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.

A "positive work ethic" is an idea reflected from your values. Why do you assume everyone would share those values and place importance on the same things as you?

People with different values might say of you, "I find it depressing that she is not encouraged to show true devotion to her faith and community". Or judge you for putting money, materiality and business above religious teachings

I work to keep a roof over my head and food on the table, and support my daughter through university. I feel it is ethically and morally wrong for me to claim benefits if I can earn money by working.

@Ginfordinner the thing is they do work.Its a myth they don't work, esp in the UK where the state is not paying them for torah learning Its a cash economy. They use the benefits to supplement their earnings to provide for their huge families of 7- 12 children. Unlike the modern orthodox/reform, most do not have professional qualifications that have allowed many moderate Jews to live well in north london and provide for their children and it does help they generally have fewer (average people cannot afford to buy property in north london these days without family help). So they need to rely on housing benefit, universal credit to pay the bills for their large families and they need to stay in urban areas as these areas have the Jewish facilities.

In a way, they have no choice but to keep up with this lifestyle. If they want to suddenly start doing things 'the correct way', it is difficult. As a Jew who lives in a jewish area, it wasn't easy to get on the property ladder and it wasn't that easy for my orthodox MIL too even with family help (she has worked in non jewish companies in her 20s and she used to have to get up at 5 am on Fridays so that she could leave at 4 pm to prepare for shabbat). It is much easier if you have good professional qualifications as these jobs are much more accomodating to people leaving at 3 pm for shabbat, much more suited to home working, have better annual leave entitlements for festivals. Which is why most non Haredi Jews really encourage their children to be very academic as it is often the easiest way for them to practice their religion in adult life. However, Haredi Jews don't want their children to work in non Jewish workplaces or go to university as they fear their children leaving. So most of them would be limited to how much they can earn unless they set up their own businesses.

Also Haredi Jews can use contraception. There is just such pressure to have large families that most choose not to. they just have to ask the rabbi and if they have 2 children, permission is usually given.. You just have to say you feel depressed.

My best mate got married in a boarding school which is in a stately home so in holiday time it's a licensed marriage venue...

Anyway I would struggle to find that many guests! All my best friends live over 10 miles away and they won't even drive here to go for a socially distanced walk!!

I think with ultra religious people of all faiths they think God will protect them.

some loophole
Some loophole which allowed the school to turn a blind eye and take the money....

Not that they don't want to work but their chosen lifestyle can make access to it very difficult
I get your point but surely if you really wanted to work you wouldn't make choices which made it impossible to work
The reason they are able to indulge and immerse themselves so fully in their faith is that the rest of us make choices that allow us to work and earn a living so there is a welfare state to support them.
These devoutly religious people are freeloaders on the rest of us who prioritise work over 'devotion to the sky faries'....are they not?
if I decided I wanted to live off benefits because spending all day in religious devotion was the most important thing to do .....would that fly?

Thank you for your post @onlychildandhamster. I was basing my post on many of the links I have read on this thread. I also didn't know that Haredi Jews could use contraception.

@Tehmina23 Jewish weddings do not need to be in a licensed wedding venue. it can be anywhere as long as it is conducted under the auspices of a synagogue and the bride and groom are members of the synagogue. my wedding (which has been postponed) is in a synagogue but my MIL's wedding was in someone's back garden.

@Ginfordinner not condoms, only the pill. This is true for modern orthodox too as condoms block the passage of semen.

www.timesofisrael.com/how-israeli-ultra-orthodox-women-have-taken-back-their-reproductive-rights/

'Contraception. Rabbis still want women to come to them for permission for contraception. Most women said they wouldn’t dream of asking about contraception at the beginning of their reproductive lives, but after two or three pregnancies they start asking the rabbi. The rabbi might give them limited permission to use, say, hormonal birth control but only for a short period of time, “six months and then you come back to me.” Many of the women said that by the time they had three or four children, they decided when they were ready to get pregnant again. And they would either go to a doctor who wouldn’t ask questions or would avoid getting pregnant through other means.;

@Yohoheaveho This is such a big issue in Israel. Secular Israelsi serve national service for 3 years (often risking their lives), pay taxes and what do they get for it. A welfare system that is far less generous than even the UK. The Haredi are going to be 20% of the population in 10 years, they refuse to serve in the army (in fact they are more likely to attack the soldiers for infringing on their rights), many of the men refuse to work and claim a stipend from the israeli government for thier learning.

It is possible to combine religious observance with a regular job as the modern orthodox have shown. However, it is much easier as i said in previous post, if you are a civil servant, a barrister or an accountant as you can request for flexible working which would allow you to be at home to welcome the shabbat at 4 pm on the fridays in winter. The Haredi have to really up their education game which they aren't willing to if they don't want to depend on government benefits.

Why @Xenia? What do you propose instead? A free for all, with no-one being able to access medical care because the NHS can’t cope?

Xenia is a sociopath who doesn't care if people die so her children can sit exams.

Secular Israelsi serve national service for 3 years (often risking their lives), pay taxes and what do they get for it. A welfare system that is far less generous than even the UK. The Haredi are going to be 20% of the population in 10 years, they refuse to serve in the army
How can this be allowed to continue, it must cause massive division and resentment?

No one gets to be outside the law.

I want a direct cremation because outside of small family, doubt if 4 could be mustered 😁

@MrsFezziwig

Numbers were actually 150, not 400.

Oh, well that’s ok then.

Reminds me of the song "I killed the sheriff, but I didn't kill the deputy."

Why do you assume everyone would share those values and place importance on the same things as you?

Where did I suggest anyone should? I was replying to a PP who mentioned work ethic, mentioning that it's not necessarily lacking in this community but that there are factors which can make access to work difficult

Must be some loophole that allowed the hiring out... imagine a keen dancer kid just wants a big space to do routines in

Wonderful to see this one again I used to a run a similar place and lost count of the times I heard this, only to find a (disallowed) teenage party going on in there ... "well, they're practising their dancing aren't they?"

@Yohoheaveho

Secular Israelsi serve national service for 3 years (often risking their lives), pay taxes and what do they get for it. A welfare system that is far less generous than even the UK. The Haredi are going to be 20% of the population in 10 years, they refuse to serve in the army How can this be allowed to continue, it must cause massive division and resentment?

It does, unfortunately.

Surely if you really wanted to work you wouldn't make choices which made it impossible

A very valid point, but then the same principle applies to so many others
Think for the moment of the outrage which meets any remark that non-faith people on benefits should perhaps limit their families ... instantly the cries start of "you're judging!!", "you don't understand anything !!", "you're a privileged twat" and so on

It's not that I don't get the principles here - I just wonder why they're tolerated when applied to some and not others

@Yohoheaveho No love lost between them www.jpost.com/israel-news/half-of-secular-israelis-unwilling-to-have-haredi-neighbors-poll-says-653232

When you consider that life is very hard and expensive for the average Israeli. I don't usually cry at news clips, but i cried at the start of the pandemic at this clip of an Israeli falafel seller who was left high and dry after they closed his business. The government told him to do deliveries but he said- its Falafel, people want it fresh and hot! He had so little money that he was too embarassed to go home to face his wife and didn't have money for a present for his new grandchild. He was a secular israeli and had served national service , paid taxes for years. Meanwhile of course, the haredi gets their stipends. My SIL lives in Israel and says that the support by the government for the newly unemployed (so many Israelis work in tourism) is pitiful

Think for the moment of the outrage which meets any remark that non-faith people on benefits should perhaps limit their families
This is true, however here one could make an argument that people are contributing to society by having and raising children (of course counterarguments could be made) but religious fundamentalists... what is that good for?
What leg do they have to stand on?

@onlychildandhamster
@SebastianTheCrab
it's hard not to conclude that the Israeli government benefits from the division and resentment caused by its preferential treatment of the religious ones?

@Yohoheaveho they are trying to live as if they are in the shtetls (jewish ghetto towns) 19th century europe, hence the fur hats in scorching israeli summer. Actually Haredi Judaism isn't much older than Reform Judaism (which now allows women rabbis and same sex marriages), they were from the same time period. Reform Judaism was born out a desire for the emancipated Jews who had left the shtetl to integrate with German society while still staying Jewish (hence our earliest synagogue had an organ and choir boys) but Haredi Judaism was born out of a backlash to modernity. Their communities were destroyed in the Holocaust and hence they have renewed desire to rebuild. Hence the many many children.

However though, the haredi jews of today are not exactly living by their forebears. The study of torah at the exclusion of all paid work was an old tradition where a wealthy man would identify a true torah scholar and would choose him as a son in law, paying for his living expenses so that he could further his torah study. This was meant for exceptional students, not for every Shlomo, Yoel and Yaakov. Now all the boys want to learn full time and the girls are raised to want to marry boys who learn full time( i guess no one tells them about the financial implications and at 17 what do you really understand about household finances and the long term implications of no professional qualifications). There are only that many rabbinical positions (and they are usually inherited) and the stipend the yeshiva can pay you is very small.

So even if boys want to get jobs, they have to be a bit quiet about it or it would affect their marriage prospects. in the uk at least, most are forced to work eventually as the bills don't add up

Their communities were destroyed in the Holocaust
Is this what It rests upon, the (understandable) feeling that anything they want they should be granted in compensation for this?
Born out of a backlash to modernity
but they cherry-pick and keep the bits of modernity that they want!

One side of my family no

Other side yes. Everyone my dad is on vaguely friendly terms would be invited and I suspect would attend if they lived here (but even in normal times I wouldn’t have a wedding like that)

It’s cultural and cultural norms will trump society norms and to some extent even now in time’s of a pandemic (but less people would fly across the world)

@Yohoheaveho No they were scared the haredi way of life would disappear. so the 'solution' to that was to have as many boys learn as possible. Of course, this is only possible with state benefits as most people wouldn't have rich families to depend on. There are some haredim who have successfull businesses and can support their kids while they learn full time but they are the exception not the norm.

It is not that they want to sponge off society deliberately. Well that is a yes and no, because they do want to claim benefits through less than honourable means, but they are doing it because their whole infrastructure is not very sustainable. In Israel, they are trying to encourage haredim to combine torah study with jobs- work in the day, learn at night. teaching them coding as that doesn't require formal qualifications. I hve read articles that many are devoted employees as unlike most other 22 year olds, they are parents and are focused on providing for their families. They also have tremendous stamina, as they are used to studying from 7 am to 7 pm.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-37300929

Presumably the school took money for hiring out it's premises. There's no excuse for that booking to have been taken and allowed either. School leaders would definitely know of the Covid restrictions in place and should have cancelled the booking themselves. That in itself is outrageous.