Looking for a small, warm OOT community

amother

Sun, Sep 08 2013, 2:42 pm

We've been living in EY for the past few years and are looking to move back to the US now. We're looking for a small, warm, OOT community with a kollel (not an exclusively kiruv kollel). I would love to get a job teaching. Someplace not brand new, pretty established, but still small, close-knit, the type where everyone knows each other... Also, somewhere with cheap housing/cost of living Wink

We are yeshivish & open-minded (both of us grew up OOT). Where would be a good place for us? I've heard of Cincinnati, Cleveland, Waterbury....any details on these places would be great, also any other ideas for us? Thanks!

amother

Sun, Sep 08 2013, 3:13 pm

Hi. Im from Minneapolis Mn. It is a very warm oot community of about 200 families. It has a mix of yeshivish and everything in between. we are yeshivish and have plenty of friends here who are as well. There is a lakewood kollel, it is not exclusively kiruv. There is one frum school for pre school through eighth grade, a bais yaakov, and a yeshiva that is just starting its second year.

There are three shuls here. the main shul, which is where most of the yeshivish people go is bais yisroel. then there is kenneset israel. Kenneset just hired a rabbi who was previously in the kollel in an attempt tp build up the shuls reputation. Then there is a new shul called darchei noam, its more modern orthodox and I don't know too much about it.

we have two dairy (cholov yisroel) restaurants, one fleishig that is being built and will open soon, one kosher grocery store, which is small but has everything, and all the major grocery stores carry kosher food.

Everyone is friendly and close knit. Everyone knows everyone else. If there is a simcha on shabbos, it doesn't matter if there is two feet of snow, the entire community will be at the simcha.

The number of young yeshivish families is growing and you can really find everything you need here.

Housing is not especially cheap here, which is a down side, but there is everything from apartments, to town houses to houses to rent or buy.

The other down side is the cold and snow Smile

but if you can get past the weather, its really a nice place to live. I wouldn't want to live anywhere else (except EY of course Smile

amother

Mon, Sep 09 2013, 8:50 am

amother wrote:

but if you can get past the weather, its really a nice place to live. I wouldn't want to live anywhere else (except EY of course Smile

hi amother from mn. I happen to love cold and snow so that would be a plus for me Smile

a few questions:
-the elementary school is for boys & girls and then there is also a BY high school - did I understand right? is the elementary school separated?
-do you have any more info on the kollel? (how big it is, how much they pay, etc...) also, by not exclusively kiruv, you mean they'll take people who don't want to do kiruv at all, or everyone has to be involved in kiruv but only part-time?
-about how much would it cost to rent a 2-bedroom apt? 3-bedroom? a townhouse? how much does a decent sized house cost to buy?
-I'm assuming you need a car, right? is 1 enough or do you need 2?

thanks!!

amother

Mon, Sep 09 2013, 12:23 pm

amother wrote:

Richmond, VA! Very Happy

can you tell me more about it? kollel? schools? cost of housing, cost of living? what's the community like?

thanks!

Hi there!
You can check us out here for more info on the local frum community: http://www.kbirichmond.com/

We do have a kollel (Yeshiva of VA) and one day school (k-8) and a separate Yeshiva girls and boys high school.

The cost of living is MUCH lower than NY/NJ. We just bought a 5 bedroom house for 246k.

The community is very warm and welcoming. Not snobby at ALL. If you're NY snobby (my family is from Brooklyn) that won't fly here. There is more and more kosher available all the time.

amother

Mon, Sep 09 2013, 1:48 pm

To answer some of your questions about minneapolis:

The school is for children ages 2 through 8th grade. Boys and girls are together until 3rd grade and after that they seperate. The BY and Yeshiva are separate schools from the Torah academy. This is their website
http://www.torahacademymn.org/index.htm

As far as I know, you do not have to do any kiruv to be in the kollel, but im not sure. I don't know how much they make. They are a lakewood kollel, which means almost everyone learned lakewood with a few exceptions.
http://www.mnkollel.org/site/

A 2 bedroom apartment costs about 950 or so a month. It could have gone up since we lived in the apartments. I don't know of any three bedroom apartments in this area. This is the popular apartment amongst young frum couples.
http://www.joppalaneapartments.com/

A 4 bedroom house costs anywhere from from 250,000 and up. The houses here are older and a bit smaller then what you are paying for.

You could be ok with one car. everything is relatively close by.

feel free to ask any more questions you may have

bubbebia

Mon, Sep 09 2013, 2:50 pm

Rochester NY!!! It's a small, very close knit community with very reasonable cost of living--you can get a nice 3 bedroom house with a yard for 150K or so. We have every range of yiddishkeit you can imagine and the shuls to go with it from MO to Chabad, Balabatish to Sephardi. We have 2 day schools--1 modern, 1 yeshivish, a girls hs and a boy's yeshiva which has a Chofetz Chaim bais medrash and kollel. We have a newly refurbished mikvah. While we don't have restaurants currently, kosher food is available, especially our newly opened Rita's. We have many young families, a lot of whom are generally connected with the yeshiva, but everyone moves around the community freely. If you are interesting in visiting, PM me and we can arrange for you to visit!

amother

Mon, Sep 09 2013, 3:32 pm

The frum community in minneapolis is located in st louis park, which is a very nice place to live. it is close to all the major areas in Minneapolis and is a very safe neighborhood bli ayin hara. Its a quiet neighborhood and its very clean.

The community is located near everything you need. Even the popular pediatricians office is a 5 min walk from most places in the eiruv, and although non of the dr's are jewish, you can walk in on shabbos and they will take you.