Elsi writes:

I just read your essay of several weeks ago about the Orthodox Jewish neighborhood in Montreal.  Lakewood, New Jersey has another large Haredi settlement, and I have so much wished I could live with that kind of community, neighborliness, support, and abundance of generations.  Ethnicity and religion make for those bonds.  Ethnic Catholics used to be like that, but before my time and I am a deracinated suburbanite.

You ask, “How can they afford such large families?”   In many cases, public assistance – food stamps, section 8, Medicaid, as well as some charity from wealthy Jewish benefactors.  There is a huge Haredi mutual support network for emergencies, but non-emergency reliance on welfare is accepted, in part because the gentiles are seen as the other, alien.  When I walked through Lakewood, only the teenage girls would look at me and greet me.  I understand the prohibitions against men looking at women, but the grown women and the young children looked past me as if I were not there, and I am a middle-aged, unthreatening, modestly dressed woman.

In New Jersey, there are wealthy Haredi communities like Deal, and mixed rich and poor like Lakewood, where many men attend seminary for years while their wives work part-time as teachers in the religious schools. Some couples are not legally married – they have a religious marriage only, which allows for more welfare.  I am a nurse and have seen many women in their late twenties, early thirties having their sixth baby or so on the state health insurance.

Kiryas Joel, another Haredi village, in upstate New York has close to the highest poverty rate in the US.  About half its population speaks English poorly or not at all and do not have job skills that would serve them outside the village.  New Jersey just had its latest corruption scandal which included Haredi rabbis making money-laundering deals.   Their strong community is enviable, but is strong in part because of the antipathy to those outside the community.  

Laura writes:

Just to clarify for readers, Haredi and Hasidic Judaism are both forms of ultra-Orthodox Judaism, with most Hasidic groups falling under the umbrella of Haredi Judaism. For further details of both, you can go here, here and here. There are distinctions among different sects within ultra-Orthodox Jews and, as in all communities, subgroups and synagogues bear the stamp and influence of personalities and individual leaders. There are about half a million Hasidic Jews, similar to those in Lakewood and Montreal, worldwide.

These ultra-Orthodox Jews explicitly believe in separation from modern society. Hence the aloofness in the women Elsi mentions.  This is very obvious in walking through their neighborhoods. As an outsider, you are invisible. There is no hostility toward you, but no warmth either. Something of the same coldness, though not as strong, is apparent in Amish women. The Amish also maintain a culture radically at odds with the surrounding society.

It is not possible to arrive at this different way of life and to maintain social cohesion without some form of aloofness toward the rest of the world. On the other hand, such groups must maintain good relations with outsiders or they face tensions. Whatever they do, it seems there would always be a measure of awkwardness in their social interactions with others. How could it be otherwise?

Elsi raises important points about the financial realities of Orthodox Jews. The use of welfare is wrong and of course the welfare system itself is wrong in providing assistance to women with children, except in the event of death of a husband. This system only encourages abuses and has led to illegitimacy and single mothers in other communities. It’s interesting. Welfare has helped destroy the black family; for Orthodox Jews, it’s helped to save it. In both cases, it is wrong and defeats the supposed intention of public assistance, which was orginally to help women who had no other possible means of support.

No matter what financial circumstances the Hasidic Jews faced, it is hard to imagine that they wouldn’t place reverence for God and maintenance of family as their highest priorities. Of course, it is an explicit violation of their religious tenets to achieve these things in unethical ways, through theft and extortion. I admire their priorities, not always the way they are achieved. 

I think the important point is that no group can maintain its distinct culture and the sort of thriving neighborhoods both Elsi and I have seen without a firm belief that the sexes have distinct roles to play and a conscious awareness of the family as the fundamental social unit. No group can maintain its distinct approach to life unless it possesses a strong sense that culture does not just happen but must be deliberately maintained from generation to generation.

It is interesting to note that the Amish have mantained strong families without resorting to public assistance. Apparently, in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, the hospitals are among the economically healthiest in the nation because, even though they possess no health insurance, the Amish pay their bills in cash. There is an established system of communal support for these expenses. The Amish are admirable for achieving economic independence, not just cultural separation. They have done this through agriculture and small businesses. In recent years, the Amish have done modestly well in the construction industry, with small, family-owned businesses.

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