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youngishbear




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Jan 15 2017, 8:59 am
Maya wrote:
I agree.
Fox, we know about your romantic and idealized views of the Chassidish world, and I can understand if you don't want to trust people like me and youngishbear when we agree with the sociologists, even though we've been a part of the community for 30 or so years.
But Samuel Heilman is a well respected authority on the topic, and all of his published books and articles are well researched and analyzed, and held to be accurate by those same people he's writing about.


Most of what he says is factual, not judgemental. Friedlander injects his own bias into his analysis.
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Simple1




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Jan 15 2017, 9:21 am
I don't think frum people are as insular as you think they are, nowadays. So many people have smart phones and spread the news to others whon don't have.

Alot of frum people are more likely to get the news from radios, which in NY mostly is right wing, a couple of them being staunch trump supporters I would assume this influenced a lot of the voting.
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Aylat




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Jan 15 2017, 9:29 am
Pita wrote:
There are actually many studies that say every community (whether Jewish or not) is becoming more insular, because the internet allows us to read only what verifies our position.


Definitely. Wrote a paper on this for uni a few semesters ago. The bubble effect and so on.
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youngishbear




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Jan 15 2017, 9:35 am
Simple1 wrote:
I don't think frum people are as insular as you think they are, nowadays. So many people have smart phones and spread the news to others whon don't have.

Alot of frum people are more likely to get the news from radios, which in NY mostly is right wing, a couple of them being staunch trump supporters I would assume this influenced a lot of the voting.


True but the question is why they seek out these specific sources in the first place.

I, for one, lost patience with the Hamodia a long time ago.

Not that Google News is very useful. It brings me "news" about every topic I search for. It has gotten incredibly annoying lately.
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youngishbear




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Jan 15 2017, 9:38 am
Simple1 wrote:
Because if they don't watch TV or have internet, they are left with radio.


So you agree with Friedlander that it's a result of insularity?
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Simple1




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Jan 15 2017, 9:39 am
youngishbear wrote:
True but the question is why they seek out these specific sources in the first place.



Because if they don't watch TV or have internet, they are left with radio.
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Maya




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Jan 15 2017, 9:50 am
youngishbear wrote:
Most of what he says is factual, not judgemental. Friedlander injects his own bias into his analysis.

Heilman? Yes.
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Maya




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Jan 15 2017, 9:52 am
Simple1 wrote:
Because if they don't watch TV or have internet, they are left with radio.

But why do they gravitate towards radical right wing talk, instead of NPR or BBC or other left leaning sources?
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Jeanette




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Jan 15 2017, 10:08 am
PinkFridge wrote:
And I agree with some of Heilman's assertions. (Can't go back and elaborate but rest assured, Hillary as a murderer is not one of them.)


You disagree that certain members of the community believe that HIllary is a murderer or worse?

I've seen those views expressed multiple times on this forum.
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WhatFor




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Jan 15 2017, 11:35 am
youngishbear wrote:


Not that Google News is very useful. It brings me "news" about every topic I search for. It has gotten incredibly annoying lately.


After you do a search next time, make sure you're searching under "All" and not "news".
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Simple1




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Jan 15 2017, 11:50 am
Maya wrote:
But why do they gravitate towards radical right wing talk, instead of NPR or BBC or other left leaning sources?


People will gravitate towards the more entertaining shows.

But yes there are also other reasons why frum tend to vote conservative, positions on Israel, etc.
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Fox




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Jan 15 2017, 11:51 am
Maya wrote:
I agree.
Fox, we know about your romantic and idealized views of the Chassidish world, and I can understand if you don't want to trust people like me and youngishbear when we agree with the sociologists, even though we've been a part of the community for 30 or so years.
But Samuel Heilman is a well respected authority on the topic, and all of his published books and articles are well researched and analyzed, and held to be accurate by those same people he's writing about.


Here's the background for new Imamothers who might have missed it:

Several years ago, I acknowledged that I am inclined as a result of my experiences to judge the Chassidish veldt favorably -- sometimes too favorably. Oh, and I used the word "romanticize."

Rather than interpreting my introspection as a sign of self-awareness and maturity, Maya chooses to see it as an admission of weakness and trots it out at even the slightest opportunity -- even when it has virtually nothing to do with the topic at hand, such as this thread.

I can hardly stop laughing at your spirited defense of Samuel Heilman. I don't disagree with him in the least and never indicated that I did. Nor does this thread have anything whatsoever, IMHO, to do with Chassidish communities.

My criticism is directed solely at Katrina Piser's stupid and facile article, with its repugnant stereotypes and worn-out tropes. The FrontPageMag article I linked also had an ideological bias but managed to sneak a lot more facts in, showing that voting for Trump was not, in fact, limited to the Chassidish veldt.

Regardless, I am delighted that you share my regard for Dr. Heilman. I won't have to worry in the future about the appropriateness of referencing some of his pointed observations regarading the motivations of Modern Orthodox Jews.
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sequoia




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Jan 15 2017, 12:42 pm
Pita wrote:
There are actually many studies that say every community (whether Jewish or not) is becoming more insular, because the internet allows us to read only what verifies our position.


That is true, and I think personal experience confirms it.

I am perfectly happy to use facebook for cat memes and birth announcements, but sometimes I wish expressing a dissenting opinion (on any topic) wouldn't result in 50 people defriending you.
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Fox




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Jan 15 2017, 12:53 pm
sequoia wrote:
I am perfectly happy to use facebook for cat memes and birth announcements, but sometimes I wish expressing a dissenting opinion (on any topic) wouldn't result in 50 people defriending you.


Except for people who dislike cats. That should be an automatic unfriending! Smile
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JoyInTheMorning




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Jan 15 2017, 11:32 pm
Fox wrote:
A different interpretation:

http://www.frontpagemag.com/fp.....field


Fox, you keep arguing that liberals live in an echo chamber and are out of touch with the working class.

Let me tell you something. From what you write here, you are out of touch with the working class. In fact, most Orthodox Jews are out of touch with the working class. Even the poorest, most of them, send their kids to private, religious school. No matter how crummy those schools may be, and how little they may prepare their graduates to enter the workforce, they surround their students with a bubble that kids growing up in the real working class never gets to experience.

Most Orthodox Jews struggle financially, both because we send our kids to Jewish day schools / yeshivas and because of society's expectations. In one part of the Orthodox Jewish community, these expectations involve lavish gifts to every chasan and kallah. In other parts, it's parental support of kids who have no intention of supporting themselves for years after marriage. In other parts, it's spending upwards of 25K a year per kid per year for tuition (that is often all that is available OOT for high school), $5K or more per kid for summer camp, and thousands of dollars per year in shul membership fees.

But in all cases, these are choices that we make, choices that the real working class never gets to even think about. For us to claim that we're not out of touch with the working class is ludicrous. For the author of the article you linked to claim that David Friedman, living in the comfortable suburbs of Long Island, in a home that I'm sure has a kitchen with granite counters and an island and a hired landscaper to mow the lawn, is somehow more in touch with the working class than those that are deemed as echo-chamber liberals, is snort-worthy. One of the biggest public supporters of Trump in the O-U is someone who has written an article saying that Modern Orthodox families can't manage if they make less than $300K a year. Ah, yes, a true compatriot of the working class.

I know that you personally don't believe in lavish spending, that you're in fact an iconoclast who has made a very visible point of not sending your daughters away for their expected year in Israel. Most of us can't afford, in the social sense, to make that statement, because we don't necessarily have public positions in the community, as you do, and we can't afford to let our kids slide further down the social or educational heap.

And as someone who didn't have the advantage that you did of a private college education paid for by her parents, I just laugh when you pontificate about the elite in their echo chambers. You just don't have the creds to talk about your affinity with the working class.
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ora_43




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Jan 16 2017, 7:50 am
JoyInTheMorning wrote:
Let me tell you something. From what you write here, you are out of touch with the working class. In fact, most Orthodox Jews are out of touch with the working class. Even the poorest, most of them, send their kids to private, religious school. No matter how crummy those schools may be, and how little they may prepare their graduates to enter the workforce, they surround their students with a bubble that kids growing up in the real working class never gets to experience.

I went to public school and IMO this is not true.

There's private school, and then there's private school. A kid who goes to a $20,000 a year school that teaches the same topics as public school on a much higher level is privileged beyond what most working class kids experience.

A kid who goes to a $7,000 a year private school that teaches completely different topics from public school, is not.

I'm not sure what putting kids in a bubble has to do with socioeconomic status. It's not like working class Christian towns in, say, South Carolina are usually a rich tapestry of ethnic and religious diversity. You don't need to have money to "protect" kids from ideologies you don't agree with.
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ora_43




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Jan 16 2017, 7:51 am
"Working class" is not "poor." Poor people can't afford to help out their 18-22 year old kids, maybe, but plenty of working class parents work very hard for exactly that purpose.
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PinkFridge




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Jan 16 2017, 9:09 am
Jeanette wrote:
You disagree that certain members of the community believe that HIllary is a murderer or worse?

I've seen those views expressed multiple times on this forum.


I should have clarified. I am in agreement with some of the beliefs, not all of them. IOW, I believe people believe Hillary is a murderer or worse; I'm not one of those people.
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PinkFridge




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Jan 16 2017, 9:11 am
Maya wrote:
But why do they gravitate towards radical right wing talk, instead of NPR or BBC or other left leaning sources?


I can only get NPR in my car. (And some people call NPR National Palestinian Radio. Did it I mention this on p. 1 of this thread or elsewhere, that a local very generous and Jewishly connected family wanted to sponsor a day of local NPR in honor of Israel Independence Day, and the resultant kerfuffle?)
And I was sad to see Air America go. It was good to hear the other side. People will listen to what's available and it's generally RW. However, we can be selective re whom we choose to listen to.
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Fox




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Jan 16 2017, 1:14 pm
JoyInTheMorning wrote:
I know that you personally don't believe in lavish spending, that you're in fact an iconoclast who has made a very visible point of not sending your daughters away for their expected year in Israel. Most of us can't afford, in the social sense, to make that statement, because we don't necessarily have public positions in the community, as you do, and we can't afford to let our kids slide further down the social or educational heap.

And as someone who didn't have the advantage that you did of a private college education paid for by her parents, I just laugh when you pontificate about the elite in their echo chambers. You just don't have the creds to talk about your affinity with the working class.


Thank you, Joy! And I'm not being the least bit facetious!

I woke up this morning, just one more fat middle-aged woman facing the work-week, full of regrets for heeding the weekend siren call of Marriano's caramel corn.

But I log onto Imamother and find myself described as an "iconoclast" with a "public position" in my community! Wow! That sounds way glamorous! I was even inspired to put on make-up before donning my bunny slippers and heading to work in the basement! I think I'll hang your post up on the fridge. Whenever my kids or DH complain about my failings, I'm going to point and say, "What do you know? JoyInTheMorning says I'm an iconoclast with a public position in the community!"

But now onto the substance of your post:

Had I ever claimed even the slightest affinity with the "working class," you'd be spot-on. But all I did was post a link to an article that correlates a handful of characteristics of Orthodox Jews with those of the so-called working class.

If I send Sequoia a cat meme, it doesn't mean I believe myself to be a cat.

However, there's an excellent point fighting for survival under your criticism:

The argument can be made that the concept of a "working class" is no longer relevant or viable in a post-industrial society. "Working class" was traditionally associated with manufacturing jobs that did not require significant education; were paid by the hour; and were frequently unionized.

Of course, 75 years ago, this was true. But Tom Wolfe, among others, has argued persuasively that this model is extinct. He suggested back in 2000 that the only real class division in America today is those who have bachelor's degrees and those who don't. I'm not sure I agree with that, but it's an interesting idea to kick around.

Where would we even start to define "working class" today? By income? By profession? By industry? By how the person is paid? By union membership? Is a tool-and-die maker who did an internship in Germany and earns $150K a member of the working class while a social worker with a master's degree earning $35K is not?

So not only do I not consider myself to have any particular affinity for the working class, I'm not even sure who they are.

Of course, we're all in our own echo chambers to one degree or another, but I don't think that renders all observations moot.

The thesis of Piser's piece seems to be "What on earth would explain why 69 percent of these people have voted for someone the rest of us detest?"

The fact that this question still baffled Piser and the Forward almost 2 months after the election is a clear demonstration of how deeply embedded they are among like-minded people.

I referenced David French's article in The National Review "If You Don't Get Religion . . . " , and I think it contains the answers -- none of which have anything to do with socio-economic class.

The reason the Forward, et. al., are shocked that Orthodox Jews would break ranks politically with liberal Jews is because they just can't get their heads around the fact that we really believe in the Torah. Whether you felt Trump or Clinton best represented your interests, it is inconceivable to Piser and the Forward that many of us feel we have more in common politically with a Southern Baptist in Arkansas than a completely secular Jew living on the Upper East Side.

You are 100 percent correct that I am the recipient of an outstanding education that I wouldn't have received had I been born in a different time or place or to different parents. I am tremendously grateful for that advantage and would like to think that I try to benefit as much as possible from the opportunities I've been given. What should really disturb you, though, is that someone like Karina Piser -- whose C.V. makes mine look like a shop girl -- manages to bring so little insight to the table.
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