The holiday season is a time for giving. Some of the most important pro-Israel philanthropic appeals take place in North America between Rosh Hashana and Succot. Some of the year's biggest pledges are made.
There is the Kol Nidrei Appeal and the Yizkor Appeal. Seasoned fundraisers know how to strum an emotional chord in people's hearts. But not surprisingly, according to veteran fundraisers, this year's North American appeals yielded particularly flat results. Financial markets are in a tumult. Investors and businessmen are reeling. Even the warmest, most generous North American Jew is reevaluating his or her commitment to Israel's institutions.
"This year's lackluster holiday appeal is particularly worrisome because it is an indicator of the future and it comes after the devaluation of the dollar," said Meir Bunder, a veteran educator and fundraiser who recently immigrated to Israel from Florida.
"Donors have already made it clear that they will not compensate for the weak dollar. Now it seems unlikely that they will even match last year's donations in dollar terms." The haredim have been the hardest hurt by the financial crisis. Haredi educational institutions refuse to adopt the curriculum requirements dictated by the Education Ministry. As a result, they receive only partial state funding. The missing funds needed to run these institutions are supplied by tuitions and donations.
Married haredi men pursue extended Torah educations well into their 30s and rely on stipends funded almost exclusively by North American philanthropists and a few dozen big donors from Britain, France and Belgium. Rabbi Avraham Pinzel, administrative head of Chochmas Shlomo, one of the largest Talmud Torah elementary schools in Jerusalem, said that a number of factors have come together to make it nearly impossible to keep his institution afloat. "With fuel prices skyrocketing, our transportation costs have risen by 50 percent," said Pinzel. "Food costs are also rising, which means it is more expensive to feed our students. Combine that with the fact that the vast majority of our donations are in dollars. "In addition, many of the fathers of our students learn in Kollel. They get paid in dollars. They simply cannot pay shekel denominated tuitions," he went on. "Now there is the financial crisis. I have not been to the States [for fundraising] since the crisis. But I've heard plenty of stories." Nonetheless, he said, "we have always lived on miracles. We have God Almighty's promise that no matter what happens, Torah scholarship will continue."In haredi circles, financial matters have become an obsession. For instance, rumors were circulated that a prominent hassidic leader in the US had his car repossessed over the holidays after he failed to pay leasing costs.
However, there has been little talk among haredi leaders about making changes in haredi society that would reduce its inordinate dependence on philanthropy. There have been tough times in the past, and we have never seen a significant change in the haredi way of life," said a senior administrator connected with the yeshiva world. "If anything, when the economy is good, there is more of a temptation to leave the yeshiva and get a job. But when there is a recession, all the opportunities dry up."
Many many businesses thrive during a recession:
ReplyDeleteCredit collections, debt management, property management (its hard to collect rents), tax attorneys, bankruptcy attorneys.
Appliance repair (fix rather than replace), auto repair, Home remodeling (fix rather than move up), clothing alteration (fix rather than replace), shoe repair, anything repair.
Some businesses are recession proof:
Pest management (my cousin made a fortune as the "bug man"), septic tank service (you won't do-it-yourself), funeral director (can't get away from dying), insurance (bad economy, big worries), plumbing, electrician, money saving devices (ie electricity saving devices), any commodity (try to live without toilet paper).
Anything that a salesman can demonstrate will cost nothing because it will save enough to pay for itself (ie tankless hot water heaters, surge protection, storm shutters, burglar alarms, duct cleaning, heat reclamation devices, roof coating, window tinting etc etc).
My father in law made a living in the 70s selling replacement parts for obsolete equipment (fix rather than replace). There are always people in real estate who are buying during a down turn. Now is the time to go into commercial real estate, not leave it.
Mortgage brokers do best in a bad economy when interest rates go down as people refinance because they need the money.
As far as Talmidei Chachamim working:
The Ari was a pepper dealer.
The Hida was a diamond dealer
Ben Ish Hai was a commercial real estate broker.
The concept of "Haredi Harvard", only developed 150 years ago in response to the Haskala in Europe. it is not reasonable to expect that 20-25% of the Jewish people can be perpetually supported by their brethren.
There are none so blind as they who will not see.
ReplyDeleteAnd the blindest of all are the Chareidi!
For a change, I find myself agreeing with Jersey Girl. I've read all the stories about how the professional learning culture was created to restore what was destroyed during the Holocaust. However, if the numbers haven't been replenished by now then the project isn't working. If they have, then it's time to end it. Either way, the culture of "all learn, no earn" has got to be tossed back into the dustbin of history that it came from.
Dear Garnel Ironheart,
ReplyDeleteI sincerely believe that I agree with you much more often than not.
I really appreciate the opportunity to have learned a great deal from you and all of the contributors to this blog over the past year.
Rabbi Eidensohn runs a great blog!
Kol Hakavod!
Jersey Girl said...
ReplyDeleteThe concept of "Haredi Harvard", only developed 150 years ago in response to the Haskala in Europe.
I don't know who came up with this myth, but, as I have stated previously, it is simply false.
To repeat from here:
This is a very dubious claim in several respects:
A) Simply as a matter of basic history, virtually anyone discussing this issue would date the beginning of the modern yeshiva movement from the founding of the Yeshiva of Volozhin in 1802, more than two centuries ago.
B) While the founding of Volozhin and its related yeshivos was a major change in the way yeshivos were organized and funded, it did not really represent a fundamental change in how Torah scholarship was pursued. (It was more a response to how individual Jewish communities were no longer providing the necessary funding for such scholarship.)
The ideal of intensive long-term Torah study, with communal support, is of very great antiquity. (The simple fact of the halachic debate we have already discussed is testimony to this.) R' Binyamin of Tudela, in his famous travel journals from the 12th century, describes such yeshivos in various communities. For example, he speaks of such a yeshiva in Lunel, "The students that come from distant lands to learn the Law are taught, boarded, lodged and clothed by the congregation, so long as they attend to house of study."
There are other similar historical accounts from many periods in history.
C) The claim that the yeshivos were a response to Haskala is dubious on its face for the simple fact that the Volozhin yeshiva was founded at the very beginning of the 19th century and the Haskalah movement did not become a significant force (especially in Eastern Europe) until mid-century.
(I am omitting the fourth point I made there because that addresses a claim that Jersey Girl has not repeated here.)
As this claim has already been repeated a few times, I would be interested in knowing the source for it.
it is not reasonable to expect that 20-25% of the Jewish people can be perpetually supported by their brethren.
Maybe those numbers are true for the Chareidi communities in Israel, I don't know (although I am doubtful). However, they certainly are not true anywhere else. Even in Lakewood alone you will not find 20-25% of the adult population in kollel! And many of those who are in kollel are not being supported by the general community.
Garnel Ironheart said...
I've read all the stories about how the professional learning culture was created to restore what was destroyed during the Holocaust. ...the culture of "all learn, no earn" has got to be tossed back into the dustbin of history....
I don't know who created that story either, but the primary exponents of the "Torah Only" approach - such as R' Aharon Kotler - saw it as the proper approach in of itself, not simply as a way of repairing the damage caused by the Holocaust. By R' Aharon's standard, then, the kollel system is clearly quite succesful. The question we must deal with is, whose standard should we follow, R' Aharon Kotler's or Garnel Ironheart's? (And thus we return to the "Daas Torah" discussion ongoing right now here.)
And many of those who are in kollel are not being supported by the general community.
ReplyDelete=======================
They take no public (jewish or non-jewish) funds?
They divert no family funds that would have gone elsewhere?(of course this is the "right" of the donor, but there is a community impact.