Good Communities Outside of NY

Monsey– in the right neighborhood, you can buy a house for high 200’s-300’s. Yes, you will need to walk 15 minutes to shul, but that is how you can afford low priced housing.

Passaic/Clifton (you’ll need to go to Monsey for a larger selection of restaurants), Bayswater (cheaper than Five Towns/Far Rockaway with access to the same schools, shopping, and eateries).

You shouldn’t paint the entire Five Towns with one brushstroke; Lawrence is very different than Hewlett, for example.

P/C is a good community, but I don’t know how much cheaper it is!

What is Chicago like? I saw there are 2 Bais Yaakovs – how do they compare?

I have a bunch of friends who went to hanna sacks, and I have been in the school building myself. The girls are very nice, however, my friends all had issues with the administration that, if I would have gone there, I would have ended up switching to Ida crown (the modern co-ed school) because I was not a hashkafic fit for bais yaakov high school at the time. The girls are only allowed to wear, clear, french manicure, or pale pink nail polish to school, or no nail polish. Otherwise, they make you take it off. There are ten different uniform shirts, grey skirts, navy, and ugly plaid skirt (they phased out green skirts and replaced with grey), you could probably come up with a different outfit every day for a month if you get every single item from the uniform store. You are allowed to have internet in your house, you have to turn in your cell phone to the office at the beginning of every school day, their erev shira is mandatory, or your substandard (I know someone who dropped out, and the school tried to prevent her from being successful in school, she had learning differences to, so it wasn’t even easy for her to go to school all day to begin with). The school day is from 8:15-5:22 pm. Most of the teachers are very nice, but sometimes, my friends have told me that the administration almost made it not worth going to school there- or at least that is how they felt at times. On the plus side, on Rosh Chodesh, you can wear whatever you want, as long as it isn’t denim and does not have words on it.

Bais Yaakov high school, starts their school day at 8:30 and ends at 4:30. Girls are not allowed to have internet in their homes, I have heard from my friends there that the administration there is on the opposite extreme and doesn’t always notice, or attempt to deal with issues girls have. They have significantly fewer options for uniforms. On Rosh Chodesh, you are allowed to wear any white shirt you want, there are restrictions on colors you can wear outside of school, and some other rules.

Basically, there are plusses and minuses to each school, you really need to check them out before making the decision to move there, or you might want to consider sending your children to schools outside of chicago for high school. In terms of issues with administrations as mentioned above, they aren’t biased at either school about which girls are affected by their “unofficial issue treatment policy” I feel that you really need to know who is teaching the classes more than the hanhala. But thats just my take on it.

Cheyenne, Wyoming is wonderful

takahmamash: Except that in Israel the government wants to take yeshiva students (and girls, if you see the fine print) and put them into a military that sees one of its goals as being the secularizion of all Israels so there will be uniform culture (meaning that if you are conservadox or a left-wing religious zionist Israel is perfect, but not if you are frum).

MorahRach: In Baltimore, there are single family detached houses with respectable yards and driveways in the $100K-$125K range, generally built post-World War II, within a ten minute walk of the major shuls (including the German, Yeshivish, Hasidic and modern orthodox ones). For more money, you can a newer house. If you want to live in Baltimore country (a few blocks away) you pay at least twice as much for the house, but the tax rate is under half of the city (other differences is that Baltimore County has better public schools, which is why housing there is a premium – that can be important if one’s child is so special (i.e. handicapped) that they need to go to a non-Jewish school.

Also note that DC and Baltimore are in a relationship similar to Brooklyn and Manhattan (except that they only have separate teams in baseball and football, but do have separate newspapers). If general, Baltimore is frumer than DC, but there are plenty of modern orthodox and non-frum in Baltimore, and plenty of “penguins” in DC (or rather Montgomery County which includes Silver Spring, Rockville and Potomac). The heavily subsidized commuter trains connect Baltimore to DC (but as yet no one has managed to set up a minyan on them, many people drive to Silver Spring to make early minyans before continuing on to jobs in DC).

MR -“Health- I was wrong about the age, my husband was there until he was 11. Either way- your statement as usual is rude and judgmental. My husbands family do not hate Jews who follow the Torah. They are very modern and the crowd was changing so it was not for them. They watched tv, went to movies, their daughters wore an wear pants. A community is allowed to not be for everyone, maybe it’s good for you.”

You missed my point and it wasn’t rude or judgmental -it was fact. Now I don’t know if your husband’s family preceded the Yeshiva or not, but I can tell you there was hardly any Jewish families left in the town before people started moving there because of the Yeshiva. So the implication of your post was that there was a Jewish community there and it changed to Yeshivish because of the Yeshiva. No, there wasn’t much Jews there before the Yeshiva. It was a thriving Frum community in the 20’s. It died in the 50’s & 60’s. Once the Yeshiva started up the community again – MO’s also moved in. So this is called Kofoy Tov. So without the Yeshiva the town would be mostly Goyim -so I guess if your husband’s family preceded the Yeshiva -they must prefer to live amongst Goyim then amongst Yeshivaleit. The MO’s and BT’s moved in because the Yeshiva made it a Frum community. When I was there many years ago, there wasn’t even a Kosher grocery. They still had shuls but the only people in then were old people and I doubt most were even Frum. And most barely had a Minyan. So if there was even a small amount of Jewish community -they would have had a least a Kosher grocery.

Akuperma:

takahmamash: Except that in Israel the government wants to take yeshiva students (and girls, if you see the fine print) and put them into a military that sees one of its goals as being the secularizion of all Israels so there will be uniform culture (meaning that if you are conservadox or a left-wing religious zionist Israel is perfect, but not if you are frum).

Wow, thanks so much – I guess I’m not frum! That makes me feel so much better; I may as well break out the bacon, cheeseburgers, and lobster.

BTW, Akuperma, whoever you are – I have a daughter in the IDF along one of the northern borders, although she is not in combat. Her frumkeit is surviving just fine, and if anything, she’s managed to have at least some religious influence on some of the girls around her. I guess it doesn’t matter, though, because I guess in your eyes she isn’t frum either.

I’m gone. I’ve had enough of the sanctimonious tone in the CR that so many of you believe if you don’t have a black hat or a sheitle, you can’t be frum. Adios. I’ll be here when Moshiach comes, watching you all fight for airline flights.

Georgetown in DC is the “fancy” neighborhood but while it has a shul, it has no schools or restaurants. The two restaurants in DC are near Du Pont Circle, which is in the downtown area. For all purposes, the Jewish community in Washington is in Montgomery COunty (part of Maryland, on the DC Metro) which has a wide variety of shuls, restaurants, schools ,etc. There is also the popular option to commute from Baltimore (about 45 minutes away by car, 55 by train) which has radically cheaper housing, and radically more frumkeit (especially if you are frummer than modern orthodox).

yeshivaguy45 it’s funny you chose that to pick on from Vogue’s post. Nothing she said about either of the two schools is accurate, except for maybe Hanna Sacks’ school hours.

Chicago is also quite expensive.

Might I suggest Eretz Yisroel (How about Haifa?) If not that, how about Atlanta, Cleveland or St. Louis? Denver also has great views and some very good Kosher Pizza.

You shouldn’t paint the entire Five Towns with one brushstroke; Lawrence is very different than Hewlett, for example.

Funny you say that. My relative in the “Five Towns” tells me that housing in Far Rockaway proper is significantly more expensive than Lawrence. Something to do with Real Estate taxes, and the more “Yeshivish” crowd wanting to live in Far Rockaway, driving the prices up.

gavra at work- The pizza shop in denver is good but it has very crazy hours. The joke is that its open from 7:00 to 7:01.

As a resident of the 5T for over 25 years, i must say that it is a wonderful area to live in. Granted some parts are pricey, but you can buy a house at a decent price. Many young couples have moved to Inwood, North Woodmere, parts of Cedarhurst and Woodmere. There is even talk of a group moving to Valley Stream. All of these areas are relatively close to the shopping and restaurants in the 5T.

You can also check out West Hempstead and Oceanside.

You should look into North Miami Beach. It is an excellent community. The schools are A+. They have a large branch of Chofetz Chaim with very good rebeim and teachers and the Bais Yakov in NMB is an excellent school. The community boasts a large vibrant Young Israel, as well as a whole bunch of other shuls. There are all kinds ranging from modern to kollel and every thing in between. There is Khal Chasidim and Chabad as well sfardim and everyone gets along in the most beautiful way. There are also other schools in Hollywood and Miami Beach both a 15 minute drive. All ages.

Passaic, NJ

Monsey, NY

Waterbury, CT

Chicago, IL

If you paid attention to my original post on this thread, I said that you need to check out the schools to determine which is right for you.

I mean if you put it into context, the girl I got most of my information from no longer enjoys learning Torah or davening and is having some serious religious issues,but everyone thinks she is a really good girl so she isn’t able to get the help she needs. Maybe other girls had better experiences at the schools.j

Yes, Waterbury is Chareidi

Health: sometimes silence is actually golden. Did you appreciate — when you were married — that people complained about your wife to you? It doesn’t matter if you’re right or not, let it go.

But you can always take train rides through Amtrak I am taking a twenty two hour train ride from new York to somewhere else, they even let you bring liquid and food on the train so you could bring tour own kosher food on the train and save money on liquids

*Your