mentalblog.com comments:
It is interesting that although Maimonides Scholl is in Brookline, now most of it’s students reside in Newton and beyond.
One of the reasons Jews stay in Boston is that, despite the fact that the Jewish schools are poor, they are heads and shoulders above Jewish schools just about anywhere else in the country (short of NY, maybe).
Nevertheless, we Jews should be deeply ashamed that we live in such expensive houses and yet (as a community) underfund the most important marker of Jewish impact, creativity, and continuity: our schools!
Yes, housing is expensive in Boston, DC , NYC and other areas. Indeed very expensive as I know in NYC even in a lower middle class urban neighborhood like WH.Even in smaller cities like New haven etc housing is not cheap either .
What you conviently forget to mention is that the vast majority of Jews in the US are professionals and or big league busnissmen. Who is living in many of the hot areas (and old areas) in NY if not young professionals a great deal of whom are Jewish. Just look at any isue of the Jewish Week and you will see this.New York no longer has any real Lower Middle class areas for Jews with the exception of WH, and possibily the Lower east Side where a 2 br condo costs 450,000 dollars real cheap eh ?
A study several years ago found Jews to be the 2nd wealthiest religious group in the US after Episcopalians.
That leaves people like myself making pennies and others with serious problems.Of course amny "Anash" with no colege degree or franchise also have serious issues here. Non professionals and low professional (teachers, etc) will and are affected by this too .
Check out areas like Teaneck, Boro PK , Flatbush, the 5 towns where most if not all new real property is purchased by Jews and young people at that. Many pay in cash - full price.As a matter of fact most of the developers of the new toney areas here are Jews and sonme are frum like Boymelgreen and Leviev in DUMBO (I wonder if their charity extends to building a low cost housing project for fellow Lubavitchers in CH ???) The huge prices do not scare them. As I said they are investment bankers, doctors (many families are 2 doctor families DR. & DR., lawyers, heavy duty academics etc.
The problem as I said is for the lower class element, like myself.
That is why I would urge everybody in the Orthodox community with school tuitions to pay etc to go to college and join a serious profession MBA, MD,JD, etc etc.
The only answer is a communal project to construct housing for lower middle class Jews. No Jewish org besides Satmar has seen the interest to do so.
Schneur, I thought we already talked about this:
http://www.mentalblog.com/2005/0...-of-8-
earn.html
Schneur, I want to say that there is no bigger shame than the fact that a national treasure like you shouldn’t be able to live like a king. Gevalt!
Re Jewish schools and their funding.
In the US municipalities services are provided to residents like police, fire , sanatation , parks, libraries etc. In turn the city govt levels a tax which goes to support these services. In our small orthodox world we too have services such as schools , yet the tax we pay which is the price of Kosher food and their hashgochas does not go to support yeshivas but to private kashruth moguls like the Levy family , Szenter family and the OU which still needs to account for its income. What does it do with these fees.
Its clear that none of these kosher fees ever get to our yeshivas.
Thus imagine a city with services , but whose taxes were sidetracked to private individuals or some special corporate body like the OU.
Thats is one important reason our schools are in financial trouble.
The OU had a recent discussion in Jew. Action on the plight of our schools but of course failed to mention this issue.
Schneur,
An average tuition bill for a frum family (and that is after all the 'discounts') is ~$45K.
The annual food bill for same family is ~$20K.
The only foods that come with a real kashrus premium are dairy, meat, and breads (~30% of the total food bill). Said premium is about half of that 30%.
We are now down to 15% of $20K, or $3K annually.
If you take away administrative and other objective costs of kashrus, our fictional family might end up with - what the heck, let’s be generous - $1,5K back in their educational budget.
Thus we have successfully funded slightly over 3% of the $45K. Great!
For the remaining 97%: V-O-U-C-H-E-R-S!
"The problem as I said is for the lower class element, like myself."
Reb Schneur, gevald, hot rachmonus ayf zhich! You are high class, not low class !
Berl. So The Levy family the OU , the Kof K et al are into the kashruth supervision efforts Lishmo and leshem Mitzvo . |Bite gei derzeil dos di Bobe !
Even if we accept your math (and I do not) why should kashruth money go to individaul families . Is all of Yiddishkayt a business in America ?
The problem you describe is an enormous problem. Besides the problems caused by globalisation, which make richer societies (e.g. USA, EU) poorer and poorer societies richer, the gap between rich and poor within societies (ironically) is getting larger, too. Thus people in our circles who used to be considered comfortable no longer feel that way.
The professions are no guarantee, either. I can tell you loads of stories of baale batim who had fine professions (especially in IT) for decades and now have terrible trouble keeping the family fed and housed.
Lowered prosperity and lower incomes for professionals has also contributed mightily to the singles problem. And the unaffordability of housing in Jewish neighborhoods is a problem most everywhere.
In Melbourne, where the Jewish community is justly proud of the very fine educational system they have built, a considerable proportion of budgets has traditionally come from prosperous and generous businessmen and their families. Housing is expensive there, but education has always been given a high priority. However, budgets are now being cut there, too.
In the end, more prosperous members of the community have to pitch in strongly to keep education - and hence the future wellbeing of the Jewish community - in good shape. Sticking together, strong and weak alike, is something that has done much to make the greater Jewish community what it is today. Without investment in the future, people who are comfortable with their position in life today may not feel that way in the future.
Schneur,
There is no limmud zechus of the Kashrus agencies in my comment. And their intentions were not at all on my mind! Even if my math is wrong – and you do not say why it is – and you could have double the amount I calculated and pay for a whopping 6% of the tuition, where is the bulk (over 90%) of the tuition money going to come from?
Having said that, I agree - every little bit helps; IF an efficient not-for-profit Kashrus supervising agency could exist, and IF its proceeds would contribute toward Jewish education, it would be a very noble thing. But the result "on the ground" would be symbolic at best. To pretend this would actually solve the problem? Dos afilu di bobe tor me’nit dertzeilen!
Shneur -
1. Even if we turn the kashrus premium into a kind of consumption tax, I doubt the entire OU+OK budget surplus would be enough to make a difference in the educational system. These are nonprofit as they are, and I don't think the few top families in this business could change much, even within their respective communities. And community management of any such agency would at best become a source of income for another family or two or it will be a total disaster. Look at CH. Besides, these hekhsherim support many mashgichim, who are among the poorest members of the community. Surely any 'taxation' will be passed on to them and not the evil owners/managers.
2. And why just kashrus? There are other premiums on frumkeit. Maybe import of esrogim should be monopolized too? Or sofrim should pay a tax on every pair of tefillin?
berl-
I disagree with Shneur, so it is of little consequence but I think your assumptions are not correct.
Besides meat, dairy and restaurants, where the premium can indeed be high, much if not most of OU/OK business comes from products that require little hashgocho (or not at all), where the premium is small (say, 1%) but it is paid by millions outside the frum world. So the hypothetical hashgocho-driven educational system would be supported by many more people.
nsker - you are 100% correct on all counts.
I am not sure I understand the mechanics of value added taxation but wouldn’t voucher system be a real tangible contribution to this cause? Even the ones who don’t pay taxes will be able to have lower tuition.
nsker - you are 100% correct on all counts.
correction: all, but the 1% bit – it is infinitely less. While it is true that "much if not most of OU/OK business comes from products that require little hashgocho", the major food giants do not allocate anywhere near 1% of their price toward Kosher certification. Tropicana's (a major OK client) annual sales are in excess of $2 billion! You are not suggesting that OK bills them for 20 cool million annually, are you?
TA - correct, vouchers are THE ONLY WAY!
Gosh, you guys are on the wrong track. There is no logical connection between hashgocho and education. Both cost money and both are needed.
In Melbourne, as I understand it, the Kashrut Australia organization (Mizrachi) SUBISDIZES its Kashrut operations. It runs on a net loss. Mizrachi also runs a large Jewish school, which requires additional fund-raising, in addition to collecting fees. Neither education nor Kashrus are producing profits that might be used to subsidize the other. The situation is similar at other community organizations.
You do have a point with the family-run Kashrus organizations. Some organizations offer Kashrus supervision as a public service. The OU is a fine example. There is also legitimate need for local supervision services (e.g. Baltimore, Montreal, etc.) and even the various Vaadei HaRabonim in NYC. But some of the family-operated businesses are just that: family-run businesses. Because they are profit-driven, they compete for business and the standard of Kashrus suffers. I would even say that some of them (and I won't list the guilty parties here) are actually fraudulent. I was amazed at how well-accepted some of these 'hechsherim' were in the very frum community, when I had very good information on how unreliable and incompetent they are.
berl-
You are right, of course 1% is not a reasonable estimate in this case. Make it 0.1% or even 0.01%, it still leaves a considerable cash flow. Are there OU financial statements or approximate budget in the public domain? Google doesn't find any. So we are lacking data to make any estimates.
Vouchers or some other government redistribution is indeed necessary to sustain our system, but the political landscape doesn't allow much hope, at least in NY (forget Boston).
I understand there are areas with limited voucher programs (Milwaukee, Cleveland). Perhaps more of us should move there. Even if we will make only the median midwestern income, we have a net gain. The problem would be that those on "programs" in NY will be left in the hole. There is no comparable equivalent there. This is not a very practical suggestion, but much more so than fighting for vouchers in New York. By the way, has there been a growth in frum communities in voucher areas?
TA- Value added taxation is something different, I think we were discussing a form of consumption tax.
Shneur, how do you compare OK and chof k with the OU.The OU is the largest orthodox congregation in the U.S with about a 1000 affiliated shuls and many social programs.The money made from the supervision subsidises the communal needs.OK and chof k are indeed private and that's a different story
We don't need vouchers. If CJP gave 90% of its budget to the local Jewish schools, we'd be set.
altira,
Your CJP idea is problematic for one simple reason – the folks that run CJP (and similar outfits) do not really wish to support Jewish Education. So unless you can coerce them to do so, your suggestion is moot.
Furthermore, if we think about the implications of today's demographic trends, we must realize that the current frei-supporting-the-frum economic model is not sustainable in the long run (and you CJP suggestion is still based on that model). 20 years from now, there are not likely to be enough frei Jews to play that important role. An even smaller percentage of those remaining are likely to care about supporting 'authentic Jewish education’. So no matter how many ‘Jewish Philanthropies’ are going to get ‘Combined’, it ain’t going to help Jewish Parents and their Jewish Kids.
BTW, limited voucher programs are already running around the country – including NYC. Vouchers are fundamentally fair and badly needed by many segments of the US population, not just the frum Jews. They are today a matter of survival and Jews need to partner with other groups that are lobbying the Congress on this issue.
To end on a hopeful note, nowhere in the world can a man feed (I mean literally ‘feed’) his family with such an ease as in these United States. If vouchers are made available and Jewish communities take affordable housing issues seriously, even an average working stiff will be able to support a large family here.
altira-
The prospects of CJP or any other such Jewish establishment supporting our education is even more remote than a voucher program in Massachusetts. They are against yeshivos, and that is part of the reason they actively oppose vouchers.
berl-
The limited voucher programs do indeed help the poor and the system, but not so much our heroic average working frum guy trying to support 6-10 kids. AAKVK if he is successful in his career and makes >$100k, he will be considered ever so rich by these programs.
...and by the chinuch administrators. "You get paid twice a month", - they appeal to his consciousness in sincere belief that he should feel some guilt for this. Then not without misplaced pride they tell him how many months' salary they owe the melamed. Since the Average Working Guy has at least some cash flow (unlike the melamed), he can always be squeezed. Very often they even obtain copies of the Average Working Guy's paystubs with the kids' application, and call him exactly on the day he gets paid for maximum leverage in negotiation.
berl-
Besides partnering with other interested population groups on vouchers, perhaps we can put more pressure on the big (non-frum) Jewish establishment. Most of these combined, united and syndicated federations are very active in opposition and appear among the plaintiffs in court cases against the existing programs.
nsker,
I second you sentiments.
On vouchers - vouchers for the poor is only a start.
You are never going to get help on the voucher issue from the 'Jewish establishment' types. These morons see violations of the Establishment Clause in every religious expression that is 'out of the closet'. They want their children to attend nice suburban public schools without ever hearing a single X-mas carol, but do not care a whit that most of these kids marry X-ians.
I live in Cambridge, MA. But I am originally from the Jewish Ghetto in Dorchester/Roxbury.
I only continue to live here, because as a poor working class person who is a singer and actor by profession I don't have the money to move.
There is no great love for Yidn here.
I worked at Harvard at one point. I found it to be one of the most racist, anti-semitic, up tight institutions that I've ever seen.
Good Luck on the blogs, Dude.
I grew up amongst the Lubavitchers in Dorchester/Roxbury. I found most of them to be loving, decent people.
But heck, this was along time ago.
Lubavitchers in Dorchester/Roxbury?
Gitl you must be in your sixties. Correct? and you use "dude" :lol:
Commenting by HaloScan
