Jews Behaving Badly

My book Among the Creationists contains a chapter called “Why I Love Being Jewish.” Of course, as an atheist, I reject totally all of the underlying theology of Judaism. I have no use for the Torah, which I regard as a nasty and often vile piece of work. Most Jewish ceremonies leave me cold, though I do participate in the odd Passover seder or Hanukkah candle lighting. But for all of that I was raised in a Jewish home, attended Hebrew school, and had a Bar Mitzvah. When people ask me about my religion I always say that I am Jewish. Not because I am trying to hide my atheism, certainly, but because it means something to me to be Jewish.

Like many cultural Jews, I get an irrational flush of joy when I hear about a Jew accomplishing something great, as though this in some way reflects well on me. The flipside is that I feel an equally irrational pang of shame when I hear about Jews behaving badly. Since most American Jews are non-observant, and tend to hold center-left political views, it's easy to forget that we have our own share of fanatics among our midst. And they are every bit as awful and closed-minded as the fundamentalists of other religious groups.

So, in honor of Yom Kippur, here are two recent stories of Jews Behaving Badly.

The warm-up is this story from HuffPo:

An El Al flight from New York to Tel Aviv last week encountered delays when several ultra-orthodox Jewish men refused to take their seats next to women over religious objections.

Ultra-orthodox Judaism forbids physical contact between men and women unless they are first-degree relatives or married to one another. In an airplane with close quarters, maintaining such separation is not easy.

As orthodox and secular Jewish passengers boarded the flight scheduled to arrive at Ben Gurion airport on the morning of Rosh Hashanah, the men began asking women seated next to them to move, sometimes even offering compensation for seat changes, Ynet News reports.

The strict prohibition of physical contact between the sexes is stupid and regressive to begin with. I'm pretty sure, though, that the intent of the ban was not to prevent the sort of incidental physical contact that might occur from sitting nearby on an airplane. The actions of these men (who, the article tells us, spent much of the flight blocking the aisle in prayer), had nothing to do with any serious concern about doing right by God, or following the teachings of their religion, or anything like that. It was just the standard arrogance of the extremely religious, who take special delight in reminding folks of their utter lack of regard for anyone outside their group. It was also about the misogyny that afflicts most extremist religions. You can be sure that the Jewish men on the flight did not feel any shame at all about harassing the women they were sitting near.

Let's move on to the next story. While the behavior of the men on the flight was very inconsiderate, it pales in comparison to the outright evil perpetrated by the Hasidic Jews of East Ramapo, New York.

Have a look at this transcript from a recent edition of This American Life. It's long, but it's worth reading in full.

There is a large population of Hasidic Jews in East Ramapo. The Hasidim, like the Amish, historically prefer to keep to themselves and largely withdraw from the larger societies in which they live. In particular, they do not send their kids to public schools, preferring instead to send them to private Yeshivas. Unlike the Amish, however, who simply withdraw and leave everyone else alone, the Hasidim still wanted the government to pay for the needs of their special education students. The trouble is that there are state and federal laws that prohibit this. Basically, the Hasidim wanted to live by their own rules in their own communities, but also wanted to claim their share of public money when it suited them.

Eventually, though, their numbers in the town increased to the point where they were able to take over the school board. Here's what happened next:

Also high on the priorities list for the new Hasidic majority was reining in property taxes. And with the levers of power now in its possession, it launched what's pretty much been a systematic defunding of the East Ramapo public schools. To get a picture of how this played out inside the schools, I went to a high school principal named Jean Fields. She just retired last year from one of the district's two high schools, Ramapo High School.

Jean Fields: The yearbooks--this is 2007, '08, '09, '10.

Ben Calhoun: Field showed me four yearbooks from when the school board really started cutting. You can actually see the yearbooks get thinner and thinner and thinner.

Jean Fields: It's like half the size by the time you get to 2010.

Ben Calhoun: And that's not declining enrollment. That's things disappearing from the school.

Jean Fields: Right, that's things disappearing.

Ben Calhoun: Fields went page by page, showing me what was cut. The business department, that was several pages, all eliminated.

Jean Fields: All of these courses are gone.

Ben Calhoun: There were other departments cut by 80%. Full pages of honor societies, sports, JROTC, AP classes, clubs, dance, home ec, administrative staff. District-wide, the cuts have been sweeping. Here's a partial list from the last five years.

All deans, all social workers eliminated. All assistant principals at the elementary school level, music instruction for elementary school kids, funding for field trip buses--all eliminated. That came with cuts to administration, guidance counselors, teaching assistants, maintenance, assistant principals, among lots of others.

Kindergarten was reduced from full-day to half-day. System-wide over the last six years, the district's laid off 22% of all its teachers. At one point, Jean Fields says there got to be so few teachers in her building, there was a conversation about whether the school should just let seniors go halfway through the day.

[DRUM LINE PLAYING]

From what I can tell, nothing and no one was sacred. Most high schools have things that are sources of pride. You know, it might be a sports team or a theater program, a debate team. For Fields' school, it was their marching band. It won big awards. It was featured in the Denzel Washington remake of The Manchurian Candidate. In 2012, the board laid off the band's director.

Olivia Castor: We would always complain to the school board about scheduling. And what would happen is, like, the school board would always respond and say, well, that's not true. You guys are making it up.

Ben Calhoun: Olivia Castor went to Spring Valley, the other of the district's two high schools. She was there during the biggest cutbacks. And while she was there, so many teachers were laid off, students started having a hard time filling their schedules with actual classes, a complaint that Castor took to the board, where she was told the problem wasn't real.

That's just the tip of the iceberg. There's so much more. You see, the Board's actions had little to do with genuine concerns about reining in out of control spending. Rather, it was about diverting public resources towards their own Yeshivas. The harm they were doing to the students in East Ramapo was just not any kind of concern for them. Consider this:

Ben Calhoun: The board didn't come back into the room until nearly a quarter to 1:00 in the morning. And when they get back, what gets put on the table is this kind of puzzling proposal to fire the district's law firm of many years and hire a new guy. And I say puzzling, because listen to the specifics.

The old lawyer was a local guy, had gone to school in the district, even. He'd done the system's legal work for years and years. And the administration, by every account that I've heard, they really liked him. He charged $120 an hour.

The new lawyer was a guy named Al D'Agostino. He was from out on Long Island, more than an hour away. And his contract, it would be for $250 an hour, plus $125 an hour for travel.

Add to that this--the new guy had been caught up in a pension investigation by the state of New York. Not exactly desirable. A confusing move, right? Especially if money is a concern. But people in the room were not confused when this came up. They knew very well who D'Agostino was.

D'Agostino had recently been in the news for representing another school district, one in Lawrence, Long Island. D'Agostino'd been involved in a controversial plan that that board was trying to push through, a plan to close a school.

Reporter: The public school board, made up primarily of Orthodox Jewish members to send their kids to private school. A few months ago, the board voted to shut this elementary school.

Ben Calhoun: Parents out in Lawrence alleged the plan was to close the school in question and then sell it to a yeshiva. And, in fact, it would later be sold to a yeshiva.

Reporter: Attorney Albert D'Agostino says the board has every right to close the school and reassign the kids. And rumors that it will be sold to a Jewish yeshiva are just rumors.

Albert D'agostino: Right now, the only decision that's been made is that it will be closed and mothballed.

Ben Calhoun: So prior to this meeting, people in Lawrence, Long Island had been in touch with the public school crowd in East Ramapo. They said, this lawyer is helping our school board do these controversial things. First, they're shutting this school. And also, he's doing this thing where he's helping them put special education students in private yeshivas using public money. We've heard your district might hire him. We wanted to warn you.

Also, in addition to being selfish, greedy assholes, they are also a bunch of crooks:

In 2011, the New York State Comptroller conducted an audit of the district's finances. The audit determined that the board has engaged in inaccurate record-keeping with discrepancies in the millions of dollars, loose monitoring of money going to private schools, sloppy bill payment, and just all kinds of bad management.

The other big category here is the district's real estate deals. The board did close two schools and sold them to yeshivas. One of those deals, in particular, it's been a complete mess. In short, the district got a bid from a yeshiva for the building. The bid was for $3 million. The school building was appraised at $6 million. So that's a hard deal to justify-- until the board rushed out and got the school reappraised for $3 million and sold it to the yeshiva at that price.

Activists challenged the new appraisal, and the state took their side. It nixed the deal. The appraiser recently pleaded guilty to fraud charges.

You should go read the rest of the transcript. As I worked my way through it, all I could think is that it's as if the Hasidim were specifically trying to confirm every nasty stereotype of Jews you've ever heard.

Incidentally, since I'm in high dudgeon at the moment, let me close with one further observation. Throughout the transcript there is this undercurrent that suggests an injustice has been done to people who do not make direct use of the public schools, but who are nonetheless forced to support them through their tax dollars. Older voters with grown children are notorious for voting down school budgets, and the ultra-religious often take the same attitude.

Speaking as someone who is happily childless, let me suggest that anyone taking that view can go straight to hell. We all benefit from good public schools, and we all suffer from bad ones. Supporting the public schools is one of the best investments we can make, and it pays off handsomely in the form of increased productivity and lower crime. If the Hasidim in East Ramapo were really concerned about unfairness related to paying property taxes, they would start by waiving the tax-emptions given to their synagogues.

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good post sir

p

By The Peak Oil Poet (not verified) on 04 Oct 2014 #permalink

It’s as if the Hasidim were specifically trying to confirm every nasty stereotype of Jews you’ve ever heard.

Not to mention breaking the "positive" ones, like the association of Jews with scholasticism. I'm guessing they're not interested in any of these kids getting a Nobel Prize someday. (Of course, the same is true of the Amish, but without the part where the larger community is affected.)

Seriously, the story sounds just like the goals of Republicans everywhere, although I'm sure they'd just say it's an interim before the Glorious Revolution that replaces them all with private schools.

I grew up in Rockland County when New Square was just getting established. I have lived with Amish neighbors for about 30 years. Outwardly the two groups are similar. Both abide by rules that appear arbitrary to outsiders but where the ultra-orthodox Hassidim say their rules come from God (and are therefore immutable) most Amish will acknowledge that their rules are of their own making and have the purpose of keeping them from becoming too "worldly". Amish farmers differentiate between "chores" like milking the cows and "work" like plowing, seeding, hay-making, etc. Those who have off-the-farm jobs and businesses have fewer conflicts but none will do business on Sunday. You can buy eggs, milk, cheese, and puppies off the farm but the sign always says "No Sunday Sales".

Despite the boundaries which separate them from the "English", my Amish neighbors are strong members of the greater community. They are volunteer firefighters and great supporters of the public library. Well-known for coming together to help each other replace houses or barns that burn and to pay off medical bills for those severely injured and less-known for the quiet assistance provided to "English" neighbors under similar conditions. My Amish neighbors strengthen our community and the Hassidim could do as much if they wanted to.

>> We all benefit from good public schools, and we all suffer from bad ones.

The best answer I've ever heard to the question "if you I have kids, why should I have to pay school taxes?" was "because I don't want to live in a nation of idiots."

By Charles Gulledge (not verified) on 04 Oct 2014 #permalink

wow, bad edit - "you I" should read "I don't"

By Charles Gulledge (not verified) on 04 Oct 2014 #permalink

My dad lives in Lawrence and can verify everything you've said. The problem is that doing "God's work" is somehow higher on the list than whether the law is being violated and a public trust destroyed. All of these ultrareligionists are doing anything but that.

Insofar as your identification, in one-to-one, I admit being Jewish...when it comes to surveys and the like, I tell it like it is: atheist.

By BobFromLI (not verified) on 04 Oct 2014 #permalink

The best answer I’ve ever heard to the question “if you I have kids, why should I have to pay school taxes?” was “because I don’t want to live in a nation of idiots.”

'Idiot' is the least of your worry. About 10-12% of the US population is between the ages of 17 and 25. Do you want one out of every 10 people in your community to be gainfully employed, or do you want them living in your community with no work/very low paying work? Housing prices, crime rates, the sorts of employer businesses that come to your community, the sorts of consumber businesses that come to your community, it's all impacted by education (albeit in an indirect and hard to assess manner). Which do you think is better for your community - if that 10% of your population works as law clerks, journalists, junior analysis, other white collar professionals, goes to grad school, etc... or if they flip burgers because that's the only thing they're qualified to do?

Of course you’re going to be called a self-hating Jew.

By Jonathan Lubin (not verified) on 06 Oct 2014 #permalink

In the states, they would have been booted from the plane before it got off the ground. A guy was kicked off my flight from Chicago to LA for being much less obnoxious. He complained about a smell and then a crying baby loudly and boom he was gone. What was surprising was that his wife sat next to him and didn't shut him up and even left with him. People cheered.

By Michael Fugate (not verified) on 06 Oct 2014 #permalink

... as if the Hasidim were specifically trying to confirm every nasty stereotype of Jews you’ve ever heard.

This American Life must have left out the blood libel and chiksanapping parts. Saving 'em for ratings week, maybe.

By Pierce R. Butler (not verified) on 06 Oct 2014 #permalink

Your commentary ought not be anything remarkable--but it is. That's really the crux of the problem. There are others but even before touching on them, you have to be credited just for the degree of open and even-handed treatment you present. The _vast_ majority of people who, like you, refer to themselves as secular Jews, would never--and especially never under their own names, openly express such candor about what ought to really be only the most obvious things in the world.

Well, to the "rest of us" these things are obvious--and annoying. But not just annoying. As a scientist and a humanitarian, you are obliged to watch the rampant and systematic destruction of an entire population on the border of what is claimed as Israel--that territory blatantly stolen from other legitinate residents under what doesn't even deserve to be called "the color of law." These forced, violent land seizures continue today and they're punctuated violent murderous incursion into the remnants of Palestine--Gaza and the Trans-Jordan. All of that is protected and made possible by the armaments, the largess and the deliberate anti-democratic sanctions of the U.S. government--whether Democrat or Republican in name--and done virtually unconditionally. All of that is a apparently politically necessary in what people call democracy in America-- a place where the relatively small Jewish portion of the U.S. population exercises a level of political and social influence far out of proportion to its numerical voting strength.

That was true before I was born and it has only grown more sordidly severe in the years since.

So, by being so openly critical--but I'd call it "being fair about some simple facts--you join at least partially a tiny elite of people who, though Jewish, reject all or nearly all that is worst about that religious community. I admire those iconoclasts as I admire few other groups of people. In the name of social justice which they refuse to betray, they make themselves, or they made themselves, while they lived, social outcasts among the communities into which they and their ancestors were born.

But, when you write, "it’s as if the Hasidim were specifically trying to confirm every nasty stereotype of Jews you’ve ever heard"-- you mistake what you observe. There's nothing "as if" about it. These practical living habits aren't "as if"--they are instead the very daily embodiment of what goes on and what is privileged by and protected by every single "secular" Jew who, unlike you, will not brook any criticisms of this sort of behavior--not because it isn't deserving of criticism but simply because it's behavior by people who share--to an ever purer, more extreme extent, the Jewish identity which, even among the "secular" is claimed and believed and accepted first and foremost through circumstances of birth. Such is the first-nature zealotry of these people that they needn't exert any effort. Of course they aren't trying to offend because no such effort is necessary. So inherently offensive, so blindly bigoted are their assumptions about their own privileged places in the eyes of God--who recognizes them and their fellow Jews alone--and the corresponding place of "everyone else" that they effortlessly offend, repulse and disgust any ordinary person of a universalist humanitarian inclination.

Now, not even as a Jewish person in good standing with his assumed community of identity are you allowed to say such things. But, as a daring outspoken heretic ("heresy" (n.) "a choosing" a "choice") you may say and write such things. For the rest of us, to do this brands us as anti-Semitic and their are today few epithets which carry a stronger stigma than that. I accept it, though, because, like the others--"Jewish" by "birth" but renounced by conviction--I don't consider that in good conscience I have any other morally-respectable course.

By proximity1 (not verified) on 06 Oct 2014 #permalink

@ 8:

As I see it, the best answer to being denounced as a "self-hating Jew" is this simple one:

" But I'm not Jewish-- neither 'self-hating' or any other kind. As a self-respecting adult, I decide who and what I am and to whom and to what I properly belong--and those things do not include 'being Jewish.' "

Not exactly Eric Hobsbawm's words, but a fair approximation of them. For the explanation he offered in his own words, see his autobiographical memoir, Interesting Times: a twentieth-Century life (2002)

By proximity1 (not verified) on 06 Oct 2014 #permalink