Who would even know 400 people willing to break LD law?

[TheQueef]

Just saw it on the news.
Any of you could muster 400 people to break the law?
I could maybe get 20 out of everyone I've ever known, how do you even ask?
It was a school to boot! No teaching but come to school for a secret bash!

So...
YANBU no I couldn't gather a big group of rule breakers.
YABU I could easily get that many, everyone is at it.

I'm really surprised at the amount of people on here who don't realise how isolated these communities can be, whilst living in the midst of a busy metropolis.

I had my DCs at a hospital that delivered many Orthodox Jewish babies too. I remember going to midwife appointments, and seeing young women, some of them obviously teenagers, with their equally young husbands, and neither of them would speak any English so would have to have an older man (never a woman) with them to translate. Everything is monitored by the elders.

However, of course they knew it was against the rules. I doubt they cared. My Jewish friends are appalled - and what they think of the orthodox communities at the best of times can't be repeated, let alone now.

UPDATE

Numbers were actually 150...

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-55764673

It doesn't say if it was a male or female gathering, or both but separated, but if it was both sexes I guess 150 must be a reserved number?

@MsHedgehog

Numbers were actually 150

Still a very large number and still breaking the law.

Must be the community's PR machine in action - otherwise, why the emphasis on saying that there were fewer guests, why is this so relevant?

@trulydelicious Must admit, do wonder how they know if everyone fled as soon as the police arrived!

@MsHedgehog

I imagine the police must have seen a lot of people fleeing (which is bad enough) and tried to estimate a number

And then the account of the security guard from the school trying to cover his backside

On Friday morning, a security guard at the school told the BBC there were more like 100 guests at the party than the much higher number given out by police

I used to live around this area. Many Orthodox Jewish couples have a lot of children. Seven plus isn’t unusual; when I worked in Stamford Hill I met some with 10 or more kids.

It’s not called Volvo city for nothing. (You can fit the whole family in!)

150 people is standard for culturally Jewish weddings let alone religious ones. (Not saying it’s acceptable right now, of course!)

A sister of a friend of mine lives in an ultra orthodox community in Israel and has at least 14 children. As the the Netflix drama, Unorthodox, portrays, having children is the role and duty of women in the community. The lead character refers to replacing the 6 million lost. Big families in these communities are not at all unusual.

I don't think anyone is saying what happened was acceptable.

What posters like myself and others are trying to explain is why so many people would have been "willing" to break the rules.

Even devout Catholics like my MIL engage quite freely outside of her religious community. Her religion, whilst very important to her has not precluded wider life experiences.

What is hard to understand for many people is that for the Ultra Orthodox there is no distinction between their religion, their community, their rituals and their life.

Their community, religion and it's rituals are their life and at the heart of it is an incredibly strong sense of communality.

Every day/week/month is "centred" around these communal activities. There is nothing else - no TV, internet etc for the vast majority. As pp's have explained, shops, schools and most services are provide within the community.

Not being able to participate is not the same as someone like myself lamenting not being able to go to the gym or my MIL not being able to go to mass.

It's akin to having the meaning of your existence ripped away and in that context it is why some UOJ's would take their chances with the virus rather than not.

Again to be clear I'm not saying this was ok, but I think the are a lot of posters who really don't understand the world members of these communities live in because it is so very, very different to ours.

DeRigueurMortis I think you're right, but it does rather highlight a different and long term problem that needs working on if we must expect religious people to break the law.

I think that onlychildandhamster and DeRigeurMortis have explained this very well.

Re lots of the children still going to school. I can imagine that a family with 12 children living in a two bedroom flat will have the children classed as “vulnerable”. No way are they doing homeschooling or distance learning.

Numbers were actually 150, not 400.

The saying "80% of statistics are made up on the spot" has come true. It says a lot about the government's numbers.

Next slide please, for more made up numbers.

@CruCru they all go to private school though, I thought the vulnerable children school provision was for state schools? In my DH's day, it was something like £3k per year and that was over 20 years ago (and is 1 reason why after 2 kids in private haredi school, my MIL gave up on the whole idea and radically sent the 3rd and 4th child to non jewish state school), its probably maybe double that but not like the usual london private day schools. A lot of the schools are illegal and don't meet any sort of health and safety legislation. Physical abuse by the teachers etc. No PE or music or anything like that. Just torah learning everyday.

The girls fare better as the community expects them to get jobs like secretaries/admin/teachers to support their husbands.

I’m fascinated by this community but also find it difficult to understand how they can live in London and be so cut off from mainstream society - potentially even to the point of not grasping the threat posed by Covid?
Where do they get money to live on? As even if on benefits surely they would still need to engage with government services, banks etc.

@IrishGirl2020 they have their own schools, their own businesses. An orthodox lifestyle necessitates a whole infrastructure of kosher bakeries, schools, shops selling modest clothing, hats and religious items, restaurants, supermarkets, care homes etc etc. All these require employees and they tend to hire only people in the community. Other than retail, a lot of haredi men work in property and the diamond trade (and of course a lot learn full time while their wives work as secretaries and teachers). As the british state doesn't pay them to learn torah full time, British haredi men have a higher employment rate than in the Uk.

There are even gemach- privately run lending societies that provide interest free loans to haredim who wish to set up a business, buy furniture or organize a wedding. They can claim benefits and get that too. A lot of family and community support. Lots of charities loaning out everything from wedding gowns (my MIL got her wedding gown for free from them even though she isn't haredi) to strollers and baby stuff.

*British haredi men have a higher employment rate than in israel.

@IrishGirl2020 This is US focused but this is an interesting piece by a former charedi woman on haredi economics.

friedavizel.com/2017/08/07/from-quora-how-are-hasidic-jews-so-wealthy-they-dont-believe-in-a-college-education-but-one-was-able-to-buy-a-former-hotel-in-my-neighborhood/

@onlychildandhamster

Thanks - just fascinating how they co-exist alongside mainstream society

@IrishGirl2020

www.hackneygazette.co.uk/news/crime/housing-benefit-fraud-and-tax-evasion-rife-in-orthodox-jewish-3600842

Given this article, this proves some of them are very good at gaming secular society. An average person would not know how to do this, but the fact that it is rife suggests that it is organized by someone who has put a lot of thought into helping some people extract maximum advantage from the system

If they are claiming benefits they are not co-existing alongside mainstream society. They are part of it, not some independent community. With rights come responsibilities. Those responsibilities include obeying the law.

@onlychildandhamster

Yes - clearly some members of the community are very aware of how the rest of society operates! But it certainly sounds a lot more are very isolated from it - despite living in the middle of London!

Really interesting posts hamster.

There have been various comments that they must have seen people wearing masks, and have heard something about Covid in a year. But there is a difference between being aware of the existence of Covid and truly understanding the risk. There are plenty of people not in insular communities who still don't believe Covid is that bad. So I imagine it is even worse for extreme religious communities. And yes they have had people die of Covid but there have been people in US insisting they must have lung disease as they die of Covid. There are some beliefs out there that most of us will not understand. That doesn't excuse then but if we have any hope of engaging people we need to understand what they believe and why to know how to best approach them.

If religious leaders are actively misleading people as seemed to be implied earlier in the thread that is horrible and really does reveal what they think about the wider community outside their own, and the state.

@RedToothBrush

From what I've seen suggested they are a very Ultra Orthodox Jewish Group who may not have much exposure to the media. They are akin to being a british jewish version of amish christians.

Adam Wagner (@adamwagner1) has been saying they may also have been targeted by actively deliberate disinformation suggesting that certain life events were legally permissable.

Apparently there were leaflets being distributed in the local area to that effect and he had been trying to tackle the issue to no avail

twitter.com/AdamWagner1/status/1352573274841034753
His thread here.

So I think this case is a bit more complex than simply being selfish or pure ignorance and in some respects perhaps more sinister.

Yes, but it was one of their rabbis distributing the leaflet, with information on how break the restrictions.

Sinister only in its arrogance and disregard for the law.

Community leaders should be investigated.. what stops the law from monitoring their sermons if their are claims of abuse/tax evasion etc etc..

Or is that politically incorrect !!?

@LetMeBubble

Community leaders should be investigated.. what stops the law from monitoring their sermons if their are claims of abuse/tax evasion etc etc..

Or is that politically incorrect !!?

Because it's an incredibly complex situation.

As a community there is very much a sense of "togetherness" not necessarily "against" everyone else but very much being deliberately separate (even from the Orthodox), a righteousness in that and in growing numbers (from within).

It's not as simple as cutting of the head by making an example of community leaders.

For a start you simply reinforce the reasons why living "exclusively" within the community is important because "outside" is a threat.

It's also a bit more complicated in that calling UOJ's a community in the sense we understand it - a group of people with a common tie/goal/locality doesn't really describe the social reality.

It's more like a hive in sociological terms; there's a clear hierarchy and structure where everyone's participation is both expected and designated.

From the outside in it's both fascinating and disturbing.

There's a lot to admire in the sense of the strong bonds and the social safety nets they provide for each other.

But there is also an unequivocal determination to ensure that the community is "protected" from anything that might lead a person from questioning how it functions and their role within it.

In short, it's incredibly difficult to engage even with the (limited/skeptical/grudging) blessing of the community leaders and if you make a point of targeting them you'll get nowhere.