Over the past several years, local elected officials in New York and New Jersey have systematically worked to pass and impose laws with a single purpose—to keep Orthodox Jews out of their communities. The conduct of those officials was so egregious that the states’ attorneys general, Democrats Letitia James and Gurbir Grewal, respectively, pursued civil-rights lawsuits, alleging deliberate anti-Jewish discrimination.
In the case of Jackson Township, New Jersey, Grewal accused the local authorities of an array of abuses. These included “targeted and discriminatory surveillance of the homes of Orthodox Jews suspected of hosting communal prayer gatherings,” “enacting zoning ordinances in 2017 that essentially banned the establishment of yeshivas and dormitories,” and “discriminatory application of land use laws to inhibit the erection of sukkahs by the Township’s Jewish residents,” referring to the temporary huts built by religious Jews on their property to observe the holiday of Sukkot.
The enmity behind these efforts was not particularly disguised. A Facebook group for an organization opposed to any influx of Orthodox residents titled “Rise Up Ocean County” became so overrun with anti-Jewish invective—such as “We need to get rid of them like Hitler did”—that the social-media company took the rare step of shutting it down. Last month, Jackson agreed to pay $1.35 million to an Orthodox girls school whose opening it had blocked a decade ago. It also recently settled a related lawsuit with the U.S. Department of Justice by committing to repeal discriminatory regulations and set up a settlement fund for the people affected by them.
[...]
Partisan pull explains how Americans process the problem of anti-Semitism. It is also part of the problem. As long as the frames through which we view anti-Jewish prejudice are narrow and politicized, we will tend to misapprehend its nature and overlook incidents we should not.
Thank you for posting this. Back on reddit I was a lurker of r/Jewish and this article seems to very much echo the sentiments I've seen in that sub. I'd like to add that another part of the...
Thank you for posting this. Back on reddit I was a lurker of r/Jewish and this article seems to very much echo the sentiments I've seen in that sub. I'd like to add that another part of the picture is that ultra-orthodox Jews tended to vote overwhelmingly for Trump in the 2016 and 2020 elections (non-orthodox Jews vote overwhelmingly for democrats) so the left side of the political aisle tends not to feel particularly warm towards the ultra-orthodox. I have no doubt this affects the dynamics of the situation.
I personally am a fan of this pamphlet about antisemitism, which is specifically written by a leftist activist for leftist activists, so it might not make as much of an impression on you if you aren't from that end of the political spectrum (it assumes both knowledge of and agreement with leftist ideology). It's also a bit dated, as it was written in 2007, but it is definitely still relevant today (if not moreso). That being said, I like how it addresses the issue of antisemitism and emphasizes that it has a unique nature and it's own history and that there can at times be a blind spot among progressives who are otherwise very passionate about social justice.
From the pamphlet:
That's the nature of anti-Jewish oppression: To cover up the roots of injustice. To make people think they've figured out who's really pulling the strings. This is one of the biggest reasons why it's important for social justice movements to figure out and confront anti-Jewish oppression, for the movement's own sake: because anti-Jewish oppression is designed as a way to keep people from understanding where the power lies. And it works. It's also why you'll see more manifestations of anti-Jewish oppression popping up as social justice movements around the world grow stronger, and more people come to believe that radical change is necessary: People are seeking ways to liberate themselves and trying to identify who has caused the injustice around them.
If you're far-right, you believe that Jews are causing what you believe to be the problems in the world (I legitimately saw someone claim that trans people exist because of Jews). Meanwhile, if you're on the left, Jews are wealthy oppressors. A typical leftist can easily identify the former as antisemitism (and transphobia), but they'd struggle to identify the latter as antisemitism.
This gets at the heart of the issue, which is addressed in your link-- Is it still an antisemitic hate crime if the perpetrator is black or Asian? In my view, yes. Black people and Asian people are not immune to hate and violence. And as much as I hate Trump, I do belief that Trump voters can be victims of hate-based crimes, too-- all sorts of oppression exists, not just the ones we traditionally think of.
Maybe I should disclose (if it's not already obvious) that I identify as both a leftist and a Jew (a quite nonreligious one) and as such think that the lack of acknowledgment from the left of non-white supremacist antisemitism as well as actual antisemitism on the left is quite concerning.
Since you seem knowledgeable, is there any good way to describe anti-specific-sect-ism? It seems like it would be a way to clarify what is being discussed instead of talking past each other based...
I'd like to add that another part of the picture is that ultra-orthodox Jews tended to vote overwhelmingly for Trump in the 2016 and 2020 elections (non-orthodox Jews vote overwhelmingly for democrats) so the left side of the political aisle tends not to feel particularly warm towards the ultra-orthodox.
Since you seem knowledgeable, is there any good way to describe anti-specific-sect-ism? It seems like it would be a way to clarify what is being discussed instead of talking past each other based on different applications of the label. Right now, someone who thinks Jews as a whole are ruining society and someone who is specifically concerned with a growing Orthodox Jewish population are both broadly labeled “antisemitic”, even though the latter is happy with all other sects of Judaism in their community.
To be clear, most of the people who are concerned about the growing Jewish population are specifically concerned about ultra-orthodox Jews (for more information on this group, see here). There are...
Exemplary
Right now, someone who thinks Jews as a whole are ruining society and someone who is specifically concerned with a growing Orthodox Jewish population are both broadly labeled “antisemitic”, even though the latter is happy with all other sects of Judaism in their community.
To be clear, most of the people who are concerned about the growing Jewish population are specifically concerned about ultra-orthodox Jews (for more information on this group, see here). There are also Orthodox Jews called "Modern Orthodox" who as a group are much more assimilated and involved in the local non-Jewish community. The Ultra-Orthodox, on the other hand, tend to be quite insular and are prone to segregating themselves from outsiders.
Since you might not be aware of some of the concerns regarding Ultra-Orthodox communities, I'll tell you what I know, but be mindful that I'm not super well-versed in the issue and my knowledge is mostly limited to news articles and local gossip. To be clear, I live in northeastern New Jersey (part of the New York City metropolitan area) so I am near a number of these communities. First I will address specifically concerns that relate to the Ultra-Orthodox community in Lakewood New Jersey, which is near Jackson-- one of the cities mentioned in OP's article. My understanding is that the neighborhood used to be majority Hispanic, but is now majority Ultra-Orthodox. For reference, if I remember correctly, about 80% of the town voted for Trump in either 2016 and/or 2020, which is a higher percentage than any other town/city of significant size in the state. In other words, since the demographics changed to Ultra-Orthodox, it became very, very conservative. However, I remember about a decade ago when the population was still in flux and it was about 50% Hispanic and 50% Ultra-Orthodox. The Ultra-Orthodox generally send their kids to private Yeshivas (schools) and don't make any use of the public school system. What happened at the time that was being reported on was the Ultra-Orthodox ran for and took over the local (public) board of education and siphoned money away from the public schools and towards the Yeshivas. This left the remaining Hispanic population of the town in extremely underfunded schools getting a subpar education. While this practice of siphoning money away from public education is common among religious Christians in red states, New Jersey is a blue state that typically ranks first or second in the country for the quality of our k-12 public schools. As a whole, the people of this state take education seriously. The whole ordeal left a bad taste in my mouth, as I am a huge proponent of quality public education.
The New York Times reported recently on the quality of education at Ultra-Orthodox Yeshivas in New York and it seems pretty clear that Ultra-Orthodox children (boys especially) are not being given an adequate education at these schools. The boy schools on average fall way below state standards and perform no where near where the average public schools perform. Many students come out of these schools unable to read and write in basic English (they are fluent in Hebrew and often Yiddish), and fail at other basic secular subjects.
To clarify, the Ultra-Orthodox believe that men are obligated to study the Torah but not women. As such, girls are taught secular subjects and perform better on standardized exams than the boys, who are pretty much stuck studying the Torah all day and miss out on some of the secular education that girls receive. This is why Ultra-Orthodox boys schools tend to perform especially bad on state standardized exams.
Some derided this New York Times article as antisemitic. I'm not sure that I agree-- I believe all children have a right to a basic education that prepares them for an adult world outside of their community so that they have the freedom of choice to leave and make a living if that is a choice they want to make. As much as we have linguistic diversity here in the NYC-metro, you're still not going to have many options in life if you can't communicate in English.
So anyway-- this is all to say that the Ultra-Orthodox are generally not friends of those with progressive ideals, and there is real damage that has occurred in their communities.
There is also generally much talk about welfare fraud and other types of financial fraud being widespread in Ultra-Orthodox communities, but I haven't followed these stories particularly closely. I am concerned that these stories trigger the whole "Jews and Money" antisemitism that's widespread, but at the same time fraud is fraud and should be reported on. I do believe it is antisemitic when people attribute fraudulent actions to the fact that the person is an Ultra-Orthodox Jew, and I do get the sense that this attribution of fraud to a state of being Jewish is quite common unfortunately (I've heard comments and "jokes" about Jews being obsessed with money my whole life), so it is imperative that we call it out when we see it.
Lastly, I should mention that I have a cousin (who I never really see) who joined one of the Chasidic (Ultra-Orthodox) communities in Rockland County, New York for two years. I can't tell you much about what the experience was like for him, but his mom (who's some form of non-Orthodox Jew) called it a "cult" and was ecstatic when he decided to leave. I can't tell you how apt the "cult" descriptor is, so take from that what you will. Many Jews from outside of these communities are not very fond of them, to say the least (in fact the vast majority of criticism I've heard about the Ultra-Orthodox has come from Jews, but that's probably just because most of my family is Jewish).
If this were reddit, I'd apologize for the length of this post right now, but since lengthy posts seem less frowned upon here I will continue, since I never responded to your actual question:
is there any good way to describe anti-specific-sect-ism?
In my experience, people who are against a specific sect will specify the sect and people will often specify the specific community, like they'll say "the Ultra-Orthodox community of Lakewood" or "the Ultra-Orthodox community of Monsey," and it will be understood within the context of controversies regarding that specific community. Criticisms of these communities are not always antisemitic, to be clear, but it often becomes antisemitic when it's not clear that the criticisms are directed towards the actions of specific communities and instead is attributed and assumed to be inherent to all Jews or all Ultra-Orthodox Jews (there are many different strains and communities within Ultra-Orthodox Judaism). The line between "antisemitic" and "not antisemitic" isn't always clear, and often depends on the underlying intent of the writer/speaker, which is inherently unknowable (in my opinion, although I think many would disagree that intent rather than just effect matters).
Something that I haven't addressed in this post but I think is worth mentioning as something to keep in mind is that while here I am mostly talking about Jews in terms of religion, it is also worth noting that we are an ethnoreligion and we exist as a set of ethnicities and cultures. I like most other American Jews am Ashkenazi-- after my ancestors left Israel they travelled through Europe, living first in southern Europe, then in Germany where we gained the moniker "Ashkenazi" and developed the language of Yiddish, and then to Central and Eastern Europe, spending large amounts of time in Poland because it was at one time one of the only countries that accepted Jews. This happened over the course of many hundreds of years. My great-grandparents immigrated to the US from Romania and Poland, and my grandparents spoke primarily Yiddish at home. As a family, we hardly practice the religion (and my mom's Catholic which is an issue for people who care, aka not me, but it's a whole can of worms that is a story for another time) but we hold onto the cultural traditions and ethnic identity in a way that is meaningful for us. You can probably guess I'm Jewish based on the way I look or by knowing my name (think something like "Sarah Goldberg").
Antisemitism has a long and interesting history, and the more I learn, the more I realize that people today are often just repeating the same lies about Jews (the people, not the religion) that were invented many hundreds of years ago. If you want to understand antisemitism you simply cannot do so adequately without taking a deep-dive into its historical origins (and following how it has evolved over time), so if you want to learn more I'd suggest looking into Jewish history and the history of antisemitism before trying to understand the nature of modern antisemitism.
Anyway, you've read my whole post, thank you for taking the time to do so! It's lovely that I have a place to write longer posts and I appreciate this forum for that (even if no one reads it).
That was very insightful, thank you. It’s interesting that people get as specific as the individual local community in discussions; I guess it makes sense for insular, tight communities to each...
That was very insightful, thank you. It’s interesting that people get as specific as the individual local community in discussions; I guess it makes sense for insular, tight communities to each differ even when under the same umbrella. I grew up in NJ, but a bit further south and as a gentile. While the town had a massive Jewish population, there wasn’t any notable Orthodox community (visibly, at least), and they weren’t talked about much. My exposure had been just from media and seeing a few while on the occasional trip to NYC.
I see you've met Sara Goldman, friend of Rachel Goldstein, cousin of Esther Goldblum, niece of Daniel Cohen, and girlfriend of Benjamin Schwartz. Joking aside, my "DNA Relatives" on 23andme all...
I see you've met Sara Goldman, friend of Rachel Goldstein, cousin of Esther Goldblum, niece of Daniel Cohen, and girlfriend of Benjamin Schwartz.
Joking aside, my "DNA Relatives" on 23andme all have pretty much some variation of a first-name/last-name combo that's pulled from a list of like 20 first names and 20 last names. Just throw a dart at each of the two list of names and I guarantee I'm 3rd cousins with someone with the name combo that comes up.
Point is, some of these names (and variations that are two letters off) are very, very common among Ashkenazim (mine included).
My mom's relatives (who are completely absent from my 23andme relatives list due to algorithmic challenges that result from the historically endogomous nature of Ashkenazi Jews and the fact that my mom is not Jewish) come from a Polish background and with the exception of "Gorski" have mostly very unique surnames. In fact some of these surnames seem to be relatively unique to my family and the small Polish village from which their roots lie. If you live in a community with a sizeable amount of Jews, you're almost guaranteed to have met someone with my last name. On the other hand, even if you live in a community with a sizeable amount of Polish people, it's extremely unlikely you've ever heard of my mom's maiden name (and if your native language is English and you're not familiar with Polish you'd have a really hard time figuring out how to pronounce it).
Made researching my family history much easier for my mom's side than my dad's side-- I was able to track down info on a great-great-great-great-great-grandparent on my mom's side but only a pair of great-great-grandparents on my dad's side (geneology is fun).
I'm an American Jew, and grew up with very little formal Jewish education, but I was lucky enough to become good friends with a frum (a preferred term in the Ashkenazi community over Orthodox)...
I'm an American Jew, and grew up with very little formal Jewish education, but I was lucky enough to become good friends with a frum (a preferred term in the Ashkenazi community over Orthodox) Rebbitzen and her family while I was in college. My friend is a Ba'al Tshuva, which means she grew up as secular as I did, and picked up observance as an adult.
We used to have conversations at length about issues internal and external to the Jewish community, and she has some really interesting perspectives on a lot of them. As an example, one of the other people in this comment section was talking about the schools in East Ramapo. She had lived in Monsey for a few years and explained a perspective on that issue that had never been covered in any of the news articles I read about it:
Legally, if a school provides bussing to any public school students, it must provide bussing to private school students, which given the number of schools can be incredibly expensive. But state and federal funding is provided based on the number of enrolled students, so there is a massive funding gap that needs to be covered by the local school district. The population of Ramapo (including large parts of the Jewish community) are quite poor, so state and federal funding would ordinarily be a very large part of their budget.
The same problem exists with special education funding: normally, general education student funding subsidizes expensive special education students. In Ramapo, only the most disabled Jewish students are enrolled in the public school district, which means it has a much higher proportion of several disabled special education students than typical for a district, and fewer general education students to spread it over.
Basically, all this combined meant that the school taxes for the local district were unusually high relative to the local income, causing financial strain to the Jewish community, where cost of living can also be incredibly expensive. Property tax is also based on property value, which is higher in the Jewish section of town due to the religious requirement to live within walking distance of a shul, which requires density, and thus higher property values, so the Jewish community was paying a lion's share of the local taxes, but getting a minority of the benefits. And so the story you see reported in the press happened, but without the explanation I've added, but almost all of those articles missed the context I learned about, and caused incredible anti-semetism, with almost nothing to show for it.
What that story made clear to me at was that I needed to be careful about what I read from these sources, and whether they've looked at another point of view, because from this different perspective, I can see some obvious policy changes (like changing state law to a state subsidy partially based on population instead of enrollment) that would have made this better for everyone.
Often, I think this sort of lack of understanding is what snowballs into hatred, but on the progressive left, it's common not to acknowledge even that Jewish people are a minority, and have a different experience as a result.
My friend describes Judaism as a tribe, I think the formal term is "ethnoreligion" -- we don't quite fit the American definition of race; many Jews are white passing, but the frum community is very visible because of the way they dress, and there is an incredibly long history of anti-semetism and legal discrimination against Jews, even in the United States; the first holistic admissions processes at Ivy League schools were built to reduce the proportion of Jews admitted.
I never realized growing up how much of my own culture I was unaware of because the Christian world view was the default. Did you know that Jews don't believe in hell? And that abortion is not just permitted, but actually required when the woman's life is in danger? Or that Chanukkah is actually one of the least significant holidays on the Jewish calendar? My friend has a deep loathing for the term Judeo-Christian, she says no such thing exists.
I guess all this is to say is that there is a wide range of American Jews out there with wildly varying experiences based on how they "pass", their culture, their community and political beliefs (particularly toward Israel). If a person's experience with anti-semetism scales with how visible they are, I think it's certainly a lie to say that "Jews are as privileged as white people", when that privelege only exists when we camouflage.
Thanks for your input-- I was unaware of the context of inflated taxes. I don't like that a bunch of special needs kids got the short end of the stick in this situation and I probably still don't...
Thanks for your input-- I was unaware of the context of inflated taxes. I don't like that a bunch of special needs kids got the short end of the stick in this situation and I probably still don't side with the neighborhood's Jewish community even given the additional context, however I do believe that high property taxes in our region is a huge problem and that we should find a way to offer property tax relief to New Jersey communities while still maintaining strong public school systems and services for special needs students. None of these problems are easy to solve, unfortunately.
I do think there were and are a lot of antisemitic articles about Lakewood (even though I live significantly closer to Monsey I hear more about Lakewood since it's in New Jersey and I used to read the Star Ledger which is a New Jersey specific paper, but to be honest over time I've realized it's trash and not worth reading). Unfortunately, when I did a quick search about Lakewood on Google earlier today, I saw a white supremacist website linked on the first page of results, which dissapointed me, to say the least.
frum (a preferred term in the Ashkenazi community over Orthodox)
I've never seen it as particularly "preferred" so much as the Yiddish term for orthodox that's been adopted into English. Also, I usually see/hear it used to mean "devoutly practicing" rather than to mean "part of the Orthodox movement." Like in the contexts in which I've heard it, a Conservative Jew can be considered frum if they start practicing more seriously (more like the Orthodox) even if they don't join an Orthodox community and they continue to identify as Conservative. I'm not an expert in the terminology though, so I could be wrong, and even if I'm not it's a nuance that might not matter.
I never realized growing up how much of my own culture I was unaware of because the Christian world view was the default.
This is why I subscribed to r/Jewish-- because they would call out Christian-normativity in our culture and it was like a breath of fresh air not being imposed on by certain (incorrect) assumptions.
Did you know that Jews don't believe in hell? And that abortion is not just permitted, but actually required when the woman's life is in danger? Or that Chanukkah is actually one of the least significant holidays on the Jewish calendar?
I did know these things, but not because my dad was particularly religious (in fact my mom, a Catholic, became more religious over time but never believed that her religion was better or more valid than any other religion and she encouraged my dad and us to follow Jewish traditions even moreso as she became more devout in her own religion) but because as children in a multi-religion household, we were curious and asked our parents lots of questions.
In fact I can tell you for certain, as someone who also has a Catholic parent, that the "default" in American culture is not Christianity so much as Protestantism. Obviously, there is a bigger gap between Judaism and Protestantism than Catholicism and Protestantism, but the gap does still exist and is worth noting. Unfortunately, I believe that protestant culture has "infected" many Catholics, leading many Catholics to be misinformed about their own doctrine.
Of course, as someone who does not believe in Catholic doctrine, it doesn't particularly matter to me one way or another, but I think it's a shame nonetheless.
Often, I think this sort of lack of understanding is what snowballs into hatred, but on the progressive left, it's common not to acknowledge even that Jewish people are a minority, and have a different experience as a result.
This is true I think. From what I can tell, many progressives have some sort of underlying awareness that Jews face discrimination, but because it doesn't fit the typical constructs of prejudice that they talk about and understand they either don't know how to or don't want to discuss it, or worse, think it doesn't or can't exist.
Educating people-- particularly progressives who are highly motivated in helping non-dominant groups-- in the history, context, and nature of antisemitism is the first step to bringing about positive change (on the left side of the spectrum, at least). I do believe, and hope, at least, that there are enough good faith actors that opening up a discussion about antisemitism could go a long way. I saw this almost kind of sort of happen when the whole Kanye incident happened, but it died down and elephants in the room were never quite addressed.
For what it's worth, I wasn't trying to make a real argument on the issue, but more trying to discuss the idea that a lot of these journalism pieces are missing context and that it leads to a lot...
For what it's worth, I wasn't trying to make a real argument on the issue, but more trying to discuss the idea that a lot of these journalism pieces are missing context and that it leads to a lot more of a black and white view that can unfortunately lead to antisemitism towards visible Jews.
On the "frum" point, I have met a good number Jews that people would categorize as Orthodox who do not use the term to identify themselves, and believe that the Reform/Conservative/Orthodox split is not a helpful system of labeling. So I just try to stay in the habit of using their preferred terms.
Education is definitely important. Beyond just education on historical antisemitism, people need to understand that Judaism is a distinct culture and not just "pre-jesus Christianity". That "Messianic Judaism" isn't widely recognized as an example of cultural appropriation is upsetting to me -- almost no messianics are actual Jews, and their institutions of worship are basically churches.
Even as a Christian, I was essentially taught that "Messianic Jew" meant "Jewish convert to Christianity" for whatever that's worth
That "Messianic Judaism" isn't widely recognized as an example of cultural appropriation is upsetting to me -- almost no messianics are actual Jews, and their institutions of worship are basically churches
Even as a Christian, I was essentially taught that "Messianic Jew" meant "Jewish convert to Christianity" for whatever that's worth
It's often not even people who were ever Jewish. I had a (different than who I discussed above) friend describe them as "Christians LARPing as Jews". That friend actually does do real LARP, funny...
It's often not even people who were ever Jewish. I had a (different than who I discussed above) friend describe them as "Christians LARPing as Jews". That friend actually does do real LARP, funny enough.
Oh god I didn't know about that subset. Growing up a Christian fundamentalist there were a few super annoying families who were essentially "Jew-aboos" and did stuff like host their own Christian...
Oh god I didn't know about that subset. Growing up a Christian fundamentalist there were a few super annoying families who were essentially "Jew-aboos" and did stuff like host their own Christian passovers, but they weren't bad enough to actually call themselves Messianic Jews.
Is that a state or federal requirement. Because if it is a state law, it seems like an easy way to cut some spending is to limit bussing to public schools only.
Legally, if a school provides bussing to any public school students, it must provide bussing to private school students, which given the number of schools can be incredibly expensive.
Is that a state or federal requirement. Because if it is a state law, it seems like an easy way to cut some spending is to limit bussing to public schools only.
After a quick Google search, it's New York State law. That said, remember that the Jewish community in that area is a large portion of the population is Jewish, and that community is is actually...
After a quick Google search, it's New York State law. That said, remember that the Jewish community in that area is a large portion of the population is Jewish, and that community is is actually paying a majority of the school tax; the only benefits they get back for their school taxes are bussing and special education services for a minority of students; they fund their own schools separately. Barring their unusual situations with state funding, transportation is usually relatively small part of the cost of educating a student, and much more cost efficient when it can be arranged centrally in bulk.
Actually, from my experience elsewhere in the state, maintaining those sort of services at levels above legal requirements is often how school districts convince private school parents to keep voting for the school budget.
My school, for example bussed students who lived closer to the school's than the minimum distance for bussing, and had clubs and courses available to the public, open swim and open gym at the high school, Kosher food at cheap open to all "Kids Night Out" babysitting events, that sort of thing. Something like thirty percent of students attend private schools, but the school budget vote hasn't failed in years.
This is a tangent, but it seems like political debates about public and private schools, along with home-schooling, would go better if it were recognized that some students are much more expensive...
This is a tangent, but it seems like political debates about public and private schools, along with home-schooling, would go better if it were recognized that some students are much more expensive to educate than others. A fairly uncontroversial reform might be to separate special-ed funding from regular student funding and have it be much more per-head. I wonder if anything like this has been done anywhere?
It actually is already, it's just that the additional subsidies provided don't actually cover the full cost of providing special education, so Gen-Ed students end up subsiding.
It actually is already, it's just that the additional subsidies provided don't actually cover the full cost of providing special education, so Gen-Ed students end up subsiding.
From the article:
[...]
Thank you for posting this. Back on reddit I was a lurker of r/Jewish and this article seems to very much echo the sentiments I've seen in that sub. I'd like to add that another part of the picture is that ultra-orthodox Jews tended to vote overwhelmingly for Trump in the 2016 and 2020 elections (non-orthodox Jews vote overwhelmingly for democrats) so the left side of the political aisle tends not to feel particularly warm towards the ultra-orthodox. I have no doubt this affects the dynamics of the situation.
I personally am a fan of this pamphlet about antisemitism, which is specifically written by a leftist activist for leftist activists, so it might not make as much of an impression on you if you aren't from that end of the political spectrum (it assumes both knowledge of and agreement with leftist ideology). It's also a bit dated, as it was written in 2007, but it is definitely still relevant today (if not moreso). That being said, I like how it addresses the issue of antisemitism and emphasizes that it has a unique nature and it's own history and that there can at times be a blind spot among progressives who are otherwise very passionate about social justice.
From the pamphlet:
If you're far-right, you believe that Jews are causing what you believe to be the problems in the world (I legitimately saw someone claim that trans people exist because of Jews). Meanwhile, if you're on the left, Jews are wealthy oppressors. A typical leftist can easily identify the former as antisemitism (and transphobia), but they'd struggle to identify the latter as antisemitism.
This gets at the heart of the issue, which is addressed in your link-- Is it still an antisemitic hate crime if the perpetrator is black or Asian? In my view, yes. Black people and Asian people are not immune to hate and violence. And as much as I hate Trump, I do belief that Trump voters can be victims of hate-based crimes, too-- all sorts of oppression exists, not just the ones we traditionally think of.
Maybe I should disclose (if it's not already obvious) that I identify as both a leftist and a Jew (a quite nonreligious one) and as such think that the lack of acknowledgment from the left of non-white supremacist antisemitism as well as actual antisemitism on the left is quite concerning.
Since you seem knowledgeable, is there any good way to describe anti-specific-sect-ism? It seems like it would be a way to clarify what is being discussed instead of talking past each other based on different applications of the label. Right now, someone who thinks Jews as a whole are ruining society and someone who is specifically concerned with a growing Orthodox Jewish population are both broadly labeled “antisemitic”, even though the latter is happy with all other sects of Judaism in their community.
To be clear, most of the people who are concerned about the growing Jewish population are specifically concerned about ultra-orthodox Jews (for more information on this group, see here). There are also Orthodox Jews called "Modern Orthodox" who as a group are much more assimilated and involved in the local non-Jewish community. The Ultra-Orthodox, on the other hand, tend to be quite insular and are prone to segregating themselves from outsiders.
Since you might not be aware of some of the concerns regarding Ultra-Orthodox communities, I'll tell you what I know, but be mindful that I'm not super well-versed in the issue and my knowledge is mostly limited to news articles and local gossip. To be clear, I live in northeastern New Jersey (part of the New York City metropolitan area) so I am near a number of these communities. First I will address specifically concerns that relate to the Ultra-Orthodox community in Lakewood New Jersey, which is near Jackson-- one of the cities mentioned in OP's article. My understanding is that the neighborhood used to be majority Hispanic, but is now majority Ultra-Orthodox. For reference, if I remember correctly, about 80% of the town voted for Trump in either 2016 and/or 2020, which is a higher percentage than any other town/city of significant size in the state. In other words, since the demographics changed to Ultra-Orthodox, it became very, very conservative. However, I remember about a decade ago when the population was still in flux and it was about 50% Hispanic and 50% Ultra-Orthodox. The Ultra-Orthodox generally send their kids to private Yeshivas (schools) and don't make any use of the public school system. What happened at the time that was being reported on was the Ultra-Orthodox ran for and took over the local (public) board of education and siphoned money away from the public schools and towards the Yeshivas. This left the remaining Hispanic population of the town in extremely underfunded schools getting a subpar education. While this practice of siphoning money away from public education is common among religious Christians in red states, New Jersey is a blue state that typically ranks first or second in the country for the quality of our k-12 public schools. As a whole, the people of this state take education seriously. The whole ordeal left a bad taste in my mouth, as I am a huge proponent of quality public education.
The New York Times reported recently on the quality of education at Ultra-Orthodox Yeshivas in New York and it seems pretty clear that Ultra-Orthodox children (boys especially) are not being given an adequate education at these schools. The boy schools on average fall way below state standards and perform no where near where the average public schools perform. Many students come out of these schools unable to read and write in basic English (they are fluent in Hebrew and often Yiddish), and fail at other basic secular subjects.
To clarify, the Ultra-Orthodox believe that men are obligated to study the Torah but not women. As such, girls are taught secular subjects and perform better on standardized exams than the boys, who are pretty much stuck studying the Torah all day and miss out on some of the secular education that girls receive. This is why Ultra-Orthodox boys schools tend to perform especially bad on state standardized exams.
Some derided this New York Times article as antisemitic. I'm not sure that I agree-- I believe all children have a right to a basic education that prepares them for an adult world outside of their community so that they have the freedom of choice to leave and make a living if that is a choice they want to make. As much as we have linguistic diversity here in the NYC-metro, you're still not going to have many options in life if you can't communicate in English.
So anyway-- this is all to say that the Ultra-Orthodox are generally not friends of those with progressive ideals, and there is real damage that has occurred in their communities.
There is also generally much talk about welfare fraud and other types of financial fraud being widespread in Ultra-Orthodox communities, but I haven't followed these stories particularly closely. I am concerned that these stories trigger the whole "Jews and Money" antisemitism that's widespread, but at the same time fraud is fraud and should be reported on. I do believe it is antisemitic when people attribute fraudulent actions to the fact that the person is an Ultra-Orthodox Jew, and I do get the sense that this attribution of fraud to a state of being Jewish is quite common unfortunately (I've heard comments and "jokes" about Jews being obsessed with money my whole life), so it is imperative that we call it out when we see it.
Lastly, I should mention that I have a cousin (who I never really see) who joined one of the Chasidic (Ultra-Orthodox) communities in Rockland County, New York for two years. I can't tell you much about what the experience was like for him, but his mom (who's some form of non-Orthodox Jew) called it a "cult" and was ecstatic when he decided to leave. I can't tell you how apt the "cult" descriptor is, so take from that what you will. Many Jews from outside of these communities are not very fond of them, to say the least (in fact the vast majority of criticism I've heard about the Ultra-Orthodox has come from Jews, but that's probably just because most of my family is Jewish).
If this were reddit, I'd apologize for the length of this post right now, but since lengthy posts seem less frowned upon here I will continue, since I never responded to your actual question:
In my experience, people who are against a specific sect will specify the sect and people will often specify the specific community, like they'll say "the Ultra-Orthodox community of Lakewood" or "the Ultra-Orthodox community of Monsey," and it will be understood within the context of controversies regarding that specific community. Criticisms of these communities are not always antisemitic, to be clear, but it often becomes antisemitic when it's not clear that the criticisms are directed towards the actions of specific communities and instead is attributed and assumed to be inherent to all Jews or all Ultra-Orthodox Jews (there are many different strains and communities within Ultra-Orthodox Judaism). The line between "antisemitic" and "not antisemitic" isn't always clear, and often depends on the underlying intent of the writer/speaker, which is inherently unknowable (in my opinion, although I think many would disagree that intent rather than just effect matters).
Something that I haven't addressed in this post but I think is worth mentioning as something to keep in mind is that while here I am mostly talking about Jews in terms of religion, it is also worth noting that we are an ethnoreligion and we exist as a set of ethnicities and cultures. I like most other American Jews am Ashkenazi-- after my ancestors left Israel they travelled through Europe, living first in southern Europe, then in Germany where we gained the moniker "Ashkenazi" and developed the language of Yiddish, and then to Central and Eastern Europe, spending large amounts of time in Poland because it was at one time one of the only countries that accepted Jews. This happened over the course of many hundreds of years. My great-grandparents immigrated to the US from Romania and Poland, and my grandparents spoke primarily Yiddish at home. As a family, we hardly practice the religion (and my mom's Catholic which is an issue for people who care, aka not me, but it's a whole can of worms that is a story for another time) but we hold onto the cultural traditions and ethnic identity in a way that is meaningful for us. You can probably guess I'm Jewish based on the way I look or by knowing my name (think something like "Sarah Goldberg").
Antisemitism has a long and interesting history, and the more I learn, the more I realize that people today are often just repeating the same lies about Jews (the people, not the religion) that were invented many hundreds of years ago. If you want to understand antisemitism you simply cannot do so adequately without taking a deep-dive into its historical origins (and following how it has evolved over time), so if you want to learn more I'd suggest looking into Jewish history and the history of antisemitism before trying to understand the nature of modern antisemitism.
Anyway, you've read my whole post, thank you for taking the time to do so! It's lovely that I have a place to write longer posts and I appreciate this forum for that (even if no one reads it).
That was very insightful, thank you. It’s interesting that people get as specific as the individual local community in discussions; I guess it makes sense for insular, tight communities to each differ even when under the same umbrella. I grew up in NJ, but a bit further south and as a gentile. While the town had a massive Jewish population, there wasn’t any notable Orthodox community (visibly, at least), and they weren’t talked about much. My exposure had been just from media and seeing a few while on the occasional trip to NYC.
This is like two letters off from my college roommate's name and it shook me lol
I see you've met Sara Goldman, friend of Rachel Goldstein, cousin of Esther Goldblum, niece of Daniel Cohen, and girlfriend of Benjamin Schwartz.
Joking aside, my "DNA Relatives" on 23andme all have pretty much some variation of a first-name/last-name combo that's pulled from a list of like 20 first names and 20 last names. Just throw a dart at each of the two list of names and I guarantee I'm 3rd cousins with someone with the name combo that comes up.
Point is, some of these names (and variations that are two letters off) are very, very common among Ashkenazim (mine included).
My mom's relatives (who are completely absent from my 23andme relatives list due to algorithmic challenges that result from the historically endogomous nature of Ashkenazi Jews and the fact that my mom is not Jewish) come from a Polish background and with the exception of "Gorski" have mostly very unique surnames. In fact some of these surnames seem to be relatively unique to my family and the small Polish village from which their roots lie. If you live in a community with a sizeable amount of Jews, you're almost guaranteed to have met someone with my last name. On the other hand, even if you live in a community with a sizeable amount of Polish people, it's extremely unlikely you've ever heard of my mom's maiden name (and if your native language is English and you're not familiar with Polish you'd have a really hard time figuring out how to pronounce it).
Made researching my family history much easier for my mom's side than my dad's side-- I was able to track down info on a great-great-great-great-great-grandparent on my mom's side but only a pair of great-great-grandparents on my dad's side (geneology is fun).
I'm an American Jew, and grew up with very little formal Jewish education, but I was lucky enough to become good friends with a frum (a preferred term in the Ashkenazi community over Orthodox) Rebbitzen and her family while I was in college. My friend is a Ba'al Tshuva, which means she grew up as secular as I did, and picked up observance as an adult.
We used to have conversations at length about issues internal and external to the Jewish community, and she has some really interesting perspectives on a lot of them. As an example, one of the other people in this comment section was talking about the schools in East Ramapo. She had lived in Monsey for a few years and explained a perspective on that issue that had never been covered in any of the news articles I read about it:
Legally, if a school provides bussing to any public school students, it must provide bussing to private school students, which given the number of schools can be incredibly expensive. But state and federal funding is provided based on the number of enrolled students, so there is a massive funding gap that needs to be covered by the local school district. The population of Ramapo (including large parts of the Jewish community) are quite poor, so state and federal funding would ordinarily be a very large part of their budget.
The same problem exists with special education funding: normally, general education student funding subsidizes expensive special education students. In Ramapo, only the most disabled Jewish students are enrolled in the public school district, which means it has a much higher proportion of several disabled special education students than typical for a district, and fewer general education students to spread it over.
Basically, all this combined meant that the school taxes for the local district were unusually high relative to the local income, causing financial strain to the Jewish community, where cost of living can also be incredibly expensive. Property tax is also based on property value, which is higher in the Jewish section of town due to the religious requirement to live within walking distance of a shul, which requires density, and thus higher property values, so the Jewish community was paying a lion's share of the local taxes, but getting a minority of the benefits. And so the story you see reported in the press happened, but without the explanation I've added, but almost all of those articles missed the context I learned about, and caused incredible anti-semetism, with almost nothing to show for it.
What that story made clear to me at was that I needed to be careful about what I read from these sources, and whether they've looked at another point of view, because from this different perspective, I can see some obvious policy changes (like changing state law to a state subsidy partially based on population instead of enrollment) that would have made this better for everyone.
Often, I think this sort of lack of understanding is what snowballs into hatred, but on the progressive left, it's common not to acknowledge even that Jewish people are a minority, and have a different experience as a result.
My friend describes Judaism as a tribe, I think the formal term is "ethnoreligion" -- we don't quite fit the American definition of race; many Jews are white passing, but the frum community is very visible because of the way they dress, and there is an incredibly long history of anti-semetism and legal discrimination against Jews, even in the United States; the first holistic admissions processes at Ivy League schools were built to reduce the proportion of Jews admitted.
I never realized growing up how much of my own culture I was unaware of because the Christian world view was the default. Did you know that Jews don't believe in hell? And that abortion is not just permitted, but actually required when the woman's life is in danger? Or that Chanukkah is actually one of the least significant holidays on the Jewish calendar? My friend has a deep loathing for the term Judeo-Christian, she says no such thing exists.
I guess all this is to say is that there is a wide range of American Jews out there with wildly varying experiences based on how they "pass", their culture, their community and political beliefs (particularly toward Israel). If a person's experience with anti-semetism scales with how visible they are, I think it's certainly a lie to say that "Jews are as privileged as white people", when that privelege only exists when we camouflage.
Thanks for your input-- I was unaware of the context of inflated taxes. I don't like that a bunch of special needs kids got the short end of the stick in this situation and I probably still don't side with the neighborhood's Jewish community even given the additional context, however I do believe that high property taxes in our region is a huge problem and that we should find a way to offer property tax relief to New Jersey communities while still maintaining strong public school systems and services for special needs students. None of these problems are easy to solve, unfortunately.
I do think there were and are a lot of antisemitic articles about Lakewood (even though I live significantly closer to Monsey I hear more about Lakewood since it's in New Jersey and I used to read the Star Ledger which is a New Jersey specific paper, but to be honest over time I've realized it's trash and not worth reading). Unfortunately, when I did a quick search about Lakewood on Google earlier today, I saw a white supremacist website linked on the first page of results, which dissapointed me, to say the least.
I've never seen it as particularly "preferred" so much as the Yiddish term for orthodox that's been adopted into English. Also, I usually see/hear it used to mean "devoutly practicing" rather than to mean "part of the Orthodox movement." Like in the contexts in which I've heard it, a Conservative Jew can be considered frum if they start practicing more seriously (more like the Orthodox) even if they don't join an Orthodox community and they continue to identify as Conservative. I'm not an expert in the terminology though, so I could be wrong, and even if I'm not it's a nuance that might not matter.
This is why I subscribed to r/Jewish-- because they would call out Christian-normativity in our culture and it was like a breath of fresh air not being imposed on by certain (incorrect) assumptions.
I did know these things, but not because my dad was particularly religious (in fact my mom, a Catholic, became more religious over time but never believed that her religion was better or more valid than any other religion and she encouraged my dad and us to follow Jewish traditions even moreso as she became more devout in her own religion) but because as children in a multi-religion household, we were curious and asked our parents lots of questions.
In fact I can tell you for certain, as someone who also has a Catholic parent, that the "default" in American culture is not Christianity so much as Protestantism. Obviously, there is a bigger gap between Judaism and Protestantism than Catholicism and Protestantism, but the gap does still exist and is worth noting. Unfortunately, I believe that protestant culture has "infected" many Catholics, leading many Catholics to be misinformed about their own doctrine.
Of course, as someone who does not believe in Catholic doctrine, it doesn't particularly matter to me one way or another, but I think it's a shame nonetheless.
This is true I think. From what I can tell, many progressives have some sort of underlying awareness that Jews face discrimination, but because it doesn't fit the typical constructs of prejudice that they talk about and understand they either don't know how to or don't want to discuss it, or worse, think it doesn't or can't exist.
Educating people-- particularly progressives who are highly motivated in helping non-dominant groups-- in the history, context, and nature of antisemitism is the first step to bringing about positive change (on the left side of the spectrum, at least). I do believe, and hope, at least, that there are enough good faith actors that opening up a discussion about antisemitism could go a long way. I saw this almost kind of sort of happen when the whole Kanye incident happened, but it died down and elephants in the room were never quite addressed.
For what it's worth, I wasn't trying to make a real argument on the issue, but more trying to discuss the idea that a lot of these journalism pieces are missing context and that it leads to a lot more of a black and white view that can unfortunately lead to antisemitism towards visible Jews.
On the "frum" point, I have met a good number Jews that people would categorize as Orthodox who do not use the term to identify themselves, and believe that the Reform/Conservative/Orthodox split is not a helpful system of labeling. So I just try to stay in the habit of using their preferred terms.
Education is definitely important. Beyond just education on historical antisemitism, people need to understand that Judaism is a distinct culture and not just "pre-jesus Christianity". That "Messianic Judaism" isn't widely recognized as an example of cultural appropriation is upsetting to me -- almost no messianics are actual Jews, and their institutions of worship are basically churches.
Even as a Christian, I was essentially taught that "Messianic Jew" meant "Jewish convert to Christianity" for whatever that's worth
It's often not even people who were ever Jewish. I had a (different than who I discussed above) friend describe them as "Christians LARPing as Jews". That friend actually does do real LARP, funny enough.
Oh god I didn't know about that subset. Growing up a Christian fundamentalist there were a few super annoying families who were essentially "Jew-aboos" and did stuff like host their own Christian passovers, but they weren't bad enough to actually call themselves Messianic Jews.
Is that a state or federal requirement. Because if it is a state law, it seems like an easy way to cut some spending is to limit bussing to public schools only.
After a quick Google search, it's New York State law. That said, remember that the Jewish community in that area is a large portion of the population is Jewish, and that community is is actually paying a majority of the school tax; the only benefits they get back for their school taxes are bussing and special education services for a minority of students; they fund their own schools separately. Barring their unusual situations with state funding, transportation is usually relatively small part of the cost of educating a student, and much more cost efficient when it can be arranged centrally in bulk.
Actually, from my experience elsewhere in the state, maintaining those sort of services at levels above legal requirements is often how school districts convince private school parents to keep voting for the school budget.
My school, for example bussed students who lived closer to the school's than the minimum distance for bussing, and had clubs and courses available to the public, open swim and open gym at the high school, Kosher food at cheap open to all "Kids Night Out" babysitting events, that sort of thing. Something like thirty percent of students attend private schools, but the school budget vote hasn't failed in years.
This is a tangent, but it seems like political debates about public and private schools, along with home-schooling, would go better if it were recognized that some students are much more expensive to educate than others. A fairly uncontroversial reform might be to separate special-ed funding from regular student funding and have it be much more per-head. I wonder if anything like this has been done anywhere?
It actually is already, it's just that the additional subsidies provided don't actually cover the full cost of providing special education, so Gen-Ed students end up subsiding.