Video blaming Israeli government cutbacks on the current poverty suffered by kollel families. This video was shown at the 91st Agudath Israel of America Convention on November 16th, 2013. The video was produced by a collaboration of the Hamodia Daily Newspaper and Kolrom Multimedia.
I was shocked after reading yesterday’s article, The Child-Rape Assembly Line, by Christopher Ketcham in Vice Magazine. Ketcham documents a vivid description of the casual rape of a seven year old boy in a local mikva, witnessed by child abuse activist, Rabbi Nuchem Rosenberg. This is a must read article for anyone who doubts that sexual abuse happens within the orthodox world.
However, another side point in Ketcham’s article interested me too. I was struck by the role that money plays in keeping the status quo of power within the community. Michael Lesher, a practicing Jew who has investigated Orthodox sex abuse and is writing a book on the subject, talks about the wealth disparity between the rabbis and their followers:
“….current Orthodox leadership, accruing wealth from the tithes of subservient followers, is “drifting to the right, politically as well as religiously.” Many rabbis in New York City have taken up the banner of neoliberalism. “Every English-language Orthodox publication I know embraced Romney during the 2012 elections, decried national health insurance, blamed liberals for bribing the lower classes,” he said. “In Orthodox society, just as in America at large, the financial mismatch between the elite and the rest of us is ominously large.””
Ben Hirsch, director of Survivors for Justice, a Brooklyn organization that advocates for Orthodox sex abuse victims, also was interviewed for the Vice article. Ketcham paraphrases Hirsch:
“Families saddled with an increasing number of children soon enter into a cycle of poverty. There is simultaneously an extreme separation of the sexes, which is unprecedented in the history of the Hasidim. There is limited general education, to the point that most men in the community are educated only to the third grade, and receive absolutely no sexual education. No secular newspapers are allowed, and internet access is forbidden. “The men in the community are undereducated by design,” Ben said. “You have a community that has been infantilized. They have been trained not to think. It’s a sort of totalitarian control.””
Ironically, on the same day as this Vice article was published, Forbes came out with its annual list of Israel’s Wealthiest Rabbis. The ten wealthiest Israeli rabbis own a combined fortune of over $620 million. According to a summary in The Forward,
“Rabbi Pinchas Abuhatzeira is Israel’s richest rabbi by a long shot, with an estimated net worth of about $367 million. At 36 years old, he is also the youngest rabbi on the list. He inherited a massive fortune and a large following from his father, Rabbi Elazar Abuhatzaeira, who was murdered in 2011. The elder Abuhatzeira was stabbed to the death by a mentally disturbed follower to whom he had previously given marital advice. Superstar rabbis like Abuhatzeira can collect large sums in return for advice, blessings, amulets, and attending their followers’ family events.”
The Forward article ends by saying,
“Two Hasidic leaders also made it onto the list: the Gur Rebbe (No. 2) and the Belz Rebbe (No. 3). Both lead powerful Hasidic movements that were decimated during the Holocaust, but are now growing in population – and wealth.
While a few ultra-Orthodox rabbis have done quite well for themselves, the majority of their flock lives below the poverty line. Nor are all Israeli rabbis as wealthy as these 10 well-heeled rabbis – most make modest salaries.
No word yet on when we can expect a list of America’s wealthiest rabbis.”
I found it interesting that Gur Rebbe was listed number 2 on the list, considering his stance against ostentatious wealth. In The Simple Life: The Case Against Ostentation in Jewish Law , Hershey Friedman writes,
“One Hassidic sect that has strict rules about the amount that may be spent on weddings is Gur. Because the price of apartments in Jerusalem is so high, they are told to live in other communities. In fact, they have a large community in Arad. The Rabbi of Gur warned the streimel (fur hats worn by Hassidim) manufacturers that if the price would be too high, he would order his Hassidim to stop wearing the streimels.”
It is nice that the Gur Rebbe acknowledges the poverty of his community, but how about spreading some of the wealth?
In America, the prevalence of haredi poverty is growing along with its numbers. American rabbis also try to offer advice to ease the financial burdens of their congregants. Friedman writes,
“At the 2001 Agudath Israel Annual Convention, a brochure entitled “Guidelines for Financial Realism and Tzenius [modesty] in our Chasunas [weddings]” was given to participants. It called for such measures as eliminating the vort [engagement party], limitations on the smorgasbord, elimination of the bar and Viennese table, a ceiling of 400 invited guests, limits on the menu and dessert, and recommended a one-piece band (maximum of four musicians). The brochure notes that the reason for these restrictions is not only for financial reasons, i.e., they place a great burden on individuals of limited means, but primarily because “they simply detract from the ultimate purpose of our existence.”"
Of course, there is no practical advice on how to make more money, such as getting an education or a job. However, by making their already sparse lives even more spartan, their hardships can be eased. It goes without saying that most of the rabbanim calling for plain simchas, make the most large and lavish affairs.
As in Israel, dependence upon public assistance programs is not unusual in American ultra orthodox communities. This Daily Beast article discusses welfare in communities such as Kiryas Joel and Williamsburg,
“Take the overwhelmingly Hasidic Kiryas Joel, the poorest place in America. As the Times reported last year, “half of [its] residents receive food stamps, and one third receive Medicaid benefits and rely on federal vouchers to help pay their housing costs.” And boy, do they have children: The median household in Kiryas Joel has six people, and the median age is twelve. Many of its men learn Torah full-time instead of working, and the community’s low high-school graduation rate would be even lower if its religious schools had real academic standards. These kids are hardly being “socialized to the world of work.” And it’s not just Kiryas Joel: back in 1996, at the heart of “welfare reform,” a full third of Williamsburg’s Hasidim received public assistance.”
Certainly, Satmar’s “Royal Teitelbaums,” as New York Magazine dubbed them, do not seem to need food stamps to supply their tish with delicacies.
Of course, there are also many rabbanim who live simply and eschew grandeur and gashmius. Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, zl, the late leader of the Ashekanzic Orthodox community worldwide and of the Lithuanian hareidi yeshiva community, lived in a small 2 room apartment with his daughter, learning Torah in the bedroom during his waking hours. Rabbi Refael Reuvain Grozovsky, zl from Minsk was also known to have lived a very simple and modest life,
“Rabbi Grozovsky was known to lead a simple and sparse life. Sometimes he and his wife had to borrow money from his students. They also shared a cramped apartment with his wife’s parents, both because of his modest way of life and in order to learn as much as possible from his famous father-in-law.”
The one thing that all great rabbis of today have in common, is that even if they have different attitudes toward amassing personal wealth, they all have the ability to raise great sums of money from their followers, or through political connections. Meaning, they have access to money, even if it isn’t their own, at their disposal. That ready access to finance gives them power over the flocks they tend.
Imagine that you are a poor haredi father, you learn and your wife teaches, your children number in the double digits. You receive government benefits, day school scholarships, Tomchei Shabbos assistance, and are a regular customer at various local gemachs. You are beholden to a rabbi and community that have urged you into this impoverished existence l’shem shamayim (for the sake of heaven). You can’t make waves or complain of injustices or disparities of wealth between those with power and those without. It’s not wise to bite the hand that feeds you. So you shine your worn shoes, put on a happy face, sing for your supper at the rebbe’s tish, and daven that Hashem has better things in store for you – if not in this life, than in the Olam Haemes.
