There is a shocking ignorance about Orthodox Jews (Haredim). The fishwrap we read at home, HaAretz, treats them as an alien race, barely human and formed from a different clay than the secular Israeli. Being from another generation, I remember how thin and aleatory was the fate that made one man a Haredi and his brother a kibbutznik. Example: Dov Lior. After the war he found himself an orphan and attempted to board the Exodus, eventually arriving on the Negba. He Hebraized his galuth name Leibland to the Zionist Lior. By sheer chance he "was cought" by a yeshive, while his two brothers joined the communist Hashomer Hatzair kibbutz HaMa'apilim (in post-war Germany, the pic shows Kibbutz Buchenwald). It could have easily been different. Today, he has eleven children and over fifty grandchildren; his brothers the kibbutzniks, less if any. When I made aliyah, I could have easily settled in Meah Shearim with my uncle, but got a good job in Tahal in Tel Aviv.
35 comments:
It is simplistic to measure the quality of an individual's life in the number of children he has. Some people enjoy experiences and live full lives without having children. By the time the descendants could bring any real evolutionary dominance about, you or any such patriarch would be dead and forgotten for centuries or millennia and totally unable to enjoy any aspect of it. You must also consider that to support even 5 children plus a wife would present a crushing financial burden to a middle class person. Granted, the haredim/hasidim don't spend on secular education, but the consequence is that their children have far fewer options in life. Not all will be poor, but significantly higher proportions will be poor than among the secular.
K is right that you really show your hypocrisy here, J. You just want to be a big man, Africa-style. So what if every cog in the machine (great-grandchild) has to live in poverty.
You can enjoy your life via consumption as opposed to production (of children or whatever)-nobody is stopping you. I personally find it simplistic to measure the quality of an individual's life on the credentials he has accumulated, the luxuries he has been able to acquire, etc.
As far as grandchildren living in poverty, you seem to view economics as a zero-sum game, instead of seeing that high-quality people create wealth instead of merely consuming it. You yourself are the great-grandchild of Orthodox Jews, and exist only because they prioritized making children over acquiring useless shit.
High-quality people create wealth only in the right circumstances. From the late medieval period onwards, the Jewish communities of Europe largely turned their back on secular studies and by the time the Enlightenment rolled through, the Jewish communities were comparatively poor and backward, excepting some of the rare, rich (and closet assimilated) court Jews. Haredism and hasidism of today has too many parallels to the spirit of the backward and ignorant period of European Jewry to assume that high quality people in every generation will have a chance to rise. More likely only a few every few centuries and only be escaping the strictures of ultra-Orthodoxy.
High-quality people create SOMETHING, whether physical or spiritual, unless the environment around them is so bad that their efforts get sucked into survival. From the late medieval period to the Enlightenment, the Jewish communities of East Europe were trying to keep their eyes from getting fucked out of their skulls.
A life dedicated to pleasures or climbing the social pyramid is utterly pointless.
A life lived in poverty dedicated to nothing but pumping out children condemned to ignorance and poverty is almost animalistic and no better. Not all secular pursuits are so easily dismissed as "pleasures or climbing the social pyramid." Secular education occasionally yields a von Karman, von Neumannn or an Einstein. Narrow study of the Talmud does not. Had their ancestors not escaped the grip of Orthodoxy, their achievements would never have come to pass.
The great failure of the Goyim West has been the inability to achieve the right balance between the struggle to accumulate "useless shit", on the one hand, and the need to procreate, on the other hand.
Part of this is that we are too driven by instinct, and our instincts to accumulate were honed by centuries of relative deprivation; so we have not been equipped with an off-switch.
Paradoxically, the more intelligent of us are worst affected, since we tend to delay child-bearing until we are financially secure, which takes far too long in today's knowledge-driven economies; especially for women.
Our production of enormously talented people is quite rare, and is driven, I have come to believe, more by the genetic roulette than by years of status-education. More children is thus better than fewer, even if it necessitates modest poverty.
I shudder to think of all our geniuses, who remained unborn because their high-IQ parents were ruled by anxiety or the propaganda of selfishness which passes for modern society.
Anon.
I don't disagree about the role of genetics/nature vs. nurture. I don't think it's only the enriched environment provided by well-to-do secular households that allows achievement. On the other hand, the restrictive and isolated religion-only education of the haredim and hasidim is enough to destroy the possibilities for achievement. Someone may have innate physics ability, but he's not likely to demonstrate it much less contribute to knowledge if he has no formal education in the discipline. If it were simply a matter of numbers, where are all the haredi/hasidic geniuses who have contributed to civilization beyeond the realm of religion? Where were they in pre-War Poland?
It is obviously a question of striking the right balance.
Anon.
It is impossible to logically determine a balance. We seem to have been put together in such a way that attempts to logically control society and humans which put reason and logic first degenerate into bloody chaos or gray amorphy, leaving the survivors much degraded. Look at the entire 20th century's stock of experiments.
The Chasidim I know do not provide their children with a restricted environment, and their children do not appear to be suffering from sensory deprivation. A childhood spent exposed to complex abstractions is probably more conducive to future secular success than one spent in the virtual company of Lady Gaga and the Kardashians.
Perhaps the chasidim that you know are the exceptions, but there are many haredi and chasidic schools in NYC that pay only lip service to secular education and only because the government requires it. Most of the time and energy of the students is devoted to Talmud study. This is one short write-up covering the issue of minimal seducation among the ultra-Orthodox:
http://failedmessiah.typepad.com/failed_messiahcom/2011/04/the-scandal-of-hasidic-education-678.html
When I was at Columbia Law School in NY, one of my fellow students was a yeshiva bocher and I had the impression that law school was no great challenge for him - he had been studying legal questions all his life (is the egg laid on Shabbos kosher?). On the other hand, he was the only yeshiva bocher there.
K
Only the ones with good command of English could even contemplate becoming lawyers, K. Not that there are any jobs for new graduates.
There are a lot of articles out there about the terrible state od secular education among the ultra-Orthodox. Here is another summary from the Failed Messiah blog (run by an ex-chasid):
Exposé: The Haredi School Scam
http://failedmessiah.typepad.com/failed_messiahcom/2010/07/expos%C3%A9-the-haredi-school-scam-234.html
Getting your opinion of the Hasidim from FM is like trying to figure out white people by watching COPS.
I don't think taking their word on these issues is any less biased, just differently biased.
B,
The haredim and chasidim that you know have done a good job of snowing you. Yes, FM plays up every possible scandal in the ultra-Orthodox community, but they do have their share of scandals which would otherwise be covered up. Their intentional failure to give their children even basic secular education is one of them.
Their dedication to snowing me must be phenomenal-unrelated groups have had me over for Shabbat innumerable times, let me stay in their homes for weeks at a time and kept my stuff including guns and thousands of dollars in silver for almost half a year when I went to Afghanistan, yet I've never seen this side of them in their interactions with me or each other. Then again, I'm a notorious sweetheart and soft touch, gullible and easily taken in. Of course, they might be waiting for me to drop my guard so they can steal my organs...
OK, organ-stealing was not the kind of scandal to which I was referring, and the scandals themselves are not universal. I'm sure there are kind ultra-Orthodox people, and you have met some of them. Regardless, as a non-believer whose values clearly differ from yours, I do not think it is a great idea for secular Jews to adopt Orthodox ways.
I would say that the Orthodox yeshive-bocher K met in Columbia is different from the current variety of Orthodox. The Haredi community of today is much stricter and dedicated that it was twenty or twenty five years ago. One can see this hardening by comparing conversion procedures then and now, or the documents demanded from potential olim (immigrants) to prove their Judaism. The leftist anti-Zionist HaAretz loves to publish case-studies of nice people rejected by the Rabbanut and expulsed from the country together with their children born and bred in Israel. For example a French lady living here for a generation, expulsed after divorce from his Jewish husband. I presume these cases have a political background, as the Oriental rabbis are intent on reducing the Ashkenazi or semi-
Ashkenazi European population while increasing the Ethiopians in Israel, which are considered and vote as Sepharadim.
I presume these cases have a political background, as the Oriental rabbis are intent on reducing the Ashkenazi or semi-
Ashkenazi European population while increasing the Ethiopians in Israel, which are considered and vote as Sepharadim.
This is nonsense. If Ethiopians are being left alone it's only because the Lithuanian and Hassidic rabbis (who are the ones driving Haredi extremism 95% of the time) don't want to get into a fight with Rav Ovadia.
"I would say that the Orthodox yeshive-bocher K met in Columbia is different from the current variety of Orthodox. The Haredi community of today is much stricter and dedicated that it was twenty or twenty five years ago."
All the more reason not to get caught in their undertow. The likelihood that their population will produce secular geniuses who defect is even lower than before because they are intent not just on keeping but on trapping their young in the ultra-Orthodox world. Israel under their rule will certainly be poorer and probably less secure if the secular Jews who work on weapons design decide to leave.
IHTG
The Ministry of Interior is in the hands of Shas and discriminates against Europeans. The RAbbanut HaRashit is fifty fifty and logically, fifty percent of the European converts are sent to Sepharadi Rabbis that treat them with utter contempt and cruelty.
J,
Sounds like excellent grounds to fight for separation of synagogue and state. The survival of Ashkenazim and the prosperity of Israel may depend on it.
"The survival of Ashkenazim"? I thought you didn't care about whether your grandkids were Jewish, so what do you care about whether the Israel of the future is populated by Sephardim exclusively (as though that were possible-what, is Ovadia Yosef gonna fly around at night and eat Ashkenazi children?)
In my "biglaw" practice group, we have many Jews, of course, but in particular there are 3 young Orthodox Jewish associates. All men, all "modern Orthodox" without earlocks, all with at least 4 kids. They are good and they work hard.
I really don't know much about their upbringings - one doesn't want to pry - but they all send all their kids to day school, of course. One of them was a dedicated fencer, which might have surprised me had I not known a mashgiach whose yeshiva had weightlifting as a required PE activity for certification purposes...
-s.n.
B,
I don't live in Israel and am not religious, so I will grant that this issue doesn't have much effect on me. J, however, is an Israeli Ashkenazi. Perhaps he would prefer that some of his grandchildren be pure Ashkenazim and that the Ashkenazim continue to be a dominant force in Israel. If the structure of the state rabbinate enhances the ability of the Sephardim to fight Ashkenazi interests, the Ashkenazi population might benefit from separation of synagogue and state to deflate them a bit.
As an outsider, let me offer my sixpence' worth: to the extent that Israel's survival depends on friendly relations with the USA, then it depends on the Ashkenazim.
WASPs and other white Americans would not be prepared to make an economic or indeed any kind of sacrifice for a Sephardic Israel.
They would not be antagonistic, but would not put themselves out.
IMHO.
Anon.
US support costs Israel more in terms of lost sovereignity and forced concessions to its enemies than it benefits it.
But the U.S.' UN Security Council veto has come in handy a few times as has its willingness to sell weapons. Also, don't forget Nixon's decisive aid during the Yom Kippur War either. I would agree that Israel doesn't need the annual foreign aid and that the U.S. can no longer afford to provide it.
About wishing my granchildren be Ashkenazim. I have lost all influence on that issue. My town is very liberal and mixed, so I dont even dream of it. It is impossible.
In my daughters fencing club, there was one Orthodox family. Although not a traditional pursuit for the frum (to say the least), it is not unkosher to engage in. On the other hand, fencing attracts a surprising number of non-frum Jews. It was popular in Russia and a lot of the US fencers are Russian (and in the US most Russian immigrants are Jewish). It's a sport that rewards intelligence rather than just brute strength or speed.
K
This applies to all kinds of fencing.
Anon.
I think there are issues of tzniut, no? I haven't seen any fencers wearing dresses. Kendo, on the other hand, should be fine, I think-they wear hakama.
Fencers are dressed in white padded kits with masks that hide their face, so it should be OK from the tzniyut aspect. Now fashion is invading the arena and colored kits gave started appearing at American competitions. It is said that Theodor Herzl started the Jewish fencing craze in Viennese universities just to show the proto-nazi students that Jews can be as stupid as they were. Soon the Jews outfenced everybody and cut their faces, to the point that no one wanted to accept their challenges. I read that in Arthur Koestler's autobiography.
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