Sparkly…………
I was born and grew up and still live in CT. My parents and older siblings were from NY. We are what we used to call European Traditional Jews. Father’s side is Litvak, mother’s side-German-a mixed marriage. In the USA since approx 1868. Still observant. We all went to day schools then either half day yeshiva for high school and public high school in afternoon for secular and then college and professional schools.
My kids did day schools and yeshiva high schools, the girls a year of Seminary before college, boys two years of full time learning before college, then law school.
We typically are the Jews who maintain the local shuls, including those where we used to live as well as the cemeteries and support all Jewish Day Schools in the state, Federation, Hillel, Jewish Family Service, the local mikvehs, and all the collectors who pass through.
Active in local politics, and I am a Liberal Democrat, I still give to Agudah and have an endowment fund at Ezras Torah. We live well, but don’t have to keep up with the Cohens…no noveau riche McMansion in Monsey, Deal or New Jersey.
My great grandparents started on the lower east side, my grandparents and parents in Brooklyn and the Bronx, working their way up the socio-economic ladder while not foresaking orthodoxy. We are not like the post WWII immigrant community or the great post 1980 shift to the extreme right. We get along with all factions. I’m as likely to write a check for Kiryat Sanz Laniado Hospital as the ADL…a misnagid who believes in supporting all Jews and their institutions.
We make money the old fashioned way, we work hard for it. We save, invest and give tzedaka.