We did what many others do. We packed the kids into the car and headed to Wal*Mart in Monticello. When we got there it was like walking into Boro Park/Williamsburg, full of Yiddelach, clogging up the aisles, doing what they do best. It's times like these that make you want to bury your head in shame.
Let me preface this by saying that I do look like all other Charedim/Chassidishe. White shirt, dark pants, beard and peyos, but for some reason I do know how to behave around non-Jews, it's something I've been careful about my whole life. Most "Frummies" however, have NO IDEA how to act, which basically means that it's no better in their own neighborhoods, but there people are used to it. I'm talking about clogging up the aisles, bumping into other people without excusing themselves, cutting into checkout lines, etc.
I was standing in one line and this young man is ahead of me, behind me is a local Yokel who's getting very impatient that the line isn't moving because the young girl at the register has never seen so many people buying so much stuff. All of a sudden this yungerman's wife pulls in with another full cart and positions herself behind him. The local guy sees all these Jews ahead of him and says "HOW MANY CARTS ARE GONNA CUT INTO THIS LINE, THIS IS BEGINNING TO BE FELONIOUS!,"I THINK I'LL GO TO THE PALESTINIAN LINE!".
I do understand that the locals are ingrates who owe their existence to the summer vacationers, but you don't have to flaunt it. People come in to these stores dressed to kill, as if they're going to some kind of function, while the locals can't afford a pair of pants.
Another example: we were standing in line with a bunch of kids and a wagon full of stuff. Next to us in the adjacent line stood a man from BP/Williamsburg in his 40's holding 2 items. After 10 minutes in line the cashier says she's closing the line. The man goes ballistic, he says to his wife איך שטיי שוין דא א האלבע שעה! Then he runs up to the cashier and loudly tells her "I'm oreddy heer 45 minits, u cent close di lein!". The poor girl may have been there for 10 hours earning minimum wage, and maybe she wanted to go home to her kids, but this guy can't be bothered to go to another line with his 2 items and let's everybody know about it.
It's sickening to watch.
60 comments:
Thanks alot. That's just what I wanted to hear upon your return, more news that helps my ahavas yosroel. That's just great.
There are a million similar episodes of this kind that we all have witnessed - I distinctly remember the expression of one Viyamsburger frui as she managed to crash her cart into, and squeeze ahead of some patiently waiting lady and her daughter while they were patiently waiting on line for the elevator at a certain manhattan store on chol hamoed sukkos last year. (I apologized to the lady for the actions of my fellow Jew).
There's a reason why we keep animals in cages - why can't we keep some people in cages as well...
oh my,
I used to feel the way you do, then I married into a family of frumie cave dwellers, they are very nice people they come only at night so my exposure to them is only for the rare times at dawn when I am still up and twilight when they are running to daven. Well like I said once I was able to communicate with the frumie cave dwellers I learned that they are so "rude" because they are sleep and light deprived so I think we should start a program in all jewish places of higher learning to give off light.
anyway have a great summer all.nice to see you back in the saddle where you belong. blong on jew boy. and please dont tell my in-laws that I think of them as cave people.
Hey Hirshel, you write that you have 'peyos', I thought that that was big 'booboo' in Lubavitch.Only 'Satmars' have peyos.
About your post:Laider it's true the heimisheh have no manners.Actually I'm surprised that you went to the Country.Who, in their right mind would want to shlepp up their, with 30 thousand other shleppers to sit in traffic??The city is such a 'mechayeh' in the summer, so quiet.I heard actually that it was hotter in the Country than in the City
wat about the summer gmach-buying acs and returning after
the summer gmach idea pisses me off. its not just a heimishe krank its lubavitchers as well, but, and i am not kidding here, if you ask around by the mizrachistin or young israel if they would do such a thing they would look at you like yu are mad.
i am a lubavitcher yumgerman (beard no payes etc) and pride myself on not doing stuff like that.
shloima
Frei yidden and non-Jews (especially immigrants)pull that return shtick as well.
oh my let us all feel the love.
heshy, good job. you found a way to bridge the gap with malach and find common ground....sharing love for your fellow jews....
n, I did find a way, but he had to get a stab in on Lubavitch anyway.
Malach, we do the country thing פאר די קינדער don't you know?
"It's for the kids"
Same reason we rip off government programs for schools, food stamps, medical insurance, section 8, ...
Some education those kids are gettting, eh?
Eli
unlike ripping off the government, in the country situation the consumers get ripped off. The dad in the situation is also made a shmatte of.
oh my leave your dad out of this hirshel he is a very nice man!
I wasn't referring to my dad. I meant myself!
oh my well,you all must put this into some sort of world view.
it is like this the whole world is nuts and is getting worse yeah, and all of these above stated activites (except sidelocks) is wrong. but if you look at the expense of having a "frum" family it is quite alot.
I am not saying that it is ok to run over our host with a shopping cart to cut him off by the casher.We must all try to act like people of the book.not get the book thrown at us. but if you look at the rising problems that our youth are having I feel that all of these things are not the problem but a side effect of a greater issues. does any one know the blessing for soy crisps?
Tzig,
We need your thoughts on the 'Stone'
That silly stone which has cost Lubavitch Inc. a pretty penny(24 hour guards for about 7(?)months, how much do you figure, 15k a month?)aside from making Lubavitch Inc into a laughing stock in the eyes of any sane people.
Yes, that 'terrible' plaque which referred to the Rebbe as being deceased has finally been broken. Bravo and Yechi Hamelech!
(While I'm at it can any 'kool aiders' who are supposedly anti meshichist explain to me why the Rebbe himself referred to his deceased father in law a number of times as being 'Shlit'a' and alive in a way that can be seen 'mit fleishigeh oigen'??? )
Above was from me
oh my stars this is getting hot.
well boys have at it. go on. forget about everything that matters in life and go after one or two nuts who can't even get up in the morning to help the minyan out.
you are worried about a plaque and a stone? who cares!!! every day we have kids doing every wacky thing in the book and you fellows think that this is about not acting proper at walmart and some nuts who stay up nights over a stone. there are real problems in our home town and you are part of the cure or the problem. and if you want to know there are lots of security in my hometown of boro park. they are not there to protect the kids in the yeshiva.
malach,
any strife between lubavitchers, even the most outlandish, has some essence of a higher purpose...whats going on by you in satmar? i don't think anybody is so interested but if you want someone can bring your arooni/zalmooni fights to light for all to see (not a pretty picture(.....lubavitchers are fighting about moshiach, g-d, the culmination of human extistance, the essence of yiddishkeit...and satmar is fighting about ?
In case you don't know I'm not Satmar.
To address your point, however:The fight in Satmar is a very natural one and is as old as Adam and his sons Kayin and Hevel.Power, money etc.Natural as horrible as it is.Mind you the ones fighting are actually a tiny minority the rest are stuck in between.I agree that it makes me sick.
Lubavitch on the other hand is a mental asylum, I mean go figure it's 11 years since he died and a large group still claims he is alive.Is this normal??
Oh about Lubavitch being into Gdliness.......Good joke, the only, gdliness they are into is whether the Rebbe is G-d!(ask the Boreinuniks, our distant,once upon a time co-religionists, these, boreinuniks are just one step ahead of your meshichists)
Moshiach??The only moshiach they are into is if it's their Rebbe.
Lubavitch used to the closest religion to Judaism, but it ain't that close anymore!
In case you wondered who wrote the previous post......................
PEOPLE
this was not meant to be a Lubavitch discussion.
On the button. But the following kashes need answers (und nit kin terutzim) :
1. Why charedim do not have manners? After all thIs The Torah of Bein Adam Lechaveiro and includes Mitzvot like Kiddush hashem and chilul hashem?The charedim treat other Jews the same way they treat the Bnai Noach so they are equal opportunity wild men.
2. Why charedim go to the "Countries" at all. It leaves young men in THE CITY exposed to all manners of tempatations and We all know that "rabim chalalim "... People have reported on what goes on in the summer in the clubs of New York and who is sen there regularly.
3. The Women in the Mountains are out of the domain of their husbands as well and in years past more than a few went dancing in places like Grossingers (when it existed) and not with their husbnds .I will not even mention a serious breach in Zenius that the Countries enable.
4.Annually we are lo alainu witness to numerous fatal car accidents in the countries involving "Heimishe' drivers and their passengers. Yet the "tararam" continues.The heimishe driver still likes to drive a neinziker or maybe more.
5. Annualy we are witness to other tragedies of the "Countries" like lo alainu drownings, children getting lost vechuli. And again the beat goes on ...
6. To summarize both in Ishus and Nefashoth it would behoove most frrum Yiden to stay in the City. Send the kids to sleep away camps for fresh air and luft , but the cost of the present system is really wild.
Where are the rabbonim and the manhigim. We should follow the leader and do what the Lubavitcher rebbe did. Reb Elchonon Wasserman once said a Yid has no spare time to vcation. Hashem yishmerenu !
walmart is following this thread and thinking "how did the jews get from our store onto messiah and now they plan to boycott the country" sullivan county will be doomed
Smargoner, I agree!
This whole Country business is a terrible, terrible 'michshol' and yes, I do have outmost respect for the Lubavitcher, never taking vacation in 40 years.
Can anyone believe I said that last statement??
Credit given where it's rightly deserved
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe some communities have mandated the men going up once a week besides for Shabbos. They also serve suppers in Shuls. The problem is that it has become a must to go out to the country because of "The Treifene Shtoot", so anything that happens is not attributed to any wrongdoing. (and if it is it's the womens' fault, of course, the men are A-OK!)
Compared to the "contries" the shtot is ganz kasher especially neighborhoods like CH, BP and Flatbush.
The rabbonim are all scared to take a position against the 'countries" for financial reasons and for another more intimate reason the Separation of families in the Summer acts as a safety valve in the charedi community and helps insure Shalom Bayith . Vehamavin Yavin (this does not apply to Lubavitch and the Yeshiva world ).
as in "distance makes the heart grow fonder?"
Yes, the Satmarer kehilla serves supper nightly and has shiurim as well. But thats preaching to the choir ! Satmar kayn Ayin Hore is a huge community.
I know Charedim who tell their wives that they can not take every Friday off in the Summer as a way of not joining their family in the Countries !
Lets be reasonable the mass exodus of families in the Summer plays havoc with the Moral standards of frum lives.
On the other hand I know of few MO Jews ( Strictly frum) from Teaneck , the West Side or Kew garden Hills who go to the "berg". They have their own set of leisure time issues, no less dangerous to Judaic ideals.
Ein lanu ela Ben Amraam. lets follow the example of the lubavitcher rebbe, No datche . For us people a short datcha not involving a complete uprooting from the HOME. The children can go to camp, the rest of us either work or learn Teyre , so "ma baynayhu" the Mountains or NYC ???
although i can't relate to the summer country experience perhaps one could say that although fraught with problems, it is much needed saftely valve for everyone. lets face it. a yiddishe life is full of tremendous pressure. although kedusha is unraveled a bit by the summer..perhaps we would see a bit more unraveling if there were no summer excursions....
Re: n said. Jewish life is not made to live under conditions that are not tolerable. (ein hakadosh baruch HU ba BiTrunya...) Our ancestors lived worse lives and most did not go away for vacations. Most did not need a break from their family routine either.Its just that modern day frumkayt has adopted very material values and now innocently claims that these material values are part and parcel of Torah True yiddishkayt (eg the Country, fancy weddings, trips to Europe and Israel, constant life cucle event celebrations, fancy bekeshes etc This life style starts at 100,000 K per year))
Perhaps we all should take a 3 month "leave of absence" from Judaism in order to become better Jews the rest of the year. Like Yerida lezorach aliya !!
What we need is a return to the natural Jewish experience that marked the lifes of the pre War frum jew in Poland and Russia.
I went to the county once it not that bad. The Rebbe used to say all the time how the whole summer thing is just an american thing.the first month the Yeshivas have to spend getting the children thinking again. well I would like to stay in the city during the summer and go up to the country in the winter. we all know that the max. amount of children in a class should not be more than 25. well did any of you look into how many children are in your kids class?
does any one know what blessing I make on my soy crisps?
what I say is get tough, and lose weight, no one like fat blogers!
smargoner,
material standards and 'needs' have gone up. but nevermind that big topic for now...consider even a non material type family...the dynamics of life are simply pressured.
a tiny example: send kids off in the morning to yeshiva. a mother has to pick out clothes, get a kid(s) dressed, fed, knapsack in order, hoimework signed off, make sure that she is dressed appropriately,run down from the 3rd or 4th floor maybe no elevator, leave screaming toddlers alone while she takes other kids to the bus, maybe has to wait twenty minutes worrying about welfare of baby/toddlers upstairs out of site..maybe leave a three year old on the sidewalk while crossing the street to load the five year old meanwhile apprehensive about the three year old staying put on the sidewalk instead of following her into the street...etc. the possible tension of a simple non event takes its toll and can be expounded upon with no embelishment....what were the old days? leaving the house for cheder didn't necessarily mean feeding anybody (who had food), getting dressed (you slept in the same set of clothes that you wore all week), signing off homework or assembling a knapsack( paper was a real commodity and no one brought a breifcase to cheder), and walking out the front door to cheder alone without mommy or a bus. CHeder was in the neighborhood and it was a given that a five year old walks there by himself..pretty relaxing for the mommy compared to today....etc, etc...
N.
With all due respect to you .You have absolutely no idea of what daily domestic life was in East Europe. Friend, the baalhaboste had no washing machine or dryer she had to do all that by HAND. Cooking -no Meal Mart in Dokshitz . No micro wave just a primative oven . Most baking including challes was not done by Korns bakery but by the baal haboste herself. there were no mixers squeezers etc and no Drimmers Electronics.Clothes were not thrown away but constantly repaied and taken out by the baalhaboste herself.
No throw away diapers no formula so breast feeding was common.
No vacum cleaners and other modern day cleaning supplies , The house was cleaned by HAND.
Shall I go into the pervasive poverty that marked Jewish life in E. Europe, but thats not stressful of course not compared to wwhere are we going for shabbath ?
If thats not enough many baalhabostes helped their husbands in their stores or mercantile dealings .
The children also went to cheder and had to be made clean and cleaned up after a visit to the Behak, a Emember friend no indoor plumbing no water except the supply delivered or from a outdoor well.
N. wake up and do a little reading about daily domestic life in Europe in both small shtetlech and in places like Warsaw Vilna and Minsk.
I read your comment and I have to laugh . Think about a world where the housewife did all the cooking, preparation cleaning baking etc with her own hands.
Did you or your wife ever kasher a piece of meat well friend in EUROPE ALL women kashered their own meat and poultry,. have you ever seen the mess this makes in the kitchen.
Pressure, stress friend you know not what you speak of.
Hob nit kin varibel af mir but you need to read about life before World war 2.
I am a chabad chosid who thinks all women should be in the kitchen and with one or two in the oven.
bravo satmar more power to you!!!
that is what we need today!
kurenitzer, you misunderstood the point: life today although easier and materially rich (even for those poor)is very stressful by its intrinsic dynamics. a simple example was provided to elucidate the point. that doesn't negate europe's grinding poverty and life with a hostile goyish population. i understand this well, but we need to separate these two issues lest we confuse the point about today's distinct level of stress in jewish life (and thus the need for vacations in the mountains). You also are confusing yourself by juxtaposing today's life with that of yesteryear: " women cooked everything by hand, kashered their own fleish, and cleaned their kitchens afterwards..have you ever seen a mess in the kitchen after kashering fleish". the typical yid didn't have any fleish all week long. The really lucky ones maybe had a chicken for shabbos. this chicken was not kashered in the 'kitchen' because there really wasn't a kitchen with countertops.... this was done in the yard with a bucket. "no vaccuum cleaners, appliances, cleaning agents, house was cleaned by hand" so what. the house was a two room hovel with a dirt floor straw mattresses, a fork a knife and a three legged table . the standard of a clean house was not that of today's. Cleaning the house for pesach today is a comparable nightmare by comparison to yesteryear. in the old days it probably took a few hours tops to prepare the house and that included those machmir personalitties who scrubbed their walls by hand with no cleaning products...whats today?..as they say in brooklyn ....forgettaboutit.
In Dokshitz there was no 'country' because they were in the country! But in Warsaw there was the same 'country' as in NYC. The wife and kids went off to the country - maybe to Otvotzk - and the husband stayed home to work.
As far as vacationing from Warsaw . maybe a rich or middle class Jew went to vacation from Warsaw to Otwock for a week or so. But frinds in the 1930's Warsaw had well over 250,000 Jews and if you think 105 went on vacation you probably own the Brooklyn Bridge.
Jews from Vilna, Lodz, Kovna, Lvow, Lublin did not vacation for 8-10 weeks . Maybe a rebbe or a rav or some wealthy people but not your average Reb Yid.
By the way there was no AC in Dokshitz !
I am curious in what social history book you got the idea that in Warsaw families went off to vacation in Otwock . This was a resort town for wealhy Jews and those suffering from Asthma and other respiratory ailments. If 25,000 Jews from warsaw showed up there , Otwock would be crushed.
Another note Meat in Poland was fairly cheap in the 20th century and every Jewish town had many katzovim (butchers)who usually made a nice living.
Every town had at least 1 shochet and any substantial town had at least 2 - 1 for eyfes and one for gasses. And the profession of shechita was very much sought after as a shocher made a fine living in Poland and Russia.
People lived in houses and they were kept clean. I would dare say that a Yidene had greater stress preparing for shabbes in terms of cleaning the floors (Yes even those houses had floors they were not porach al haAvir) cooking baking making the cholent and bringing it to the bakery than the New stress of taking kids to school or worrying about a new dress.
I am not going to argue with you. You need to read a book about the daily social and domestic life in East Europe or a good Memoir and you will note the daily stress that all Jews in E. Europe suffered under. Otherwise dream on !
Any memoir of Jewish life in E. Europe will show you that it took more than a few hours for the home to be prepared for Pesach. Yes our grand parents had utensils and plates and they needed to be kashered, They also had pots to cook in and on Pesach everything (all food) was prepared at home . Az men misht zich nit was taken literally. So again your idea of life in East Europe is based on fantasy , not on any real basis. The table and floors needed to be kasheded and at times replaced.My parents lived in White Russia until 1939 and I heard plenty from them about preparations for Pesach and they did not have Polish or Yugoslav maids either.
Of course today large numbers of orthodox Jews have greater stress on Peysach deciding which hotel to go to and what dress and designer shoes to purchase.This together with the stress of buying new pots every Pesach and new furniture and new "outfits" probably really causes people to have nervous breakdowns in our Orthodox neighborhoods and requires 8-10 weeks of recuperation in the mounatins before a similiar program is undertaken for Tishre.
N :Please read the following book Rememberings by Fannie Wengeroff. The beautiful memoirs of a WEALTHY Jewish housewife in Lithuanian in the late 19th century. You will get an idea of what the domestic life of a Wealthy Jewish women was like. And then think of what it was like for the aniyiim. I also need to add as far as stress goes the numerous miscarriages and still births that marked the life of almost all Jewish women in Poland and Russia.. Children were constantly serious ill and many died. Even in modern day Poland Jewish mothers had to worry about their sons being drafted in the polish army ! And in addition the illness and fatal ones at that that marked life constantly especially infant moratlity before antibiotics and penicillin .Today Baruch Hasehm thanks to modern medicine this infant m. rate in the US and Israel is tiny. I bet that in Europe the rate of infant m. was probably 20 times higher than now, but as you say this did not cause stress . dream On !
Please tell em that this was not stressful or that worrying about a "proper" outfit for little Lipa or Mushka is more stressful.
oh this is nice let us all go down to the old stetel. where are your guys heads? who cares about the past. if a stetel jew took a look at our world today he would put his head between his legs and .....
well, you know. you cant go back to the past. the world is moving faster than most of us can grasp but hey try to keep up.
Kurenitzer, this topic is big and tangential topics comprise an even bigger whole. You are lumping things together that have no shaychus, so there is no choice but to skip disecting your thread of logic that ran a foul...this is not the forum...so i'll rant back at you instead..I don't know which poland you're talking about where the abundance of fleish and fleisch related jobs and industry flourished. I had grandparents who were lucky to see a bit of beef trimmings (fat) in their cholent on shabbes; this was the norm. so what if every town had a schochet. If every town has a bank does that mean the population is rich?
bravo, show the world for what it is. Poland and Russia between the wars was dirt poor. nice people but poor. now where are we today?
we are rich but are we nice people?
Can't argue with N until you start hitting the books and read about Jewish life in Poland and Russia ,since the late 19th century.
By the way if a bank existed in a town ,yes it does indicates there was a surplus of money in the town. If a town of 800 Jews had 7-8 butchers and 2-3 shochetim yes it indicates the ready availability of MEAT, not cottage cheese.If you ever set foot in a poor neighborhood like some areas of Washington Hts where I live you will not see a bank for blocks, where as you enter the Jewish area of WH you will suddenly hit upon 3 of them at one corner.
Finally please read what the Polish shechitah gezeiras of the late 1930's did to Jewish economic life in Poland at the time.
Jews controlled the meat trade and meat was not lo BaShomayim hi. Of course there were Jews of all economic classes and certainly some could not afford meat. That may still be true today as I myself hardy ever eat the stuff.
I await a reply to my comment on infant mortality rates and child moratlity rates and the havoc it caused in the life of the Jewish mother. Ceratinly illness and death were a constant and serious cause of stress and nerves. Thank God the present day Jewish mother and father has little cause for such stress.
Kurtz,
are you saying that it was typical that a town of 800 had 7.5 butchers and 2.5 shochtim?
Kurtz,
infant and child mortality....' I don't take issue with you that this was more prevalent in times past and that it indeed is/was a stressful event.You could say that the possible worrying a mother had for an ailing child was at a higher level back then because a cold could end a child's life; conversely one could say that since loosing one's life from a common illness was a matter of fact for people in that era and that their expectations of life were much different and that they were probably more engaged on a daily basis with a dialogue with g-d than we are today (need based because of such a hard life)that it wasn't as big an event as we would imagine today ch v sh. in any event this is not my original point. I posited that today's life is extemely more pressured for observant yidden today than it ever was. This stress level transcends the material 'requirements' and niceties that we have come to expect.
you know people were nicer back then because you needed to be that way. people lived in a place for hundreds of years. today you see people shopping for shabbos 2hrs to lict benching! it used to be in
some towns they would cook there cholent together today we are all in the cholent together. good luck boys.
FWIW:
I go to the Walmart in Howell all the time, near Lakewood and never see frum yidden acting like that, Bh..
no girls allowed, this boys club
who let the women in. women belong at home making challah!!!first thing you know if woman get to blog, cat and dogs with be sleeping together. why boys we are talking about the end of time!!! it was nice knowing you fellows. remember me well. did any one see my soy crisps?
Now,now people. We encourage comments from all genders, as well as walks of life. Blog on Semgirl.
hey, that is what happened at Yeshiva University.
I will not continue this debate. I have made my points.Any clear thinking person sees that the life of the Jewish family in Poland and Russia was to say the least very stressful.
The need to go to country for 8-10 weeks is just another manifestation of the gross material life style that has invaded the frum lcommunity in the US.
As the responses to my comments have shown many frum Jews are unable to distinguish between true requirements of Torah and materialistic adormnments that have been added in the US.
The true number of shochetim in a town of 105 Jews was 5.45. Check it out. (although the number of rabbis in a Lubavitch community of 100 men is 100)
To Semgirl:
I believe you .It shows the difference between people who were trained al taharas ha MUssar and those who were not.
In the chassidic world by and large manners are considered a "moderne zach" in the chasidic world
kurenitzer,
how do you define manners?
I am not really sure why the 8-10 weeks are considered "vacation"? As a matter of fact, women who do go to the country work very hard as their accommodations are usually less than wonderful and they are the sole caretakers of the kids for the entire week until totty comes up for a couple of nights. The kids still cry, the kids still must be fed, the events of daily life continue. I think it is definitely a change of scenery and the country offers sometimes a MORE tznius place for kids to be. Women have the luxury of being able to say Tehillim in groups and engage in other mitzvos as well. Let's not all berate the "country" or think that it is a "vacation" for 8-10 weeks. Why is everyone so negative?
as for the Chasidic world out of 100 persons there are 110 Rabbis.
hey good times. oh yes in the old times when you had to buy some putz to marry your girls that was something to look to for an example of how to live today.
Anon, try to refrain from using Bronx talk, please.
"bronx talk" uh sorry heshy I will not try to hurt anyone from this point further. honest officer how was I to know the gun was loaded?
and such will no longer be a part of my diction. you will see a new Anon. A happier more politically and gramdical correct Jew.
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