Category — Economics

Maryland, outside of the few DC metro lines, is impossible to get around without a car, and the commute is often unbearable. Bal-Wash is a parking lot during the extended rush hours.

Ken Ulman, of the Baltimore Regional Transportation Board, wants to change that. He wants to help.

“Some people feel we can build our way out of this by building more roads, but that’s a shortsighted focus,” Ulman said.

Instead, he wants to designate “$340 million in future state transportation funding for mass transit projects.”

But as the Baltimore Sun reports, some Maryland Republicans have a better idea. Just build more roads. Because that is working so well.

But last week, officials who represent Howard’s rural areas decried the change, saying it was unfair for their constituents to pay gasoline taxes to fund mass transit that they rarely use.

“It sounds like some Marylanders are going to get a free ride at the expense of others,” fumed Del. Warren E. Miller, a western county Republican who says gasoline tax money ought to go exclusively to highways. Transit should be funded separately, he said.

Miller, Del. Gail H. Bates and Sen. Allan H. Kittleman, all Republicans, said that despite high gas prices and growing demand for bus and train service and parking, transit passengers should pay more through higher fares, which cover less than half the cost of the service.

“Oh, come on. We’re going to be putting in more mass transit that doesn’t even begin to pay for itself?” Bates asked. “I think we’re slighting my taxpayers.”

In fact, it is the people who drive who would be getting the free ride if they don’t put in tax dollars. Mass transit is unique in that it benefits even those who don’t partake in it, because they enjoy less traffic and less pollution.

And that’s just some of the local benefits.

Ken Ulman is taking a risk to help people even though the benefits may not be felt fully for decades. And unfortunately, that makes him unique for an elected public official, as there is pressure to prefer enacting policies and programs whose benefits manifest earlier, as they translate into re-election easier. Instead, Ulman has placed the long-term needs of the constituency he serves above his own short-term ones.

And that kind of makes him a hero. And one day, I wouldn’t be surprised if some public works or building is named after him.

JTA’s The Fundermentalist reports,

“The Israeli economy, despite all of the hoopla and excitement over foreign investment and the rising shekel, is a bubble that is going to pop,” [Landa] said.[...]

The gap between the wealthy and the poor is rapidly growing, and the majority of the poor are Israeli Arabs and Charedi Jews – two sectors that can cause considerable unrest.

Only 37 percent of Israelis actually work, he said, compared to the United States, where 50 percent of the population works. (He warned against looking at the unemployment rate, which only measures the percentage of those who have actually worked before who have jobs.)

Understand…haredim don’t work because their leaders don’t want them working. How do they justify this bizarre and quite recent phenomenon? By claiming it is “an emergency situation,” today being so spiritually dangerous that one cannot be a functional human being. True, in every generation in the past, people got up and went to work…BUT WE ARE NOT ON THEIR LEVEL! THE GENERATIONS HAVE FALLEN!

Today, one must be exceedingly cautious even before scratching his balls, while before, one could at least do some light bookkeeping. Today, one must sit in the Middle Eastern heat in black clothes and a black hat and avoid a career and even a job, lest someone sees someone else wearing something somewhere who says something and then at some point something happens.

These are the people whom secular and Modern Orthodox Israelis are expected to be increasingly sensitive to.

Increasingly large sectors of Traditional Judaism just get more and more dysfunctional. They are functionally retarded.

I heard through the grapevine that friends of Gitty Grunwald are exploring options to sue the Satmar community of KJ in Monroe. KJ pressured Gitty to get engaged, and then they expelled her from school for being engaged. Gitty does not have the degree nor the education needed for vocational success. The only thing these KJ Satmar people are trained for is to be ultra-Orthodox fanatics, so they can pay for those individuals who decide they want to burn in hell and do something else.

If you or someone you know would take this case on consignment, please contact me, and I will pass along your information to those who need to know.

Our frum friend Ron Coleman wrote a piece on Beyond BT (the baal teshuvah blog) called “Considerations When Taking on New Chumras,” about whether one “should or should not consider personal pleasure and desire when making those choices.” As an emblematic example (not meant for specific discussion) Ron mentioned the stringency of only consuming cholov yisroel products, dairy products produced from a cow that was milked under Jewish supervision (some very pious Jews do not trust a gentile to milk a cow, and apparently, this makes them holier yidden).

Of course, some flamers came out for this one.

EPA18 wrote,

A friend of yours in your community was once in the apartment of the late Rabbi Shimon Schwab, ztl. When Rov Schwab heard that the individual did not keep cholov yisroel he became quite agitated, and asked “How could you not keep cholov yisroel!!!” Surely, Rov Schwab knew all about Reb Moshe’s position on the issue. But times had changed, and the easy availability of cholov yisroel products in the New York area no doubt caused Rov Schwab to believe that Reb Moshe might have held differently nowadays, at least for those in the NY/NJ area.

Wait. There’s more. Ready?

Surely the individual involved enjoyed his haagen-dazs at the time, but he did change and ever since has been keeping cholov yisroel. We all made sacrifices on our way to becoming frum. But how often do you stop and think (at this point), “Boy, what I would do right now for a good lobster bisque?” It’s probably the same with taking on something like cholov yisroel. With the passage of time, the desire for non-cholov yisroel products wanes, especially when you - Ron - have a wonderful kosher supermarket in your town, which carries numerous cholov yisroel products, the quality of which, over the years, has definitely improved.

So at that point, as I am sure you can imagine, I was all ready to throw away all my mezuzas own “cholov stam” products -– and fuck it, my TV too, and I don’t even have cable — when Ron, who brought this whole issue up in the first place, and “cholov yisroel” as a neutral – no judgments, “what do you think?” example, wrote,

My personal experience, frankly, is that CY products are really overpriced and the milk goes sour as soon as I open it. I felt that I was being exploited during a certain period when I endeavored to buy CY where it was available even though I was not strict about the matter. I decided to stop being exploited.

So I guess Ron’s point – since he brought it up, and since he brought up CY as the emblematic example of stringencies as well…is that chumras are stupid and exploitive.

The NY Post may have got the story, but the JTA, in its spanking new column, “The Fundermentalist,” crashes the cymbal with, “Man Bilks Dog.”

Leona Helmsley’s pooch *only* gets $100,000 for round the clock security, and that’s just one annual expense among many.

Pretty funny, right?

But this isn’t funny…the JDC is suffering from the weakness of the dollar and troubled economic times…and so are its clients. 32,000 elderly Jews in Russia “have been shaved from the JDC rolls of those who received aid since 2006, when the number peaked at 220,000, JDC officials said.”

Not good.

And it isn’t just the elderly.

In addition to cutbacks on social services to the elderly, JDC also has cut back dramatically on Jewish identity programs such as arts festivals and education activities.

In Moscow, communitywide Jewish outreach to the unaffiliated has been significantly reduced, according to a JDC impact assessment provided to JTA.

Guest post by Sarah/Froylein

Being taken to task for something I haven’t neither said nor insinuated, namely that single motherhood means a lot of work and that there are situations in which single motherhood becomes inevitable, and, as a Chinese proverb says, “The hit dog barks”, and I’ve obviously hit a weak spot there, I’d like to add my two cents worth from my personal, private perspective as well from the perspective of one involved in education and educational research. Please bear in mind, my focus are the children and what’s been proved to be good for them. At the end, I’ll add a few thoughts on relationships that just reflect my personal views.

First of all, to set the terminology straight, there’s a word for being proud of something one hasn’t achieved oneself respectively being excessively proud of one’s achievement; it’s called “vanity“. One may be happy, glad etc., but “pride“ semantically as well as philosophically (theologically as well for religious people) serves a highly limited purpose. So people won’t jump at me out of misconception, while I don’t see single motherhood a reason to be prouder than single fatherhood or single parenthood, I also don’t aim to undermine the efforts of parenthood in general. And indeed, I’ve got single mothers in my family as well (two of my cousins are single mothers); my great-great-grandmother raised seven kids by herself – and ran a farm – after her husband had died in an accident when their youngest was only two months old, my great-grandmother’s as well as my father’s mother both died when they were young; a considerable number of my students are single mothers. But that doesn’t make me an expert on single motherhood or single fatherhood.

There are, however, studies one can concern oneself or get involved with that help comparing the different types of parenthood and their educational outcomes at a larger scale. There are a few premises though one needs to lay out when it comes to educational research:
a) everybody believes to be an expert on education as everybody has been educated in some way or has educated in some way;
b) people, unless suffering from depressions, tend to think of themselves as having turned out well, so are not likely to admit having lacked something in their education;
c) people that have educated will more likely find excuses for mishaps than admit to having made mistakes;
d) if educational outcome as well as a trackable on-time maturing process can be determinants of successful parenting, then one must try to determine not only by subjectively surveying but actually researching the relation between family background, educational outcome, and children’s developmental processes (as e.g. PISA and its accompanying studies have done);
e) there always are exceptions to the empirical rule, but, as we say in German, exceptions serve to prove a rule right.

Firstly, why would single motherhood, or single parenthood for that matter, be a reason to be proud? If we can determine pride as happiness over one’s personal achievements, which compare to be higher / of higher quality than others’ achievements, and if there is emphasis placed on the validity / legitimacy of single mothers being proud of being just that, this suggests that parenthood delivered by two caregivers results in fewer or no achievements, hence requires less or no efforts and work from both or either partner. But then, a study that has recently been reported on on the news for instance emphasized that married women with children spend the highest amount of numbers on housework compared to single parents and single adults without children; the women surveyed generally pursued jobs. Anybody who has been in a solid one-on-one relationship for a period of time long enough to go beyond the phase of being in-love (one to four years in general) knows that maintaining a satisfactory loving relationship is “day labour” (R.M. Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet) and requires time and effort on a daily basis. It requires willingness to compromise just as much as to subject oneself to the other’s needs. (More thoughts on relationships below; feel free to grab something to drink before you read on.) Ergo, relationships are time- and energy-consuming.

Secondly, does single parenthood produce the same outcome as “dual” parenthood? As much as a few politicians over here try to make people believe just that, educational research says, “Decidedly no.” The evaluations of multi-national studies (e.g. PISA, IGLU) have clearly shown that children raised by single parents rank decisively lower in educational outcome than their peers with both parents. The reason for that, so the researchers concluded after extensive follow-up studies, was that single parents in Western societies are a) more likely to be found in environments of lower educational backgrounds, and b) parents of lower educational backgrounds in general are less likely to emphasize the importance of learning and / or are less able to support their children’s studying, e.g. by supervising their homework.

Thirdly, how do single parents compensate? While I don’t have the slightest doubt that most single parents try the best they can, I cannot help but wonder why I am supposed to consider this an outstanding achievement as I also think that the majority of parents in general try the best they can to deliver care for their children. Children’s developmental psychologists clearly state that children need both parents, a father and a mother, all the way to adulthood. I certainly do understand and feel for single parents that have lost a partner to unexpected circumstances, but that demographic makes only a minimal percentage of single parents in Western post-industrialized societies. Ideally, educational and psychological research tell us, children grow up in families with one stay-at-home parent, at least until the children get into secondary school. The advantages of those conventional family structures are obvious as it has been shown that children in such families are more likely to get instructed in scholarly and non-scholarly activities, receive regular and more wholesome meals, have got a fixed person to relate to etc. The choice single parents have to make is whether they want to be stay-at-home parents, and consequently rely on others’ funding (be it family or welfare) or working parents, and consequently miss out on much-needed interaction between them and their children and rely on others’ help. Single parents often claim their children learn to stand on their own feet more quickly, but is that really desirable? Also, does having to be self-reliant equal to maturity?
Pre-WW2, children were considered “little adults”, which reflected in the clothing as well in parents’ position on child labour; children were considered their parents’ property, that was used to contribute to the family’s budget. Things only changed gradually when mandatory school education (up to age 13 / 14 in most Western European countries) was introduced. Yet, most children (whose parents could either not afford or actually see the need for secondary education) were thrown into adult work life at age 18. We now know that depriving a child of a gradual maturing process is a way of mind-control and access to manipulation that particularly totalitarian states of 20th century Europe made use of: WW1 saw youths quitting school to sign up with the military, the Nazis as well as the GDR and Soviet communists highlighted the social role of “the worker” over that of a member of the intelligentsia, spoon-feeding that ideology into kids from small on in more-than-less mandatory youth organizations. For a large part of the 20th century, children were deprived of their childhood. Putting a child in a position where it has to “mature” young, i.e. to act like an adult before reaching adulthood – which not necessarily means that a child needs to serve as a soldier – , is not only counter-productive and at large odds possibly harmful to the child’s development, but in terms of what self-acclaimed feminists try to sell to the public, it’s retrogressive, not progressive. I’d strongly wish for the selfish feminist movement that has taken chokehold of the Women’s Rights movement (which placed great emphasis on the welfare of the children cf. the motivations of the Abolitionists and the early organized Jewish women’s trade unions) to focus more on children and their needs as any call for self-fulfilment, IMHO, becomes nil and void if I am not ready to grant the basis needed for self-fulfilment to those I am responsible for.

Another way of compensating a lot of self-acclaimed “progressive” politicians promote over here is full-day daycare delivered by public institutions. I come from the country where kindergartens were invented, but there also was another invention that would become the standard in the former GDR, namely “Kinderhort”, full-day public childcare institutions. How do both kinds of institutions compare? Generally, children enter kindergarten at about age four and go there half-days until they start primary school; kindergarten is voluntary, but many parents opt to send their children there so the little ones may learn to get along within larger groups of same-age peers before starting school. Kindergarten teachers are well-trained professionals (one year of practical training prior and after three years of college) that not only learn about entertaining children but how to evaluate and, if need be, support developmental processes. Now more and more kindergartens are required to offer places for babies and toddlers, some even offer over-night facilities. Particularly the places for babies are limited as newborns, naturally, need a lot of extra cost-, effort- and time-consuming care. Two females in my family happen to run kindergartens. (They’re either public or church- / synagogue-run here, but since there’s a mutual agreement between state and religious bodies, all kindergartens are open to all children; a fee of roughly $150/month is asked from parents for the childcare delivered there; parents that cannot afford this get subsidiary payments from the state.) Both independently report that the lower the age children start kindergarten, the lower their communicative, social, sensory, motor skills are. Both also independently report that the vast majority of parents signing up their newborns and toddlers for kindergarten care are non-working single mothers that express a need “to get a little extra sleep” before dropping their kids off at the kindergarten entrance. Kinderhort was generally attended by children from the cradle on; caregivers there usually were more trained in party doctrine than in children’s education. The Communist ideal of “free love” discouraged traditional marriage and family structures and denounced them as “reactionary”.

Educational researchers regard not only the ailing economy in the former GDR as an important contributor to political extremism, particularly on the right-wing end of the political sphere, but also Kinderhort education as children there, unlike children raised in traditional family structures, did not learn from role models about respect, conflict management, establishing a communicative culture etc. This goes in line with the findings of Adorno, who conducted a series of studies after WW2 on how family structures influence a child’s development to xenophobia / racism. Not only to the researchers’ astonishment, mothers perceived as non-loving, rejecting, and / or emotionally or physically violent were determined more decisive factors in racist youths’ developmental paths than physically violent fathers.

Now, back to the initial question, when comparing single parenthood and “dual” parenthood in conventional family structures regarding trackable on-time maturing process with the aim of letting children grow up to be mature adults, the latter beats the former hands-down.

Just to avoid any misunderstandings, I do believe any child is better off being raised by a gay couple or a single parent in Western Europe than rotting away at a foster home in Romania, but research has clearly shown there is a family pattern that has proved to be best for children’s development. It irks me to hear sentences that start with, “Considering she’s a single mother, she does fine…”.

Considering I’m not a multi-millionaire, I’ve got a few rather expensive hobbies. Considering I’m not a nuclear physicist by trade, I think I should be awarded the Nobel Prize. Considering I’m a female, I did a pretty good job peeing my boyfriend’s name into the snow (hypothetically; I’d never actually do that). Catch my drift? As long as the premise is a “No, but…”-excuse, there’s admittance of something to be lacking. From my point of view, with children being the focus, to add such a premise as the reason for being proud is just as absurd as my analogies. Why be proud of something if all one can deliver is “not the best, but…”? Be happy, glad, joyful, elated, euphoric about single mothers managing at parenting. But proud? On a theological note, in Judaism as well as in Christianity, pride is considered a sin (Ancient philosophers considered it a vice); it leads to hubris, decadence, and, if you believe in the existence of a superior being, blasphemy. Our elders used “pride” sparsely, maybe because they were simply raised that way, but maybe also because they understood that concept. In these days and age, where everything is extra-, hyper-, mega-, über-[add quantifier of choice], plain “joy” obviously doesn’t do the trick for many anymore.

I’d like to add that the comment this response is referring to makes statements about my actual persona that one cannot necessarily deduct from my comments or my posts on Jewlicious. While I may be the only blogger on there that has ever simultaneously worn more than half a dozen pieces of body jewellery and has donned dark blue hair for an extended period of time, my views on families have become rather traditional over the years through what I do and what I’ve come to understand. The comment this response is referring to also wishes for me never to be in certain situations without any evidence that I’d actually never been in such or similar situations. Also, I don’t believe in kharma, and if disagreeing with someone will puncture what others believe to be my kharma until it is perforated like toilet paper, so be it.

To shed some light onto the dark, I’ve been in a relationship with the same man for almost nine years. As in all relationships of substance, we’ve had our ups and downs, the distance of 3,800 miles occasionally adding to that. Since we both were into education when we met (as a good Ashkenazi diaspora Jew, he’s now in business), there was a mutual understanding not to rush into founding a family until we’d both established ourselves in life, thus building a solid foundation. Neither of us is perfect, but we see beauty in the respective other’s imperfection. He’s stubborn, I’m emotional. He hates pasta, I can see myself eating pasta three times a day, calling it “a happy day”. He dresses, uhmmm, conservatively, I love fashion. He’s forgotten my birthday five years in a row, I always make sure to remember his. But those points – while have been considered valid reasons for divorce in US courts (and that’s where most single parents come from) – are way below secondary. To love a person means to provide them with a space where they can be vulnerable in without being hurt. To love a person with every fibre of your being means to not let stand your vanities in the way of giving your partner that one happy smile. To love a person means to complement, and at that strengthening, each other. To love a person means going out of your way without gauging the value of what you’ll get in return. To love a person often means just being “there”, wherever that may be.

In those nine years, we had to struggle with a life-threatening medical condition on his part that lasted for about three years. All details aside, particularly then, I spent a lot of time and money on being overseas, often straining my resources to the max. During that time, a lot of people recommended a break-up to me, highlighting the inconveniences and the low odds of complete recovery. I argued that if I didn’t stick up to my partner in rough times, I didn’t deserve him in good times either. To put it into Shakespeare’s words:

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
(Sonnet 116)

And that’s exactly where I see many relationships failing. Life can’t always be pancakes and lollipops. The feeling of being in love gradually gets replaced by the more substantial feeling of love, and most divorced couples that I know married before that substantial feeling set in. Divorce stats from the US I read last year indicated people mostly get divorced over trivial matters or out of convenience. Domestic abuse only made a minimal percentage of reasons for divorce. People get married to someone they consider “cute” and not too long afterwards get divorced when “cuteish” has turned into “annoying”. That is also where the nasty divorces stem from. People that have never really loved each other will not shy away from causing each other harm if it is to their benefit. Unfortunately, there often have kids been set into this world on the way from Cloud Number Nine to the divorce courts, and it’s the children that suffer the consequences of their parents’ dysfunctional marriage, one way or another. These days, early to mid twenties are those years when young adults change the most, when they get into professions and thus establish new social environments and, likely, interests. The situation is not like 80 years back, when an 18-year-old had already been a breadwinner for four years. People get older now, the phases of life get more outstretched, they mentally mature more slowly. That’s why I, for my part, find events irresponsible that are there to encourage, more than less rush or even guilt, young people into marriages before they’ve established themselves in life.

Also, people should reflect on what marriage means to them and what it’s supposed to be about. If it’s all about kitschy celebrations and a large choice of desserts, go visit Disneyland Paris. If it’s all about financial security despite equality of chances, go get a job. If it’s all about outdoing your friends as the first one to get married, go move to Central Africa; girls there usually get married off once they reach reproductive age. If it’s all about pleasing your parents, go grow up. If it’s all about getting hands on a certain guy before anybody else can, regardless of emotions, go see a shrink about narcissism.
Back in the days of King Solomon, weddings constituted out of sexual intercourse. If we re-understand the binding qualities and responsibilities that (can) come with sex, maybe we’ll also get a more responsible and mature grasp on relationships. But don’t let kids pay the price. And don’t celebrate those that have their kids pay the price. That is Kafkaesque.

Tired of the corporate rat race? Ever want to try something different? Well, have we got the perfect new career path for you. You can earn five whole dollars an hour working for Rubashkin, the kosher meat guys!

Failed Messiah reports,

A plant employee identified as “Source 11” told authorities that he/she was hired without presenting employment documents or filling out any forms. The worker’s first paycheck had a different person’s name on it, which was then cashed at another part of the plant.

Undocumented workers were paid $5 an hour for their first three or four months on the job, the employee said…

But wait! There’s more!

…and then received a salary increase to $6 per hour.…

Holy Kishke! That’s a 20% raise after only 3 (or 4) months! Do YOU get that kind of raise after only four months on the job?

And remember…it’s in cash.;) You can take those extra wages to the trust fund.

Underage? No problemo, señor!

And there are plenty of openings. Now that the Feds have arrested 6-700 illegals.

You know why this is happening? Because of Anti-Semitism. CLEARLY Rubashkin is a victim of those who HATE FRUM PEOPLE!!!!

Please show your support. Call the Agriprocessors hotline @ 1-800-MUMZERS, and tell them not to let the anti-Semites bring them down!

I am a public transit fanatic, particularly on rail, and I like the (newly revamped and expanded) site Jspot generally, and enjoy Rabbi Jill Jacobs’ posts specifically.

Which is why it is so bizarre that Rabbi Jacobs can be so wrong about something we both agree on passionately.

Rabbi Jacobs writes in “Subway rage, “

“I’m a huge fan of all subways, but particularly of the New York subway system;”

Me too! Here, I expect Rabbi Jacobs to launch into the brilliance of our express trains (we invented them!) and how other Americans need to learn to live without a car like we do.

Instead, Rabbi Jacobs writes,

unlike many other places, where it’s easy to avoid encountering anyone of a different race, ethnicity, or socio-economic class, the city forces people of all walks of life into close contact with one another through the shared experience of the subway commute.

With all due respect, Rabbi Jacobs, who cares? We have an emergency situation where we are running out of cheap oil, we are destroying the earth, and you are focusing on the cheap thrills of diversity?

“A public space is defined as a place that’s open to all people–you can’t lock out the homeless, the smelly”

It is, in fact, the homeless who represent exactly what Jeffersonian America is afraid of. The most responsible thing NYC could do for the good of the country is rid our subway of the homeless. I would call in the goons tomorrow for that reason alone. And you could figure out what to do with them instead of abusing our subway system which is for commuters.

There are sites and groups that only champion social justice and rarely tackle economic justice. To be fair, this is not true of Jspot, and it is not true of Rabbi Jacobs. However, I feel this post represents which is given greater weight, and why this is misguided.

I meet a lot of traditional Jews who would like to eat healthier. I have a way to help you do that. Avoid the stronger hechshers.

I was about to pick up a pack of hamentaschen this evening at the local grocery store, since it sure is a lot easier to celebrate Purim that way instead of going to hear the megillah, and since getting to the point of “lo yadah” isn’t exactly a once a year occurrence in my circles. Anyway, just as I was about to put the hamentaschen in the basket, I saw the (warning?) label: “pas yisroel.” The hamentaschen had been cooked by a “fire” in some way lit by a Jew, in order to avoid some concern or another. You know, some Bais Shammai bullshit.

But the point is, I wouldn’t really care, but this signals something else besides religious interpretation. It means that this product is targeting, at least in part, the haredim. And sure enough, the name of the bakery was…let me say this euphemistically…Hungarian.

Why do I care? Because the haredim do not care about the quality or freshness of the food like secular Jews do. They care more about which rebbe said what. And this market segment is simply not health conscious. Not at all. They eat crap. That’s why they are so fat. I mean, they are disproportionately fat. Because they eat shit, albeit mehadrin l’mehadrin shit.

For those of us with a background, well, we know that kosher is not a health guide. The problem is, all too often when you move into ultra-Orthodox supervised products, it is the inverse.

On a cursory read of his most recent essay, “Every Jew Counts,” (awwwwwww) one could believe — if you don’t know anything about Dark Light – that its leader, Rabbi Mendel Weinbach, is a real populist.

The stringent one (for others, that is)writes,

“One of the most disturbing features of life in Israel is the tremendous gap between rich and poor. This expresses itself not only in the differences in housing, automobiles and other elements of a material standard of living but also in the quality of education and medical care[…]

While we cannot realistically expect a totally egalitarian society today we should learn two important lessons from this Torah chapter — that every single Jew counts, and that we should strive for greater equality to make the Jewish state a fairer Israel forever.”

So…is Rabbi Weinbach a haredi Bernie Sanders?

Not quite.

Rabbi Weinbach’s position is that of the right-wing ultra-Orthodox haredi leaders (whom he reports to directly) who do not allow higher education for women, and do not allow secular studies at all for their yeshiva students. Absolute socio-economic devastation is preferred and mandated, and achieved for all too many in Israel’s B’nai Torah world.

Rabbi Weinbach is one of the most prominent proselytizers of this path to misery for Anglo-Jews. It is his conviction that anything else besides yeshiva is an “environment of sin.”

So what is he saying here? Why is he suddenly a socialist?

Because it isn’t about rich and poor, or those who work versus those who own. It is about those who are haredi and don’t work, versus those who aren’t haredi and do work.

Rabbi Weinbach is demanding that the secular government give still more money to the haredim to do nothing…so that even more of them can languish away for longer in accordance with the “Bnai Torah” leaders wishes.

And if his people are unhappy…and they are unhappy…it is the state’s fault…for not being more generous. Not the fault of the “Gedoylim�? for insistng they do this in the first places…oh no, no, no…it’s the SECULAR government’s fault – they are greedy and do not share all the wealth.

Weinbach’s evil manipulation is quite common for Israeli haredi leaders. When there is discontent of your own making, blame it on the secular government and/or on secular Jews even when they are doing all they can to accommodate your insanity…which is in and of itself, a tragedy. They (the secular and Modern Orthodox Jews) Jews should fight the haredim for the sake of the Jewish people. Including the Jews Rabbi Weinbach tricks, traps, and hobbles.

And don’t forget….Rabbi Weinbach and Rabbi Nota Schiller and their families make a nice living off teaching other people to become poor.