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Neville, I personally agree that it is important to preserve mesora, which is harder when there are mixed marriages and everyone goes to the same schools and learns the same things in the same way.
But there is an attitude that bothers me: when a frum ashkenazi gets engaged to a sefardi, even in the US, everyone has to comment about it and it’s not because they are worried about how the mesora might get messed up. I know of people who will avoid shidduchim with someone whose last names sounds sefardi, even if they are not. And there is a certain derogatory word for sefardim that is unfortunately bandied about a bit too much.
You are right that there is a double standard though. It is considered discriminatory when an Ashkenazi yeshiva does not accept a sefardi student, yet no one seems to notice that the sefardi who is begging to get into the ashkenazi yeshiva is actually discriminating against the sefardi yeshivos, implying that they are not good enough.
Pardon me, would you have any…..?
Grey Poupon
I think these must have been from the 80’s, since I know some of them (the cereal ones like Post) and I don’t think I watched any TV in the 90s.
wow, 13 posts and no one yet has given any actual tochacha. Should I give some tochacha about how it is not nice to ignore the OP’s request? 😉
Abba_S- I don’t think the Knesset rules were put in for halachic tznius reasons, but to make it a bit more professional-feeling year round. I don’t think you would see tank tops and really short miniskirts or t-shirts with slogans on capitol hill, even in warm weather. The Knesset is probably not the only place that could use a bit more professional attire.
Time for truth-
I don’t have stats on university acceptance, I assume it is merit based. It is possible that certain sefardim come from under-privileged homes/schools and are less qualified and don’t get into university. Don’t know. The sefardim at my work place, are, like the ashkenazim, all bright and highly educated. But even if university acceptance is skewed, you still have the other equalizing factor- the army -which takes sefardim and ashkenazim alike.
I am not sure I understand you comments, it seems that you did not understood mine. I was giving my interpretation of the chiloni attitude past and present, not my opinions about what is the right thing to do. I was discussing how early European Zionists forced the sefardim to give up their culture/religion (not something that I was promoting or applauding, obviously (note my use of “”) just stating that it happened). And how racism is less of an issue now among chilonim because that policy more or less worked- unlike in the chareidi world, the differences between ashkenazim and sefardim of the current generation are minimal, and so there is no problem getting along with people who are more like you.
Neville, not sure if that was a sarcastic comment. I work with chilonim and have a glimpse at their lives that chareidim don’t normally have. They may be far from Torah, some are even anti-Torah, but they also have their good points. They are yidden too, with yiddishe neshamos, and the spark comes out even if it is buried. They have strong family values- most are in their late twenties/early thirties and married with 2-3 kids, (you would not find this in an American secular work place). And they are much more accepting of other people, probably a little too accepting actually (ok, except maybe chareidim..) I really do not see the anti-sefardi attitude among them that I see among Israeli chareidim.
Joseph, I wish your Polyyanna view of the sefardim/ashkanazim relationship among the frum in EY would be true. In American, I think discrimination is less an issue because the sefardi population is smaller, so it melts into the majority without being threatening. In EY, it is very much present, unfortunately. I can’t understand why an otherwise wonderful community full of chesed still feels the need to categorize. but it happens. There is very little intermarriage between frum sefardim and ashkenazim, unlike among the chilonim. Yeshivos, and some neighborhoods as well, take in sefardim only to fill a quota. there are some sefardim who change their last names so they will have less discrimination (ie get their kids into ashkenazi yeshivos). To be dan l’kaf zechus, it may be because it is important to preserve individual communities’ mesora, so that to some degree there will always be differences, in a positive way. But we need a way to preserve people’s uniqueness and still respect each other for being different.
With the chilonim, the army and then university act as an equalizer, and everyone comes out the same in the end, which is why I believe there is actually less discrimination. Yes, the State and the ruling European elite showed great disdain for the immigrants from N Africa and Mid-Eastern countries, and they were treated very poorly, to put it mildly. But once they integrated, gave up their “antiquated” customs and behaviors, and became “Israeli”, a lot of that discrimination disappeared. For example, at my workplace, there are highly educated chiloni sefardim and ashkenazim getting along just fine, plenty of mixed marriages as well, generating no raised eyebrows. I don’t know if it is representative of all of Israel, but things have improved a lot since the early days of statehood in the secular population.
My kids eat lion and bear and giraffe animal cookies with the best hechsherim. And we make homemade cookies using dreidle, menora, and elephant cookie cutters for chanuka.
It’s cold and rainy, why would anyone even consider not wearing socks? Bring out the boots!!
LU, your tachana merkazit story reminds me of one that happened to a friend- she was davening at the kosel when a lady comes over to her and gives her a mussar shmuz about how it is not proper for her to wear a sheitle (peah nochris, there are many who hold that it is assur to wear a sheitle, but rather women should cover their hair with a scarf/hat/turban etc). My friend was single at the time with thick, a bit-past-the-chin-length hair.
ZD- because they don’t get full funding from the government.
Israeli public schools (both secular and religious) are free. The chareidi bais yaakov schools for girls are part of the system and are free, except for books and things, which can add up, but obviously nowhere near as high as US tuitions. There are private girls schools where parents pay as well. For boys, if they go to independent talmudei torah or chadarim, they pay tuition, which is minimal, around what takamamash said. Yeshiva ketana (boys’ high school equivalent) is more expensive.
lightbrite, a b’show is a chasidish-stye date, where boy and girl meet in someone’s house after parents extensively check out either side and basically, they are only waiting for the couple to meet and see if they get along before they get engaged.
takah,
kol hakavod for a smooth k’lita- may you always have nachas from your kids.
lightbrite: “Maybe they have an idea but look the other way because they have bigger battles and it’s better to tolerate it than risk pushing people away from Yiddishkeit.”
If this is really an issue of potential arayos, and big tznius concerns, they would not be looking away. I don’t think yeshiva bochurim will be pushed away from Yiddishkeit if they couldn’t go out bowling with a date.
“They may be in a tough predicament. If they prevent young people, hormones and all, from dating as they currently do, then their talmidim may grow resentful.”
Yet there are plenty of rules that the rabbonim set up for during the engagement, as to frequency and purpose of seeing each other. The bochurim understand that these rules are set up for a very good reason.
LB, from your comment, I am not sure how much experience you have with Yeshiva style dating. whether it is in a lounge or a park or the zoo or someone’s living room, it is by its nature formal. The point of a more relaxed setting or a fun date is to get the person to feel more comfortable being him/herself, to facilitate meaningful conversation. It is not an allowance to hormones, and any date that is, is definitely not a tznius one and would never be sanctioned by the rabbonim.
benignuman: “I have hard time believing that any Rosh Yeshiva would tell his talmid that it is mutar to take a girl to Dave & Busters or Chelsea Piers.”
because of tznius or because these places are not the right environment for a yeshiva boy to be in at all? I remember a date I had a long time ago when the boy took me to a pool place. It was a horrible place filled with people I did not want to be around, I felt so uncomfortable, nor was I impressed when my date happily showed off his pool playing skills but didn’t care at all that I had no idea how to even hold the stick.
If the kid is able to go up to someone and say “wanna play/do something” then he does not need to sit on a bench. Seems to me it will be the kids too shy or too afraid of rejection who will be sitting on the bench, and then they will risk be labeled nebs.
Mazel tov, this is wonderful news. May you be happygirly and boy now!
If there were major tznius problems and potential arayos issues about the typical American yeshivish way of dating (as opposed to Chasidish), wouldn’t the roshei yeshiva and rabbonim, who I am sure know what goes on and are involved in their talmidim’s and children’s dating, say something and put a stop to it? If they haven’t, then maybe they feel it is necessary?
By the way, I heard from someone who grew up in and around the Mir Yeshiva, that the girls of the Mir families knew all the bochurim, and shidduchim would be arranged accordingly. So much for today’s falling standards…
ahron, The problem of OTD kids exists in both communities, unfortunately- some of the reasons are the same, some unique to each place.
While making aliya as a single or newly married couple has its difficulties, raising Israeli-born children is easier than having to uproot kids of various ages, so that they have to get to used to a new culture, learn in a new language, make new friends, etc. For those who want to make aliya with kids, it has to be a careful decision for each individual family, made with daas torah and input from educators. Many say not to go if kids are older than 10, or if kids have learning disabilities that will make picking up fluent Hebrew and learning in a second language very difficult.
LB, if the person asks your advice, feel free to give your bracha and encouragement!
The overall GPA should count towards admission, though. So even if theoretically a C is good enough for them in any of the required courses, if admission is at all competitive, the better you do, the better chance you have of getting in. So if you retake a course, I am assuming that the old grade does not count toward the GPA.
Still, college is expensive, re-taking classes will just push off graduation. If there is one course that you messed up on for some reason and you think you could do much better a second time when that reason does not apply, and it does not delay graduation, then ok. but if it is multiple courses, and the courses will be hard even the second time, I don’t see much point in repeating.
LU- note I said especially during sefira. But even at other times, since the popular dating hotels are not on the same bus routes as most of the simcha halls (usually in industrial areas), it is pretty obvious.
Joseph, most Israeli Yeshiva Bochurim do not have driver licenses, most yeshivos do not let their bochurim get one. So they could not borrow their fathers’ cars even if they had one.
Also, in the chareidi world, a car is not considered a necessity, and is often beyond a typical kollel family’s budget. Besides the cost of the car, insurance is very expensive, gas is about twice what it costs in the US, and just getting a license is a fortune- you have to take something like 28 mandatory lessons, besides the test and fees, so it can cost thousands of shekels.
So going by bus is the normal thing to do in Israel, even for a date.
I always did wonder though how tznius it is when everyone on the bus sees the girl dressed fancy on a weekday- and knows exactly where she is going, especially if it is during sefira when she can’t be going to a chasuna.
JM613- how do you have room for all those Pesach eggs in your fridge?
I would say that I always refrigerate my eggs except for Pesach when I just can’t fit them all in!
Note that there is one date on the eggs if kept at room temperature, and another date a month later if kept in fridge.
maybe try one of the hotels near LaGuardia?
T613T before you hire CTL to start the class-action suit, maybe check if your scale is accurate- maybe it needs calibrating?
I keep a tray of 30 on a middle shelf that pulls out. Pull it out, take eggs from the front, push back in. When first rows are finished, rotate tray so that those in back are now in front. When almost finished, buy new tray and put on shelf, cut first carton down to hold the last 2-3 eggs from the first tray, and place those next to large new tray.
I find it a bit ironic. Originally, chasidus intended to open up yiddishkeit for everyone, so that even the simple folk who weren’t learned could have a relationship with Hashem through avoda and tefilla, and not feel disenfranchised by their lack of Torah. But by emphasizing the role of the Rebbe as an intermediate, they are distancing people from having a direct relationship with Hashem, and perhaps even giving the mistaken impression that davening can be done only through an intermediary (seems LB had that impression until now).
The way it seems now, if you are litvish you can daven directly to Hashem, but if you are Chasidish, you need to ask the Rebbe to daven for you. This seems to be a distortion. Can someone who knows more about chasidus explain this discrepancy to me?
Tznius, if the person you want to go out with is not yet dating I suggest you move on and consider others who are dating.
I don’t think you can convince anyone that they are ready for marriage and parenthood until they are ready (remember all those threads on divorce, anyone?)
That said, the best thing is to show by example- those who are happily married raising beautiful families can show those who have doubts about it that they are missing out on something special.
lightbrite, I doubt it. I don’t know anything about this program, but based on my knowledge of other graduate programs affiliated with frum universities, it is highly unlikely that the professors are frum or care about her yiddishkeit growth.
The convenience of having time off for shabbos, yom tov, and kosher cafeterias is no small thing. Yet, you cannot let your guard down assuming that you are in a frum environment that is safe spiritually.
The issue of mixing meat and milk applies to eating, cooking and deriving pleasure/benefit (such as feeding a pet, using a combination in a shampoo, etc) but not to thinking.
One difference between EY and American dating system is the ease and safety of getting around. In EY, where the yeshivish bochurim do not have licenses or cars, the girl and boy both travel by bus to a designated hotel (unless they have a sit-in in some neutral home), meet in the lobby, sit for 2-3 h over drinks, and then part and go home separately. The first date can lead to some awkward moments when they have to figure out who their date is among those waiting around. I can’t imagine a girl in NY traveling by herself by public transportation late at night from the Manhattan hotel to her home, or even earlier on, from her home to Manhattan.
The reason why dates include parks or museums or other places more entertaining than a hotel lobby, is because sometimes people need to be more relaxed to get to know each other.
By the way, in the real “olden days” the girls would dress up in white and go out and dance, and the boys would choose from among them- if we did that today, there would be plenty of postings on the CR about how it lacks tznius.
Sometimes changing the setting a bit by playing a game can be very revealing as to a person’s character. I remember a date I had once in a game place, and the guy was trying very hard to win and show off how smart he was. It told me a lot about his character.
It may just be a change of pace, something different than a regular hotel date, something that says you have advanced a little beyond that and feel comfortable enough with each other to play a game. I would chose the game wisely, though, to avoid what Comlink-X said.
I am no expert in Chasidus, but I believe they see the Rebbe as an intermediate, a pipeline, so to speak, that brings the tefillos to Hashem. To use an inadequate analogy, it would be like asking the CEO’s personal secretary to put your call right through to the boss, as opposed to going through the regular switchboard. It’s not a great analogy though, because unlike the CEO example, a regular person can “get through” to Hashem without any help also.
Lenny, but it does seem that you have a specific issue to work on- your marriage has failed, and you don’t understand why. Even if it can’t be saved because your wife has given up on it, at the very least it would be good to find out why so that you can move on.
Doing on well in these classes is not just for getting into pharmacy school, it’s also a barometer of how you will be able to handle such coursework in pharmacy school. The types of courses and their difficulty levels have already been discussed here.
Abba_S, according to the article, it is even more than the woman is more independent and capable of taking care of herself, so she does not have to be stuck. It is that when gender roles are changed- also for the husband who has lost his ability to be the “mashpia”, confusion and dissatisfaction results, and the relationship suffers.
Yichusdik, I appreciate what you are saying, it would be nice if that could be a general rule here.
Anyway, back to the OP. There was a very interesting article in Mishpacha this shabbos in which Miriam Kosman was addressing hashkafa of feminism. She feels that the change in gender roles that have become the norm even in the frum world has seriously impacted on shalom bayis. For example, the challenge for a wife who may be more educated that her husband, and may be providing more of an income in a better job, to be able to respect her husband. I don’t know if this is a contributing factor to escalating divorce rates, but it was definitely food for thought and may be relevant to the original topic.
This has got to be the strangest halacha question ever asked on the CR. Prizes anyone?
shebbesonian- I am just repeating the story published in Mishapacha as it was told by a family member, you can decide whether to believe it or not. I repeated it here only because it was already made public by the family. It was meant as an example of a type of gadol who has no shaychus to mundane household matters, even though he obviously understands these issues from a halachic standpoint.
The lesson behind such a story for us is to appreciate how much a gadol can be totally immersed in Torah.
“if my wife said if I go for individual counseling was a condition to staying married, then yes, i would do so, even if I thought it was stupid. It wouldn’t make a difference to her either way.”
But maybe it would make a difference to you- maybe you need the therapy to uncover issues that you don’t realize that you have. Maybe it will help you save the marriage, maybe not. But it will make you a better person. And if this marriage ends up in a divorce, maybe it will help you pull yourself together so you can consider having a future.
Yes it is a challenge. And you didn’t even mention missing class on yom tov, or tests on chol hamoed.
These issues will most likely follow you into your working life too, unless you can work exclusively in a frum environment that revolves around the frum calendar. Ok, not the tests on Friday issue, but deadlines right before or after shabbos/yom tov, working late Fri afternoons. Short Fridays are always hectic. I hope you figure out how to “juggle” now, it will be a great skill to have all of your life. Hatzlacha!
Mishpacha had a feature about R’ Chaim Kanievsky. To show how he was kulo Torah, a family member (I think it was a daughter) told the following story:
Once the Rebbitzin was not feeling well. R’ Chaim asked if he could do something for her. She asked for a hot tea. After waiting awhile, she asked if it was ready. Turns out, as it was the first time making tea, he did not light the fire under the kettle. She then explained to him in more detail how to make a tea. He did it, and when bringing it to her, dropped the cup. That was the last time she asked for his help in domestic matters.
For R’ Chaim, it is Torah only. For other gedolim, it may be different, and it may be different at different times in their lives. When their whole life revolves around learning or helping the klal, they don’t have time for other matters, and it is only appropriate for others to fill those needs- whether a family member or gabai. Imagine the president cooking his own dinner or going grocery shopping!
Yichusdik- of course, but should we invalidate someone’s opinion because they don’t have the hard evidence to back it up? I think there is room here for all sorts of opinions, that is what makes it interesting- sometimes the more outlandish opinions make it even more interesting!
Yes there are seasonal allergies in Israel too. Israeli trees also make pollen, and since the blossoming season starts sometime in shevat, and winter frost that usually puts an end to summer allergies doesn’t really ever come, seasonal allergies sort of become all-year round allergies. and then there are all those sandstorms, not great at all for those with respiratory problems. B”H for allergy medications!
It can take time to develop an allergy – so that someone moving to a new place/climate might be fine in the beginning, but after several years, the allergic reaction starts again.
Ok, to recap:
you are not checking out this yeshiva for your brother. Or maybe you are, but you don’t want us to know that you have a brother or a mother so we can’t figure out who you are.
Or maybe you are checking out this yeshiva for someone else’s brother, but you won’t be able to tell him what you find out since he does not talk to girls. So maybe you will ask the brother that you don’t have to tell him?
Or maybe you are trying to find out information about a boy who is no one’s brother for shidduch purposes. I guess this yeshiva is taking the Nasi initiative to date younger very seriously.
I’m getting a bit dizzy from all this.
huju- I think you are over-interpreting what I said and making assumptions as to my assumptions. I never meant to disparage anyone here or suggest that anyone was providing “uninformed opinion unrelated to actual facts.” Most people here present logical, well reasoned opinions based on their experiences, observations and also personal feelings. Yes, actual facts, based on what they have seen, what their neighbor has told them, what their relative experienced. That is different from hard statistics, large data sets. I think that when posters ask for others’ opinions, they want those non-professional insights from regular people (assuming that the “YWN Coffee Roomers” as you call them are “regular”). Not everyone can back up their opinions with statistics because they are not professionals, and do not have data on large populations at their fingerprints. I don’t think that only statisticians can give opinions, or that people’s comments have no value because they cannot tell you the percent of people who share that experience. What I am trying to say is that the CR is not a scholarly journal, but a conversation between interesting people.
CTL, so what you are saying is that initials were used for practical reasons, not for propoganda purposes. Sort of like the CR (CTL, NCB, YY…)
Your info about LBJ’s senate campaign pokes a big hole in my theory, it helps to have inside knowledge having been around then!
Wasn’t JFK known as Jack in every day life?
By the way, huju, why are you sending notes to yourself? and sorry that the missing “” led to confusion.
To follow through on DY’s analogy- these professionals may not be able to tell you the % of the problem within the general population, since the population they deal with is obviously skewed, but within the population that they treat, they can tell you the break-up. Hospital workers can tell you how many of the sick are male, female, or belonging to a certain age group. Likewise, people who deal with divorces might have a good idea of what % of those come from kollel backgrounds, etc.