Fundie group buying up an entire town?

[GenerationCedarchip]

I know of various places (including where I live) having sizable fundie-ish communities, but I haven't seen anything like this.  I don't know how accurate it is, but it almost sounds like this ultra-Orthodox Jewish group is trying to buy up a town and resettle it. Anyone famliar with this?

 

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-14/orthodox-jews-set-sights-on-n-j-town-and-angry-residents-resist

[PennySycamore]

I haven't heard of this occurring in Tom River, but I do of several  communities in upstate New York that have been taken over by Chasidic sects.  The results have not been pretty.  

Here's a Wikipedia article about one of those communities:

Kiryas Joel New York

I do have a good friend that lives in a neighborhood of Silver Spring, Maryland where there are many Orthodox Jews.  They don't have the problems that Kiryas Joel has though.  Most of the residents are Modern Orthodox and highly educated.  (My friend has a PhD and her husband an MD.)  

[anjulibai]

12 minutes ago, PennySycamore said:

I haven't heard of this occurring in Tom River, but I do of several  communities in upstate New York that have been taken over by Chasidic sects.  The results have not been pretty.  

Here's a Wikipedia article about one of those communities:

Kiryas Joel New York

I do have a good friend that lives in a neighborhood of Silver Spring, Maryland where there are many Orthodox Jews.  They don't have the problems that Kiryas Joel has though.  Most of the residents are Modern Orthodox and highly educated.  (My friend has a PhD and her husband an MD.)  

What area of Silver Spring? My gramma lives there, and has mainly noticed a lot of El Salvadoran immigrants, who do try to take part of the community and aren't doing anything to actively force people.

I just don't understand the push to make your community so insular by going to areas that already have people living there, especially diverse areas.

There are lots of states out there with wide open areas that they could buy land and build a new town or settlement, completely away from anyone else. 

But if they are choosing to live in the suburbs or cities, they need to get over the idea of trying to be insular and separated from other cultures. That's just not how it works. 

[19 cats and counting]

This is about 1/2 hour from me so I've seen local coverage of similar issues.  I also helped manage a state senate race where the district included Lakewood (mentioned in the article).  Because they vote as a block for whoever the rabbi tells them to (you get near unanimous results at the precinct level up and down the ticket) and are taking over local politics, it is a difficult situation.

Difference between the Haredi and say the FLDS (or other religious sects) is that the Haredi tend to concentrate in urban/suburban areas where they barely coexist with existing populations.  The FLDS go settle in the middle of nowhere and it is not as noticed.  I often wonder why they don't go to a low COL wide open area and build their own cities there.  

[Cleopatra7]

7 minutes ago, 19 cats and counting said:

This is about 1/2 hour from me so I've seen local coverage of similar issues.  I also helped manage a state senate race where the district included Lakewood (mentioned in the article).  Because they vote as a block for whoever the rabbi tells them to (you get near unanimous results at the precinct level up and down the ticket) and are taking over local politics, it is a difficult situation.

Difference between the Haredi and say the FLDS (or other religious sects) is that the Haredi tend to concentrate in urban/suburban areas where they barely coexist with existing populations.  The FLDS go settle in the middle of nowhere and it is not as noticed.  I often wonder why they don't go to a low COL wide open area and build their own cities there.  

I think the Haredi are used to urban living and don't have the practical skills necessary to live in the middle of nowhere. The men study Torah and Talmud full-time to the point where a man having a secular job is looked down upon by potential brides. To homestead like the FLDS would require the men to leave their studies to build houses, farm, and all the other chores needed to eke out a living in a rural, enclosed community. Many Haredi women have low level clerical jobs that bring in money, although not enough to support their large families. If they lived in the country, they'd have to leave those jobs to can, garden, and all the other traditional agrarian female skills. Ironically, rural living would be much more reflective of how Jews traditionally lived (at least, in the Pale of Settlement), when everyone had to work ordinary jobs and only a gifted minority of men were full-time Torah scholars. But the "every male a scholar" view that came into being after the Holocaust is only possible in an urban environment and a modern welfare state.

[Kittikatz]

I'm not sure that fundie is an entirely accurate term for this sort of group, but I can see where they may make that impression. They are called Haredi, and there are multiple sects and differences in how things are interpreted and the degree of public participation and rabinical control being excersised. 

A brief summary:

http://mosaicmagazine.com/response/2014/12/five-and-a-half-myths-about-ultra-orthodox-jews/

Unfortunately, there are some ultra orthodox sects that operate in a very exclusionary manner. They don't seem to want contact or involvement in the larger world, even Jews who are not of their sect are to be avoided. The men typically don't work except in Haredi industries, and the children frequently attend some sort of sect specific school with questionable academics, largely to avoid intermingling with outsiders or people in the larger culture. In some sects, some members don't speak English or French at a level which would allow participation in mainstream culture or consumption of mainstream media (Satmar are known for this, whereas Chabad are more intergrated or able to participate) Even worse, when they are forced to live in proximity to other groups, there are frequently hot button issues that will see some of these sects trying to coerce or use politics to force gentiles and insufficiently orthodox Jews to behave in ways that are acceptable to them.

Some examples:

Biking in Crown Heights

http://nymag.com/realestate/neighborhoods/2010/65356/

Driving near ultra orthoneighbourhoods on Shabbat

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4728232,00.html

http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/secular-activists-police-ignoring-ultra-orthodox-attacks-on-sabbath-traffic-in-jerusalem-1.372493

The sad part in this is that a lot of media don't understand the difference between orthodox and ultra orthodox, and even when they do, the nuances between the different ultra orthodox sects seem to completely escape mainstream media, which leads to all of the orthodox/ultra orthodox being painted with the same brush.

As with all closed religious groups, abusers can sometimes find friendly corners in which to hide, and when the abuser happens to be a rabbi that the community has to obey, things can get very bad. Examples:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/may/17/ultra-orthodox-jews-accused-offender

http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/feb/19/rabbis-absolute-power-how-sex-abuse-tore-apart-australias-orthodox-jewish-community

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/11/10/outcast-3

http://nypost.com/2011/12/11/orthodox-sex-abuse-scandal/

And a documentary on a bad one from Canada:

http://failedmessiah.typepad.com/failed_messiahcom/2011/06/documentary-on-ultra-orthodox-child-sexual-abuse-567.html

In case anyone wants to really start down the rabbit hole (no guarantee that rescue ferrets can save you) there are also multiple books about the weirdness written by escapees...

[HereticHick]

I saw this thread title and thought it was about Big Sandy, Texas!

[anjulibai]

29 minutes ago, Cleopatra7 said:

I think the Haredi are used to urban living and don't have the practical skills necessary to live in the middle of nowhere. The men study Torah and Talmud full-time to the point where a man having a secular job is looked down upon by potential brides. To homestead like the FLDS would require the men to leave their studies to build houses, farm, and all the other chores needed to eke out a living in a rural, enclosed community. Many Haredi women have low level clerical jobs that bring in money, although not enough to support their large families. If they lived in the country, they'd have to leave those jobs to can, garden, and all the other traditional agrarian female skills. Ironically, rural living would be much more reflective of how Jews traditionally lived (at least, in the Pale of Settlement), when everyone had to work ordinary jobs and only a gifted minority of men were full-time Torah scholars. But the "every male a scholar" view that came into being after the Holocaust is only possible in an urban environment and a modern welfare state.

That's an attitude I find so strange among Haredi. You know all the rules of your religious are based around an agrarian culture, and yet they seem to shun the agrarian lifestyle. You're points make sense, but it seems like they don't think about the future of their society or religion.

To be honest, they aren't a lot different from the LDS in using and abusing government programs and justifying it using religious beliefs. 

51 minutes ago, 19 cats and counting said:

This is about 1/2 hour from me so I've seen local coverage of similar issues.  I also helped manage a state senate race where the district included Lakewood (mentioned in the article).  Because they vote as a block for whoever the rabbi tells them to (you get near unanimous results at the precinct level up and down the ticket) and are taking over local politics, it is a difficult situation.

Difference between the Haredi and say the FLDS (or other religious sects) is that the Haredi tend to concentrate in urban/suburban areas where they barely coexist with existing populations.  The FLDS go settle in the middle of nowhere and it is not as noticed.  I often wonder why they don't go to a low COL wide open area and build their own cities there.  

I think any religious group that does this, and it's not limited to Haredi, should lose their tax- exampt status. It's just not okay. 

[PennySycamore]

@anjulibai, the area is just south of Wheaton Regional Park.  My husband grew up in Silver Spring and I remember him telling me how he and his friends would sometimes go to Larry's 5&10.  When we drove to my friend's house, we took a right at Larry's.  (I was amazed that Larry's was still there after 40 years or so.)   Anyhow, it was kinda cool to be in such a heavily Jewish area.  You don't see that in my neck-of-the-woods.

[19 cats and counting]

13 minutes ago, anjulibai said:

That's an attitude I find so strange among Haredi. You know all the rules of your religious are based around an agrarian culture, and yet they seem to shun the agrarian lifestyle. You're points make sense, but it seems like they don't think about the future of their society or religion.

To be honest, they aren't a lot different from the LDS in using and abusing government programs and justifying it using religious beliefs. 

I think any religious group that does this, and it's not limited to Haredi, should lose their tax- exampt status. It's just not okay. 

Speaking as a political staffer who studies precinct data, the difference between the Haredi is that the precinct numbers are almost 100% for their endorsed candidate.  It used to be bipartisan (Lakewood, NJ voted for Frank Lautenberg in 2008) but it's increasingly GOP.  

Other religious groups do, but they live in mixed neighborhoods and there's not block voting precincts.  Of course I could be speaking for how the precincts are drawn too.

[anjulibai]

3 minutes ago, 19 cats and counting said:

Speaking as a political staffer who studies precinct data, the difference between the Haredi is that the precinct numbers are almost 100% for their endorsed candidate.  It used to be bipartisan (Lakewood, NJ voted for Frank Lautenberg in 2008) but it's increasingly GOP.  

Other religious groups do, but they live in mixed neighborhoods and there's not block voting precincts.  Of course I could be speaking for how the precincts are drawn too.

I understand that normally it's spread out, but I still think any religious group that does that (have a religious leader tell others how to vote and who to vote for) should lose their tax exampt status. 

[Jingerbread]

Quote

Toms River residents who don’t want them, he said, are subscribing to “fear of the unknown,” and both Orthodox and secular communities need to abide one another.

When members of the group are aggressively trying to get people to leave, following kids, sitting several in a car to sit there taking photos and videos, and these tactics are condoned by the group and the leaders, it's not "subscribing to “fear of the unknown."  IMO, that's giving justifiable reason for other people to want that group to get the fuck out of town.  I don't care if the assholes are Jewish people, Christians, atheists, or fans of Marvel.  If your group is harassing people, you're the one who needs to stop.  The target group is not subscribing to anything but wanting to be left alone.

Quote

His account of dropping by a neighbor’s open house and being denied entry by its Orthodox listing agent is included in a 16-page report on real-estate canvassing issued by township officials Feb. 5.

The Orthodox group is the one violating laws here and blatantly trying to run people out of town.

[anjulibai]

6 hours ago, PennySycamore said:

@anjulibai, the area is just south of Wheaton Regional Park.  My husband grew up in Silver Spring and I remember him telling me how he and his friends would sometimes go to Larry's 5&10.  When we drove to my friend's house, we took a right at Larry's.  (I was amazed that Larry's was still there after 40 years or so.)   Anyhow, it was kinda cool to be in such a heavily Jewish area.  You don't see that in my neck-of-the-woods.

My gramma is further south than that, on the otherside of the 495 and closer to the downtown. I've been to Brookside Gardens, but we've always tended to stay on the other side of the Beltway and do stuff along the southern end of Sligo Creek, rather than venture up to Wheaten Regional Park. The area definitely has more of Central American flavor now with so many immigrants from El Salvador (and some from Guatamala and Honduras). 

There's a pretty strong Orthodox Jewish community up here in Baltimore, and while they tend to live in certain areas, they aren't super insular or extreme like the Haredi from the article. I work at a public high school with an Orthodox Jewish woman. She sent/sends her kids to Jewish schools, but ones where the kids receive good secular educations in addition to studies in Judaism and Hebrew and Jewish history. 

Which I get - seems totally reasonable to want your kid well versed on your culture's history and language. Orthodox Jews like her and her community might want to preserve their traditions, but they do want to be a part of the community at large. 

I don't get being so insular like the Haredi from the article. It's not good for either the community trying to be insular or the surrounding community. 

[MamaJunebug]

The part of this that really ticks me off is how the school district is in debt because of the requirement for separate school buses for girls and boys. 

There's a local school district that has reacted to shortfalls  by deeply cutting programs for students while supporting a suspiciously bloated number of "assistant superintendents" and one person whose job is simply labeled  "supplemental assignments" -- all of whom are making between $100,000-$190,000/year. 

Not exactly the same as what the Haredi rules have done to the NJ school system, but the effect is the same: lesser education in favor of cronyism (locally) or extremism (NJ). 

This angers me.  

http://fox2now.com/2016/02/22/hazelwood-administrators-make-six-figures-while-announcing-deep-cuts/

[nastyhobbitses]

On 3/15/2016 at 0:47 AM, anjulibai said:

My gramma is further south than that, on the otherside of the 495 and closer to the downtown. I've been to Brookside Gardens, but we've always tended to stay on the other side of the Beltway and do stuff along the southern end of Sligo Creek, rather than venture up to Wheaten Regional Park. The area definitely has more of Central American flavor now with so many immigrants from El Salvador (and some from Guatamala and Honduras). 

There's a pretty strong Orthodox Jewish community up here in Baltimore, and while they tend to live in certain areas, they aren't super insular or extreme like the Haredi from the article. I work at a public high school with an Orthodox Jewish woman. She sent/sends her kids to Jewish schools, but ones where the kids receive good secular educations in addition to studies in Judaism and Hebrew and Jewish history. 

Which I get - seems totally reasonable to want your kid well versed on your culture's history and language. Orthodox Jews like her and her community might want to preserve their traditions, but they do want to be a part of the community at large. 

I don't get being so insular like the Haredi from the article. It's not good for either the community trying to be insular or the surrounding community. 

This. I think that it's great to preserve your culture and do your own thing; the world would be a very boring place if everyone was assimilated into mainstream white American/Western culture. But on the other hand, it's unrealistic and counterproductive to expect the rest of the community/the world at large to adopt and bend to your way of life, or to completely shut out outsiders if you live in an area where contact is inevitable. And it's especially bad if that insularity is to protect abusers from accountability or punishment.

[Jingerbread]

14 minutes ago, nastyhobbitses said:

This. I think that it's great to preserve your culture and do your own thing; the world would be a very boring place if everyone was assimilated into mainstream white American/Western culture. But on the other hand, it's unrealistic and counterproductive to expect the rest of the community/the world at large to adopt and bend to your way of life, or to completely shut out outsiders if you live in an area where contact is inevitable. And it's especially bad if that insularity is to protect abusers from accountability or punishment.

Doesn't help that there's a cost to outsiders.  Those people living so isolated are unable to hold jobs that enable them to earn enough to make money to support their families, and it doesn't help that it's acceptable for men to not work and just study a book all day.  So taxpayers are having to pay for food stamps for people who either won't work, or can't work in a meaningful job because they can't communicate or go far outside the area, like Kiryas Joel.

[Tim-Tom Biblethumper]

Happened in my town in 1976 and we're still occupied!  
Not fundies, just scientologists...    

[19 cats and counting]

A few years ago in Lakewood, NJ they ran into another issue with the busing (other than separating boys and girls) but also the bus drivers had to work on holidays that evil heathen public school was closed.  The newspaper article was about how the bus drivers had to work on Thanksgiving, giving up their holiday, and I don't think they got overtime.

[Four is Enough]

On 3/15/2016 at 8:47 PM, anjulibai said:

 

There's a pretty strong Orthodox Jewish community up here in Baltimore, and while they tend to live in certain areas, they aren't super insular or extreme like the Haredi from the article. I work at a public high school with an Orthodox Jewish woman. She sent/sends her kids to Jewish schools, but ones where the kids receive good secular educations in addition to studies in Judaism and Hebrew and Jewish history. 

Which I get - seems totally reasonable to want your kid well versed on your culture's history and language. Orthodox Jews like her and her community might want to preserve their traditions, but they do want to be a part of the community at large. 

I don't get being so insular like the Haredi from the article. It's not good for either the community trying to be insular or the surrounding community. 

There are, however, pockets of very orthodox. I've read about the "enclosures", which I think actually have string or rope of some sort attached to the telephone poles, which circumscribe the area to be kept. I think, and I mean THINK, I don't completely remember, that this limits the amount of walking proper for a sabbath, etc. as well as having some other meaning. 

Baltimore has a very long Jewish tradition, many Jews live on the West Side, but there are groups as different from each other as Christian/Orthodox.  Very interesting, and you need a program to tell the players apart at times. 

[mamallama]

I also live in NJ between Lakewood and the other Hassidic communities in NY state.  One of the things they've done in NY is to take over the school boards and gut them and direct some of the money to things that serve the Hassidic community.  I also have a news service that scans police frequencies and reports incidents as they're in progress and I just saw that a FBI raid in underway of Monsey and Pomona schools looking for records related to purchases made by the school districts with federal education money.

 

 

[Kelsey]

5 hours ago, Tim-Tom Biblethumper said:

Happened in my town in 1976 and we're still occupied!  
Not fundies, just scientologists...    

Clearwater? That is such a weird situation. I used to live there but not anymore. Every time we visit though, I'm always like "what are these people just wlaking around for?" I always tell my husband that we should go on one of their tours but in reality, I'm too scared of being kept against my will to ever do that.

[Tim-Tom Biblethumper]

9 hours ago, Kelsey said:

I always tell my husband that we should go on one of their tours but in reality, I'm too scared of being kept against my will to ever do that.

Don't take a tour, don't take a personality test, only make eye contact to smile knowingly.  And always check out anyone who you put in a position of trust in this town (realtors, doctors, employers, etc.).  It's bad....real bad.  I have decades of stories.  I hope to get out when family obligations allow.

[Peas n carrots]

Don't take a tour, don't take a personality test, only make eye contact to smile knowingly.  And always check out anyone who you put in a position of trust in this town (realtors, doctors, employers, etc.).  It's bad....real bad.  I have decades of stories.  I hope to get out when family obligations allow.

I would love it if you had an AMA if you felt comfortable sharing your experiences living in Clearwater. I'm a Scientology gawker.

[Kelsey]

36 minutes ago, Tim-Tom Biblethumper said:

Don't take a tour, don't take a personality test, only make eye contact to smile knowingly.  And always check out anyone who you put in a position of trust in this town (realtors, doctors, employers, etc.).  It's bad....real bad.  I have decades of stories.  I hope to get out when family obligations allow.

We moved from the area about 5 years ago. I never did do a tour because those people are freaky and I've heard the stories. It just is so shocking to see it in action. All the people walking briskly from one place to another with briefcases- where are they going and why? 

[Tim-Tom Biblethumper]

6 hours ago, Kelsey said:

All the people walking briskly from one place to another with briefcases- where are they going and why? 

The ones you see walking briskly in groups are the Sea Org workers either going to classes, auditing, musters, mess hall, or their posts. They're kept on a tight leash and if even a minute late to anything there is a punishment.