way, Anonymous. My girls are fired by ambition and study all day and night. No chance they will join an ashram or smoke a joint.
I didn't say your children, I said your grandchildren, and I hope I am wrong, but this is often what happens, unfortunately. We can see with American Jews that each generation is more "American" and less "Jew" and the Asians have taken our place as the ambitious minority. I am also lucky - my daughter is enrolled in something called the "Study of Exceptional Talent", which means that she achieved a high score (over 700 out of 800) on the college entrance exam ----- when she was 12. At the awards ceremony there were a sprinkling of Jews, but mostly Asian and almost all 1st generation Asians - many of the parents barely spoke English.
But let us hope they will take time off the busy machine to have children, themselves.
I think one of the main reasons that female education is despised in some countries is that it is seen as a threat to the fecundity of women. Note the acid in the face incidents in Afghanistan. The demographic implosion in the West, where women are highly educated, would suggest this fear is not misplaced.
How to get the balance right. It lies with the tax system, in my opinion, as well as the culture.
Anon.
How to get the balance right. It lies with the tax system, in my opinion, as well as the culture.
It lies with the state not taking 40% of a man's income! When the state stops taking food off a man's table to feed others then he will have enough to feed a family without his wife working.
I think, in the West at least, it is now time to tax people who have no children, and lighten the load on those who contribute to the future by having a a family.
In this way we tackle the problem from 2 directions simultaneously.
There will be screaming and much public gnashing of teeth, but it will be quietly supported by the silent majority.
Anon.
Taxes (and shaming) have been tried by the Spartans and the Romans under Emperor Augustus. It did not work.
Urban agglomerations are iniquous to human reproduction.
Yes, but lower taxes make it easier for people to live in the country away from cities. If taxes are high then you must live where you will earn the most. When taxes are low you have more freedom of choice.
Anon, I wish there was less of a load, that way I wouldn't be subsidizing other races children. I don't want their money, and I don't want to give them mine.
It worked in what was later to become Quebec.
Anon.
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