Finance shaming VS Flaunting

amother

Freesia

Thu, Jan 26 2023, 7:51 am

amother Cerulean wrote:

I think theres a difference between new and old wealth.
My family has old wealth but I never dressed in brand name. If I did, it wasn't obvious (and I would get great deals, can’t imagine spending a lot of money!) We shopped at Walmart as well.

The new wealth feels like they can drive nicest cars, wear most expensive wigs and have every designer label on their clothing. There’s a concept of being tzanua with your wealth. (Yes it’s ok to have some expensive items but there’s a classy way to wear them)

Explain to me new and old wealth in a Jewish context? What's makes it "old wealth"?

Almost no one Jewish is wealthy for more than a few generations.

#humblebrag

bat1

Thu, Jan 26 2023, 8:13 am

amother Acacia wrote:

So there’s a few issues here

1. The Frum communities don’t live in socioeconomic bubbles. Meaning, in other communities people live and interact primarily with people in their own financial brackets. If you are moderately wealthy. You live in a middle to upper class community send your kids to school with other people who have similar income brackets etc. that’s your social circle. If you are mega wealthy. You generally socialize with mega wealthy people, live in an Uber expensive community where everyone else is mega wealthy. Etc. in our communities we have very poor kids and comfortable and mega wealthy in the same class. Parents sitting in shul together etc. so it highlights the vast differences. And that’s something very wealthy people in other communities don’t really face.

2. The excessive consumerism in the Frum community. I am a chabad shlucha with some incredible wealthy congregants. When I say money. I mean. We’ve been in their private jets and officiated at bar mitzvah that cost well over a million pounds. These people don’t even know what to do with their money.
Hence the over top celebrations.

And yet. I was just in Brooklyn and the average mother shopping in the grocery store on Thursday night and paying with their food stamp card was wearing SIGNIFICANTLY more jewelry than the women I know who not only owns a private jet but keeps it fully staffed 24 hour a day 365 days a year in case they want to hop on the plane.

So why is a 26 year old mother of 3 on food stamps shopping for groceries wearing more jewelry than the wife of a billionaire?

Now this woman owns really beautiful pieces. She wears them to galas and events and other such things. On a regular day she is wearing diamond studs. A watch and her wedding and engagement rings. That’s all. Anything else would be considered wildly inappropriate for an average day.

Now she dresses beautifully and I’m sure all her clothes are wildly expensive. But there’s never a brand name or label in sight. And this goes for the whole social crew.

And these people are all incredible generous. And give a fortune of tzedaka. So don’t give me the whole abundance mindset.

3. Is every lifestyle really in line with Torah values? Is a focus on buying and getting the latest trends, styles, brands and whatever really what a Frum Jew is meant to be focusing on? (Not even getting into the dubious morality and halachic issues of buying fake brands)

Is if you’ve got it, flaunt it, A Jewish concept?

And does the shopping habits of the wealthy people trickle down and impact what becomes the norms for everybody else?

Yiddishkeit doesn’t believe in socialism, but it also places very little, if any value, on materialism, and to pretend otherwise is really requires a lot of mental gymnastics.

Does that mean we need lead ascetic lifestyles.
Of course not, and as always, nuance is a lost art in 2023 and people tend to fall into extremes on either end of almost any issues.

Again. I don’t have any answers. But it’s definitely something to think about. And yea. There’re are elements of the rest of the world that flaunt their money and wear a lot of jewelersy they tend to be on reality TV shows a lot. So that tends to skew people’s information of what the rest of the world looks like. But go to the expensive neighborhoods in silicon valley, in New England, in Europe.

Of course there are some areas of Florida and New York where conspicuous consumerism is just everywhere. But in most parts of the world. It’s not like that.

AMAZING POST!! SUPER WELL SAID!

Bnei Berak 10

Thu, Jan 26 2023, 8:15 am

amother Acacia wrote:

"If you get it, flaunt it" is a value which is in *total contradiction* to Yiddishkeit.

watergirl

Thu, Jan 26 2023, 8:21 am

amother Freesia wrote:

Explain to me new and old wealth in a Jewish context? What's makes it "old wealth"?

Almost no one Jewish is wealthy for more than a few generations.

#humblebrag

My bosses are old money, and they are Jewish/secular, but it's only a few generations, you are right. The great grandfather came over with very little and started a business, and it's continued to blossom and grow in their investments until today. Now the business is changed, and there is a family philanthropy. My boss and her mother (also my boss) are so SO wealthy, and they spend thousands on items of clothing, but you would never ever know what brands because as they say, "money talks, wealth whispers". My boss's mother could dress in all Hermes all day every day but she would never. They go on fabulous vacations, have every comfort that life offers... and also give their money away at a rate you would be shocked to see. But they do it via their philanthropy, which has very interesting laws in terms of the IRS. The more they give, the more they gain literally and figuratively. Still, the fifth generation of the family consists of kids ages 20 and under, and when those kids want a name brand item with the name visible to all, the parents buy it for them. They could spend more on a better item without the name, but they recognize that some kids feel for whatever reason that they need that thing at that time... and the parents are down to earth enough to know when to make an issue out of something and when to just buy the shoes.

mommy3b2c

Thu, Jan 26 2023, 8:29 am

watergirl wrote:

This. All of this. I just love this post. I wonder what will happen with the imamother kids who’s moms boast about how they WON’T buy their kids the stylish sneakers because “what a waste of money, and it’s not our values, blah, blah.” I think many of them will be surprised to find what values they actually instilled in their kids.

BH Yom Yom

Thu, Jan 26 2023, 8:33 am

amother Acacia wrote:

Fabulous and well-articulated post.

amother

Bone

Thu, Jan 26 2023, 8:51 am

amother Freesia wrote:

Explain to me new and old wealth in a Jewish context? What's makes it "old wealth"?

Almost no one Jewish is wealthy for more than a few generations.

#humblebrag

Yes, old wealth is like the Hearst family or the Vanderbilts. Any Jewish families that are fabulously wealthy are new money, it doesn't go back that far. Maybe to grandparents/great grandparents at most. Because of our pattern of history with immigration and persecution and starting over esp in the last century. (The Jewish families that could be considered old money by now are mostly assimilated and have few halachically Jewish descendants if any.)
And you are right, there's a real thing with nouveau riche people who do tend to live different lifestyles than old money. I guess it's a psychological thing.

amother

Watermelon

Thu, Jan 26 2023, 8:55 am

mommy3b2c wrote:

The issue here is not just whether you buy brand name clothes or luxury cars or lavish jewelry. (Though it's not classy to be overdressed or showy.) The issue is how much head space you devote to stuff. The woman who walks into a boutique, likes a dress for $1000 and buys it within. 5 minutes (assuming she can afford it) is less problematic to me than someone who spends hours scouring the internet for a copy of that same dress for a fraction of the price.

So "you want those shoes, ok" is better than talking endlessly about them. But that's for children. By the time these kids grow up, you hope that they are secure enough to buy what they like.

Amarante

Thu, Jan 26 2023, 9:29 am

amother Bone wrote:

The Hearsts and the Vanderbilits are actually new money - accumulated during the late 19th Century and are what were called "robber barons" - also new money would be the Carnegies and Rockefellers.

Read Edith Wharton for some understanding of the "war" between old and new money.

Of course the USA really has no "old" money as compared to Europe but the Dutch like the Schermerhorns in NYC, the Cabots/Lodges in New England and the Jeffersons and other old Southern colonial figures are the closest one gets to "old" money in the US.

amother

Bone

Thu, Jan 26 2023, 9:34 am

Amarante wrote:

True if you're talking 100-150 years ago. But the Hearst money for example goes back much farther than those Jewish families of nowadays. Most Jewish wealth is post WW2.

BTW, Edith Wharton's family was still considered aristocratic but they were basically living in genteel poverty by the time she was growing up. That's why she faced such pressure to marry into money and why she had a miserable marriage which eventually ended and she left America and lived the rest of her life in Europe.

amother

Celeste

Thu, Jan 26 2023, 9:45 am

I’ve always been a you do you kind of person. Im middle class and feel blessed with what I have and don’t care what others have, how they spend, and what they do with their money or time. Not my business and it really doesn’t bother me to look at peoples “Yeshiva week” pictures even though I didn’t do anything major.
However, my oldest daughter, is coming home from school asking for a $180 aviator nation sweatshirt, and Gucci sneakers. A Tiffany bracelet and necklace set is the norm for a 5th grader. Etc.
I can’t really compete with these standards, but I don’t want her to feel bad either, or feel different from her friends. This is the only area where I have concern- as an adult, I don’t care about these things , but I wish parents would think twice about the kids in the class that can’t afford these things and be mindful about the standards their kids are setting.
It’s just a tough spot for me to be in.
This being said, it’s still not my business to shame others for how they spend their money.
These are just my feelings, I’m not acting on it.

Wolfsbane

Thu, Jan 26 2023, 9:46 am

sequoia wrote:

Flaunting your wealth by wearing flashy jewelry and expensive clothes and sheitels in everyday life (like to the grocery store) is exclusively a frum thing. Look at how Mark Zuckerberg and his wife dress.

In the 19th c. it was definitely a thing to display your wealth through clothes, and since frum society is still culturally in many ways in the Victorian Era…

In fairness, Mark Zuckerberg's t-shirts are probably very expensive. And by dressing simply, he's showing off in his own way (I think people refer to this as 'countersignaling'). He's rich and powerful enough that he can dress however he wants with no consequences. I can't wear a t-shirt and jean skirt to work; I'm not my own boss, and my workplace has a dress code I have to follow.

amother

Indigo

Thu, Jan 26 2023, 9:48 am

sequoia wrote:

Loll this is so so untrue
The high fashion industry is a multi multi billion dollar industry. I promise you the frum community is not solely supporting them!

Check out the amount of non Jews burying hundreds of thousands of dollars into Hermes every year just to maybe be given the privilege of being offered a birkin bag!

ora_43

Thu, Jan 26 2023, 10:15 am

amother Watermelon wrote:

The issue is how much head space you devote to stuff. The woman who walks into a boutique, likes a dress for $1000 and buys it within. 5 minutes (assuming she can afford it) is less problematic to me than someone who spends hours scouring the internet for a copy of that same dress for a fraction of the price.

Why would that be the issue?

Either the woman who bought it full-price really wants that specific dress, in which case either

- she's spending the same amount of hours on it, just work-hours instead of internet-search-hours, or

- she has so much money that $1,000 is nothing to her

In either case, she's not morally superior, just richer.

Or, she cares less about fashion - in which case why is she spending $1,000 on a dress? At least the lady scouring the internet for a better sale actually wants the thing she's buying.