Monsey vs. Lawrence, New York

amother

Sat, Sep 15 2007, 7:50 pm

My husband and I are considering moving to New York soon just for a year or two. Since we are BT's, my husband hasn't had much opportunity to learn. Both Monsey and Lawrence have yeshiva's where my husband could learn (Israel is not an option).
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We are yeshivish/litvish, recently married, no children yet. I want to hear from other women (who are litvish/yeshivish) about the cost of living, jobs, quality of life, commercial resources, etc. I would like to get a job in local government, non profit or libraries. My husband would either work part time and learn part time or just learn full time until iyh we have a child then he would begin working.

We are from California, so any relevant comparisons would be very helpful. Ideally, we would love a relaxed, albeit frum, community with many young couples, good shopping, doctors, etc. We most likely would rent an apartment, unless home rentals are available and not so expensive. Keep in mind that coming from CA, we are used to high rental and housing prices ($1500 for a small one bedroom apartment). Also, restaurants are important to us but even more importnatly, we want to know about the feel and attitude of the communities, as well as what sort of learning opportunities/programs/shiurim available for women.

Thank you in advance!

amother

Sun, Sep 16 2007, 9:27 am

I live in one of the other "5 Towns". I love living here; plenty of kosher shopping, shuls, shiurim, Chesed, great schools etc. However, it is a very expensive community, and depending who you hang out with, there can be a lot of pressure to "keep up with the Cohen's".
You may be happier in Woodmere, it sounds like you would fit right in to Aish Kodesh, Rabbi Weinberger's shul. He has a lot of Baalei Tshuva, and is very loved by his flock. There are some apartments near his shul, but few house rentals.
If you have specific questions, you can join the 5 Towns yahoo group at:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/.....49395

The website for Aish Kodesh is http://www.aishkodesh.org/

And you can look at http://www.thefivetowns.com/ for more information about facilities in the community, as well as real estate listings.