Israel’s Looming Economic Disaster Caused Primarily By Haredim
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com
Israel’s Channel 10 News aired an in-depth report on the haredi community and the looming economic disaster it poses for all of Israel. So few haredi men work and so few haredi women earn much more than minimum wage part time, that Israel is now losing billions from its economy. But all of these people have to live, meaning the state has to subsidize at least part of their existence. So much of Israel’s social services budget goes to haredim, making it harder for non-haredi poor to get the support they need to survive.
Arab-Israelis also face high unemployment, but that is primarily due to discrimination, not choice. Many Arab-Israeli families only have one wage earner, who is almost always male, but this is now beginning to change and two-earner families are becoming more common. But as bad as the Arab-Israeli unemployment problem is for Israel’s economy, the haredi problem is much worse. In fact, haredim are now the poorest group in the entire country.
None of this is new, and it’s all been reported on FailedMessiah.com many times.
But the Channel 10 crew went to the haredi city of Bnei Brak and did extensive interviews, including with local haredi leaders. And they found was very interesting.
According to a report in Yeshiva World, Channel 10 went to office of the Degel Hatorah faction of the Ashkenazi haredi United Torah Judaism Party. The faction’s spiritual leader is 101-year-old Rabbi Aharon Leib Steinman. At the office, Channel 10 spoke with Rabbi Menachem Blau, the head of the faction’s modesty committee.
Blau would only agree to speak as a private individual and not as a representative of Degel HaTorah or UTJ. He claimed that many haredi women are working and are earning a real living, and that the facts as presented by the government and by non-governmental organizations and the Bank of Israel are wrong.
Bnei Brak may be the poorest city in Israel according to the Central Bureau of Statistics, Blau said, but it is also the happiest city in the country where families are thriving. In Bnei Brak, haredim live and thrive on their limited incomes. They make it work.
What about the fact that a significant portion of those limited incomes comes from various government welfare programs and government grants?
“We are keeping you alive and supporting you! It is not you who sustains us, as you believe,” Blau insisted, meaning haredi Torah study and prayer were the only reasons Israel exists and thrives, and that non-haredi Israelis should be fawning at the feet of haredi Torah scholars and yeshiva students because of it.
Channel 10 then went on a prearranged tour of the city led by a haredi ‘journalist,’ and the people Channel 10 is taken to interview clearly have been given talking points to follow.
The Rosh Yeshiva of Ponivez (Ponivitch) Dov Pobarsky reportedly told Channel 10 that “[full time] Torah study [for males] is not a new invention, and this is how the Jews lived.”
Of course, the facts are that before World War 2, only a tiny percentage of haredi men – less than 1% – studied in yeshiva full time. Most haredi men worked full time and supported their families. Those who did not work full time were overwhelmingly people who lost their jobs and were unemployed due to the Great Depression and the upheavals in Central and Eastern Europe caused by World War 1 and its aftermath.
The proprietor of a haredi clothing gemach (literally, a free loan fund; in this usage, a store that is open to haredim who study Torah full time and their families, and which sells products at steeply discounted prices). The proprietor also said that haredim make do with what they have and that Bnei Brak is the happiest city in Israel.
Channel 10 then went to a soup kitchen run by Rabbi Simcha Korovsky, where anyone can get a hot meal for 1 shekel (25 cents). Staying true to the talking points, Korovsky also said local haredim are happy and satisfied with their lives.
Then Channel 10 got a random haredi man to speak on camera.
“I want to milk the state, because if I do not take the money it goes to the Bedouins or elsewhere. The government has stolen our budgets and gives us nothing,” the haredi man said.
http://failedmessiah.typepad.com/fa...disaster-caused-primarily-by-haredim-456.html
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com
Israel’s Channel 10 News aired an in-depth report on the haredi community and the looming economic disaster it poses for all of Israel. So few haredi men work and so few haredi women earn much more than minimum wage part time, that Israel is now losing billions from its economy. But all of these people have to live, meaning the state has to subsidize at least part of their existence. So much of Israel’s social services budget goes to haredim, making it harder for non-haredi poor to get the support they need to survive.
Arab-Israelis also face high unemployment, but that is primarily due to discrimination, not choice. Many Arab-Israeli families only have one wage earner, who is almost always male, but this is now beginning to change and two-earner families are becoming more common. But as bad as the Arab-Israeli unemployment problem is for Israel’s economy, the haredi problem is much worse. In fact, haredim are now the poorest group in the entire country.
None of this is new, and it’s all been reported on FailedMessiah.com many times.
But the Channel 10 crew went to the haredi city of Bnei Brak and did extensive interviews, including with local haredi leaders. And they found was very interesting.
According to a report in Yeshiva World, Channel 10 went to office of the Degel Hatorah faction of the Ashkenazi haredi United Torah Judaism Party. The faction’s spiritual leader is 101-year-old Rabbi Aharon Leib Steinman. At the office, Channel 10 spoke with Rabbi Menachem Blau, the head of the faction’s modesty committee.
Blau would only agree to speak as a private individual and not as a representative of Degel HaTorah or UTJ. He claimed that many haredi women are working and are earning a real living, and that the facts as presented by the government and by non-governmental organizations and the Bank of Israel are wrong.
Bnei Brak may be the poorest city in Israel according to the Central Bureau of Statistics, Blau said, but it is also the happiest city in the country where families are thriving. In Bnei Brak, haredim live and thrive on their limited incomes. They make it work.
What about the fact that a significant portion of those limited incomes comes from various government welfare programs and government grants?
“We are keeping you alive and supporting you! It is not you who sustains us, as you believe,” Blau insisted, meaning haredi Torah study and prayer were the only reasons Israel exists and thrives, and that non-haredi Israelis should be fawning at the feet of haredi Torah scholars and yeshiva students because of it.
Channel 10 then went on a prearranged tour of the city led by a haredi ‘journalist,’ and the people Channel 10 is taken to interview clearly have been given talking points to follow.
The Rosh Yeshiva of Ponivez (Ponivitch) Dov Pobarsky reportedly told Channel 10 that “[full time] Torah study [for males] is not a new invention, and this is how the Jews lived.”
Of course, the facts are that before World War 2, only a tiny percentage of haredi men – less than 1% – studied in yeshiva full time. Most haredi men worked full time and supported their families. Those who did not work full time were overwhelmingly people who lost their jobs and were unemployed due to the Great Depression and the upheavals in Central and Eastern Europe caused by World War 1 and its aftermath.
The proprietor of a haredi clothing gemach (literally, a free loan fund; in this usage, a store that is open to haredim who study Torah full time and their families, and which sells products at steeply discounted prices). The proprietor also said that haredim make do with what they have and that Bnei Brak is the happiest city in Israel.
Channel 10 then went to a soup kitchen run by Rabbi Simcha Korovsky, where anyone can get a hot meal for 1 shekel (25 cents). Staying true to the talking points, Korovsky also said local haredim are happy and satisfied with their lives.
Then Channel 10 got a random haredi man to speak on camera.
“I want to milk the state, because if I do not take the money it goes to the Bedouins or elsewhere. The government has stolen our budgets and gives us nothing,” the haredi man said.
http://failedmessiah.typepad.com/fa...disaster-caused-primarily-by-haredim-456.html
