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DY: And how is that not being locked in in the cynical way I mentioned it? I’m in a position right now where I know a couple of people in marriages that lasted too long and finally imploded, with fallout for the kids, once each side realized that they were in incompatibly different places hashkafically and the status quo was untenable.
My point is that it does exist, just they’re hiding out. If someone were to allow them out, they’d be around in droves.
Put it this way- a few months ago there was a letter to a shidduch columnist in a well-known magazine in which a woman had started dating at 19 while in college, resolute that she was going to end up a kollel wife supporting her super shtark husband forever. Five years later, she still figured she wanted that, but she kept on encountering on her dates guys who fit the bill in shtarkness but who, due to only ever having been in yeshiva, lacked the sophistication and outside knowledge and self sufficiency that she had picked up over her education and work and which she began to realize she appreciated in a spouse. The columnist told her to put her priorities straight and make sure she was only getting redt to the shtarkest guys from the best yeshivos in order to get that out of her head. But it’s a clear example of how she had changed in some ways and pushing her into the cookie-cutter mold wasn’t going to help. Worse, there’s probably some guy in yeshiva who is a great guy who reads the Wall Street Journal between sedarim, or even has started college, but because she’s being encouraged to date “top guys,” they’ll never meet.
And to totally ignore your non-response, even if you limited it to three, allowing for some population growth and some people never getting married, you’d still have to use embryo selection, as there are families that have a bunch of kids of one gender in a row.
PBA: If pru u’revu means one son and one daughter, you’d have to use embryo selection if you really wanted to regulate effectively (two children per family, exactly at replacement level, to prevent population growth).
Right, same, yeshivish people go there as well.
Sparkly- I meant my friends who were set up (not through the shidduch system, which if you ask me is irredeemable at this point) and did not have male friends. But yeah, it was weird that I posted that, sorry.
No, I meant the educational system. Yeshivish people go to college too. (I go to Stern, BTW, which I would count as the MO educational system.) There you might learn that you can do X or Y, but you’d also learn the MO hashkafa.
Health, all I was saying is that you said it in such a way that one might think that you had the force of fact behind you, so that people were a bit bewildered when you said that it was an opinion.
DY: Joe still hasn’t explained why marriage will suddenly preserve the idealism, while staying unmarried will allow it to degenerate. Until he explains that, I go by the way I understand it.
gaw: There is a YU Rosh Yeshiva whose wife is a doctor. It works really well for them- he was around/flexible when she was in med school and residency, and her income once she was established allowed him to stay learning and focused without worrying too much about parnassa. She doesn’t recommend this, but it’s still something. I actually know several rabbinical student-med student couples.
DY: I think it does, just boys assume that they have to be in long-term learning in order to get a shidduch (which they do, with an immediately post-sem girl) and don’t realize how many girls moderate later on.
You seem to have “picked MO” largely based on externals- so you can do certain things, not be judged, and, hopefully I won’t seem too harsh, seeming “better” in comparison with the people you associate with (rosh lashualim rather than zanav haarayos).
Have you ever been part of the MO educational system?
Just saying, I would recommend books by the above authors if you’d like to know about the hashkafa behind MO, which is held by many people who wear yarmulkes (no matter what the color), cover their hair, dress the same way you dressed when you were yeshivish, don’t do coed mixing, etc, as well as the people with whom you associate. MO isn’t “real Judaism lite.” I’m not sure how many times I can say this without being redundant (and probably rude, for which I really do apologize).
Health:
A statement like this one-
“No they don’t!! That’s the average, women more than men, whether you believe it or not.”-
doesn’t do much for your saying that it’s only an opinion.
And the statistic is interesting, though I’d want to see more of the study, but that could be adjusted for if, for example, the mother is the one more often in “parent mode” with the child.
PBA: Thanks, though considering the post with which you started this thread, I’m not sure whether your agreeing with me is faint praise… 😛 (the current age gap theory is a proportional one, so that fewer people involved in it will only mean that there will be fewer people overall, not that a “gap,” should you believe in such things, will shrink)
Joe, DY- I was totally expecting someone to call me out over cynicism for the “locked in” thing. I think I’m slightly in shock now. I think it’s completely wrong to lock someone in to a worldview by marriage and children, particularly if it’s likely that the worldview will change.
And Joe, why not make a mandatory shana bet then? Or do the Israeli style and institute extra grades in high school?
apy: And it works the same way the other way round- girls won’t want guys who have ever stepped out of the beis midrash, but they want their husbands to work soon after they’re married. Had they begun college/training before marriage, they could start even more quickly to become financially self sufficient.
There is very little logic in this system.
Sparkly: Would it shock you if I told you that I know MO people who don’t pick their own spouses from among male friends?
Why is it not the same with bochurim then? Why don’t they get married right after finishing high school? If it is because they will continue to learn, or at least be kovea ittim, why not make sure that the girls are also in a framework of Torah?
What is it about marriage that prevents this downward slide, unless its function is simply to lock her in?
It’s just that you keep on saying that MO are “less religious” and “do what they want.” I defy you to read the above books and say that the authors are “less religious” and “do what they want.” I have no idea what kind of yarmulka each wore/wears or what color it was, but if that’s what you think MO is…
From what I’ve heard the pizza shop is under new ownership.
Can I say that the most obvious and downside-free solution, if we get people’s heads straight, is to have women get married later? Not even that much later- let’s say 21, with the guys around the same age or hey, even a bit older.
Funny story- the guy who’s the money behind NASI originally started off with this idea, and he traveled to all the seminaries to talk to the principals, asking them to encourage the girls to wait to get married as a method of ending the shidduch crisis in exchange for a donation to the school. All of the principals apologize and said that sociologically, this couldn’t work- there is a culture among girls of panic and paranoia, where for ever second you’re “on the market” your market value goes down until you’ve reached age 20 and you’ve withered on the vine. (Or worse, 22, when you’re already a raisin.) So the principals said it wouldn’t work, and the guy decided to try getting guys married younger instead.
Literally, though, this makes so much more sense. More time waiting to date is more time to mature, which is always a good thing. (At age 18-19, a girl still has another 6-7 years until her brain is fully developed.) In the kollel system, or even in today’s pressured financial climate where so many families need two incomes, a girl who’s had her schooling not compounded with the pressures of dating, marriage, and pregnancy but rather as a single can finish more quickly and with more menuchas hanefesh, and can earn an income much more quickly rather than be dependent on parental support. (In fact, guys starting college while single might not be the worst idea for the same reason, and I do know guys who are doing it.) Also, many girls come out of seminary starry-eyed and idealistic, and crash down a few months later. The guy they happily get engaged to in October might not be the guy she would have wanted had she waited til May. Girls should be allowed time to mellow out.
I propose a one-year minimum freezer for girls. Give them time to get jobs, begin school, re-adjust to real life without the pressure of shidduchim and a complete change of lifestyle on their backs. Apply all the same tactics they use to get boys engaged younger to get girls engaged older.
sparkly, if this isn’t an overly personal question, what prompted you toward MO?
Have you ever encountered the works of R Soloveitchik (actually, both R Yosef Dov Soloveitchik and R Ahron Soloveitchik), R Lichtenstein, R Lamm, and others, which explain a lot of the hashkafa of Modern Orthodoxy?
Does your MO rabbi guide you in hashkafa as well as halacha?
Do you believe that your hashkafa is MO? To what extent has it changed since you stopped being yeshivish?
I feel terrible saying this, but it really sounds like you think of MO as the quick and dirty version of the “real thing.”
“No one publicly disputed the photo, only attacked trump about it, as I noted they ran right into his trap.”
Seriously? Everyone was laughing when they heard the picture was from the National Enquirer.
Reparative therapy as a broad-based effective treatment has been debunked. Can a couple individual people theoretically benefit from therapy? Who knows. But as an industry, in which one would expect gayness to be cured, it is debunked. And it has been proven to cause pain, trauma and damage in the many for whom it did not work, as jfem mentioned. In response to ubiq, you did say it was curable by saying that therapy works.
“This parade is not a show pf solidarity with people struggling with these issues neither is it a protest against discrimination, as some posters have tried to claim.
This is parade to celebrate this kind of lifestyle,( this is who I am and im proud of it) hint, it lies in the name.”
You’re conflating two issues. People being gay and people engaging in homosexual activity. It is very likely that someone who has this struggle might want to identify with others in a similar situation in solidarity. While one may not have to feel pride, theoretically, one need not feel shame either. Sinning, of course, is another matter. While the parade does celebrate homosexual activity, and is therefore not hashkafically or halachically correct, it’s not beyond the pale for people to feel solidarity solely on the identity part. And that’s not a sin. But lifestyle and identity are two vastly different things here.
AviK- what does that have anything to do with anything? I was just countering Joe’s assertion that the Green Line has nothing to do with charedim.
LOL I meant feminism 🙂 🙂 🙂 There is no way that would have gotten through modding otherwise…
What I’m saying is that I really don’t think MO is a compromise. It’s a different derech. In your experience you may see it differently, which with no offense intended I think is a shame, but I know many fervently committed and fully shomer Torah uMitzvos MO Jews who are just as “legit” as any yeshivish or chassidish person. It might be a different hashkafa, but it’s not lesser- perhaps more palatable, but not watered down.
Joseph: Agree with Sam2. Reparative therapy has essentially been debunked and proven to cause a lot of pain, trauma and damage.
Syag: I never said it was right. I said why from their perspective it makes sense. I honestly find it hard to judge, but I never said it was right. The bit about it being a reflection on the general culture is just to say where such an idea would come from- facts on the ground more than justification. And I already said that I don’t agree with the parade- they can make their own decisions, but I know of people who choose to and not to based on their cheshbonos. I feel more comfortable with the reasons not, as it seems you do as well. I’m not even specifically talking about Judaism here (and honestly, many of the people who are most active are OTD- certainly not all, but some)- just the sociocultural Jewish community. What’s the right hashkafa is a completely different question, and you’re probably at least mostly right about that (lefi aniyus da’ati) with the caveat that I do think that less paranoid intolerance from the frum world and more sympathy would probably be a good thing, and that people in a group commiserating doesn’t equal waving a rainbow flag at a pride parade. Also, the fact is that now a lot of people marched because of this year’s specific circumstances who might not have marched otherwise- so this year’s not a good example. The vibes I was getting were that it was more standing up for ourselves as a group against the murder last year rather than wholeheartedly supporting the parade, even amongst gay people. (If anyone’s wondering, I have… diverse friends.)
Should people identify themselves by their nisyonos? Like I said above, I think you have a point when it comes to parades and tacit approval of actually sinning, but if you want to make a comparison to your sister (who I hope is doing well b’nefesh and b’guf), then I imagine she would want people to be sensitive about the issue, and would possibly want to meet and exchange chizuk and experiences with people in a similar situation. There would seem to be a parallel here.
I don’t know, but it’s pretty darn significant to all Jews, including charedim… (That said I do know a bunch.)
But all those other neighborhoods do have plenty of charedim.
I don’t think anyone would take it as a sole identity. We all have multiple identities. But as identities go, it’s a pretty huge one. I certainly believe that part of the reason is that it’s a huge identifier in the general population as well, and that there’s been somewhat of a cultural leak. But honestly, I can’t totally agree with you. Given the general cultural attitude toward the identifier, I think it’s pretty rational, and for all the reasons mentioned above. Besides, they may never get to identify with the most common identifiers in the Jewish community- husband/wife, father/mother- and the family unit is HUGE in the frum community, considering that so much of our religious culture surrounds family. It’s one of the reasons why it’s shidduch crisis and not shidduch niggle or shidduch booboo- because being single and not having one’s own family unit after a certain age in the frum community can be socially isolating. So no, I don’t think it’s weird that such people would want to band together, considering that they are in effect isolated in some ways from the rest of the community.
I agree, if the yeshivish/chassidish communities do want to keep people on, they need to work more on answering questions, being open, etc. If people find more answers in MO, good for them as well (I do certainly believe they’re easier to get there). But people who genuinely have reached the point where they no longer believe will find both approaches equally non-compelling.
1) As I mentioned in one of my posts, one of the groups behind this survey is Project Makom, which is trying to do what you describe. They are using survey data in order to make programming for that purpose.
2) MO is definitely better than OTD, but it’s not inherently worse than yeshivish/chassidish, either.
3) It’s not like “if you’re going to go OTD, then you may as well become MO.” You need to have solid reasons to stay frum, including MO (which is what Makom’s working on), because many of the surveyed MO people left frumkeit because they didn’t believe in God anymore, which as far as I know is still a requirement in MO. A lot of the feminist stuff is only somewhat resolved in the majority of MO communities (and for the record, I think that without using the “f-word,” you can be a lot more menschlich and equitable to women than people already are in the yeshivish world without messing with halacha one iota, and I think that many MO communities are on the ball with that), and plenty of it is unresolvable. So it’s not like these people with these specific hangups may as well have just become MO. In fact, many of Project Makom’s members never even had a crisis of faith at all- they started leaning away from religion, or away from charedi life to MO life, as the case may be, for purely sociological reasons (lack of education and skills, desiring more exposure to the outside world, etc). If that’s why people leave religion, then promoting MO hashkafic thought is certainly beneficial. But if the person is having a genuine crisis of faith, then yeshivish, chassidish, and MO are all the same.
“Meah Shearim and the other Chareidi neighborhoods are in the western portion of Yerushalayim, within the Green Line.”
And the Old City, French Hill, Neve Yaakov, Pisgat Zeev, Givat Zeev, Maalot Dafna, Ramat Eshkol, Ramat Shlomo… among others I’m forgetting, these all contain a lot of charedim, with some very key parts of the charedi community, and all are in the West Bank.
Sparkly- I’m glad that you found answers in MO. But the fact that you didn’t get them in the yeshivish community doesn’t necessarily mean that the yeshivish world never gives them or can’t. It is true that they aren’t available nearly often enough.
jfem- my absolute pleasure- and it’s very rewarding 😛
Simcha: Thanks for putting it better than I did.
Joe, the difference between the sins you mention and being gay is a) being gay isn’t a sin- homosexual activity is a sin. So you will have many Orthodox people who are gay whether you know it or not, who will not act on it but still identify with other people struggling in the same way. And b) something like adultery does have another outlet, ie marrying someone available. Gay people don’t have this option.
That doesn’t mean I support the parade. I agree, the parade does explicitly support those who actually are sinning, and while I have no control over whether Israel has such a parade or not, I can still disapprove. But there are Orthodox gay people who identify themselves as gay even if they will never enter a forbidden relationship because it is a common life experience and struggle that puts them at odds with the world at large and kal vachomer the frum community, and that’s undeniable. Should they march in the parade? That’s their own cheshbon. Would I march in support? No, because I don’t agree with the rationale behind the parade. Do I think it’s weird that being gay is an identity, particularly in the Jewish world? Honestly, not really.
Sparkly- certainly I know people who are like that. I also know MO people who are not, or who do things that I may not do but which they do on the advice of their rabbis. I feel like a bit more nuance might be wanted here- both on MO and the yeshivish world, as both seem to have dimensions beyond your experiences. I hope that yeshivish people can ask questions, and if they can’t then I hope it’s an individual problem or institutional problem and not one across the whole subgroup. And of course MO isn’t a code word for “doesn’t care.”
Joe- fine. I already mentioned that I don’t buy it, but if you’re standing behind it, go ahead.
Two points:
1) The most deadly attacks this year have taken place in undisputed areas of Israel, like Tel Aviv. While there are some kinds of terror more likely in the West Bank, by this logic, nowhere is really safe. The natural conclusion would seem to be, why would any Jews put their children in danger by living in this eretz ocheles yoshveha? And you see where that goes.
2) Everyone’s talking about people living in settlements like they’re all radical rightists moving there for ideological reasons. You do realize that Beitar and (IIRC) Modiin Illit are in the West Bank? Along with a huge portion of the charedi communities in Yerushalayim, where so many car attacks took place last year? It was enlightening being in Beitar for Shabbos among a bunch of chassidishe women who were simultaneously talking about the crazy settlers and being nervous about a two state solution which could theoretically put them out of the homes they’d made, mostly for neighborhood or financial reasons. And my personal closest scrape with any sort of terror was an infiltration across Beitar’s fence that occurred three houses from where I was staying. These aren’t radical extremists, these are people looking to live in places that are basically mainstream now.
Joe- “If someone merely was attracted to this sin without actually engaging in it, he wouldn’t be declaring to the world his attraction to the sin anymore than someone disposed to theft or adultery would march in a thieves or adulterers pride parade.”
I strongly dispute that. Today, it’s an identity thing. We all label ourselves and try to associate ourselves and identify ourselves with groups that support our experiences. LGBT is one of those identifiers, so even people who are not in gay relationships have ample reason to identify with the general grouping. In fact, I’d say kal vachomer in the frum community, as even for someone with no intention of sinning, it is much harder to be gay in a community which a) emphasizes the kinds of families that these people can never have and b) is automatically suspicious of them.
For the record, I would never go to this parade, though I know people who did this year specifically as a statement in response to last year’s tragic murder. But I still disagree with you on that bit.
People make a choice to go and live there despite the risk, but it’s sad that there’s a risk in the first place.
Sparkly- that’s kind of sad. Both the way you see MO as seemingly a secondary permissive movement for people who can’t handle the “real thing” (or so it seems from what you say- forgive me if I’m wrong) and that you assume that yeshivish people will never be able to ask/answer questions.
Joseph- really? In a survey? If you asked someone OTD what his/her favorite book was, would you be able to trust them? If you asked them their opinion on the news, would you not be able to trust them? If you would, then don’t pull that out now specifically for this. If you wouldn’t, then admit it straight out in the beginning without twists and turns of specious criticisms of methodology.
Softwords- “Also, if I don’t know a single soul who’s a Homosexual why would I be so bothered by the Torah’s condemnation of homosexuality that I’d throw everything away?!”
Many of the people surveyed do in fact know gay people. I don’t think one needs to know gay people to feel like that, as it happens, but it’s still a point worth making.
Also, thanks for reading the actual survey, and taking the (an) intended purpose for it- looking at results to see if we can combat them. Seeing how so many are that disenfranchised by a lack of answered questions, we can answer the questions. Hopefully that can prevent more people from going OTD. So I don’t know why people are condemning the survey- maybe they just don’t want to know…
Sparkly- is that really the attitude you have as an NCSY advisor? MO=”do whatever you want while still believing in Hashem and keeping…shabbos and kosher”? How do you get away with that? And incriminating from the other side is the idea that if you’re not MO you can’t ask questions…
Thank you JFem and yichusdik for everything you’ve posted so far.
For various reasons, I know several people who filled out this survey. First of all, it was not only people who went off the derech- it was also people who left a charedi/chassidish lifestyle for Modern Orthodoxy. Two organizations to which the survey was sent (to be propagated among others qualified to answer who may or may not be part of one of these groups) were Footsteps (helping people become secular) and Project Makom (helping people stay frum after leaving a charedi community). They were both given the opportunity to answer the survey, and Project Makom is using survey results to try to help people who want to leave due to some of these factors to change their minds and stay in some form of religious lifestyle. So this data could actually be very key in helping people stay frum.
Also, listen to yourselves- you’re saying that the data on this “why did people go OTD” survey is flawed because it only surveyed people who went OTD. That’s what it was for. If it had surveyed frum people, there would have been no point- that, in fact, would have skewed the data. And, like I said, while the survey was passed around on Footsteps, which is anti-frum by its raison d’etre, it was also passed around in other contexts for people not involved in that organization.
Also- and this is important- this isn’t an empirical survey. This is more aggregating the experiences of many people to try to find common ground. Just because someone is no longer religious does not mean that you can suddenly suspend being dan them lekaf zechus that they are being truthful in their answers.
I am starting to feel like people just don’t want to believe the survey, because it doesn’t fit into people’s neat boxes of wild, partying, hedonistic OTD people. There are definitely people who leave beshittah and are chozrim be’she’eilah, and their voices should be heard without being immediately disbelieved.
They got about ten different newspaper writeups- they’re in exactly the place they want to be right now 🙂 (not to mention that as these shows are prerecorded they’ve known about this for quite a while…)
I was going to suggest Heichal HaTorah. For a similar kind of school in NY, Ohavei Torah in Riverdale.
As far as the Begin Center, that’s actually cool not because of the center itself but because of the Bayis Rishon-era catacombs behind it. One of the coolest places I’ve ever been.
That’s a really wide age range, but in case any of this helps- (like, I don’t think your 1 year old is gonna like any of these, but here goes)
Nachal Chalilim hike (very close to Yerushalayim and even accessible via bus, lots of fun, ends up in a cool cave)
Ir David/water tunnels- just make sure your kids aren’t afraid of the dark
Genesis Land- haven’t been there in years, but when my family went ages 5-12 enjoyed it
Ein Gedi- little kids can stay by the lower pools, older kids can go higher
Gamla- the most beautiful place in Israel (and apparently Netanyahu agrees, if that helps) and the little kids can stay in the nature reserve while the older kids hike to the Bayis Sheni-era city. One of my favorite places in Israel- warning, it’s in the Golan, which is also one of my favorite places in Israel incidentally
Water sports in Teveria
Biblical Zoo- really just a nice zoo, but it has pesukim relating to the animals which is a nice tie in
Masada- cool, but you will probably fry
Hula Swamp- nice nature reserve with different kids of bikes for rent
Temple Mount Sifting Project- 10NIS a person and very very cool, sifting through dirt from Har HaBayis (check with your LOR, I guess) and helping the archaeological effort while finding things ranging from bones from korbanos to Turkish cannonballs.
The Talmudic Village in Katzrin (also in the Golan) is quite cool as well, though haven’t been in a while.
Wander the Old City, including the “Fifth Quarter,” the roofs. Lots of fun, just be wary.
I have a friend who crochets and sells kippot srugot. She has a bunch of customizable patterns and takes special requests. Literally a little bit of everything- she’s even crocheted sports logos and the American flag on request. So I don’t think it’s a big deal what the dugma is.
“Christians living with Jews = No Problem”
“Christians living with Shintos = No Problem”
Didn’t go through all of these, but these at least are categorically wrong. (In Japan, Christians were persecuted for several hundred years to prevent proselytization. And we all know about Christians and Jews… in fact, I’d sooner say “Muslims living with Jews = No Problem,” as for the majority of the history of each group coexisting with the other that’s more likely to have been true.)
Personally, I’ve always wanted to be on Jeopardy, and am on their email list, but their trials are usually on Shabbos.
Just curious, what do people think of the frum people on the Israeli talent shows? There are frum people in almost every season- in particular, check out Eyal Cohen on The Voice, who was phenomenal and whose family is adorable.
These guys are Modern Orthodox baalei teshuva, of whom at least one regularly performs in non-Jewish venues (as well as Jewish), so they probably look at this in a very different way than the majority of the people commenting here. They dressed the way they did because they’re not trying to hide their identities- to them, there’s no contradiction. They’re coming from a completely different frame of reference.
Bear in mind also- while they’re already earning side money from this (Josh performs freelance with the Maccabeats, and Ilan is in the YU a cappella group the Y-Studs [don’t ask]), this is also a great way for both of them to get good publicity- which they’ve obviously already gotten in droves. Even if they’re eliminated in the next round, they’re set for life.
And, of course, I’m sure they’re having fun 🙂
Thank you yichusdik.
Also, check out, just for a sample, his response to a woman who wrote about her experience with first domestic abuse and then several years of igun. It’s a combination of tone-deaf superciliousness and cruelty. I can’t listen to a guy who talks like that.
(CC also blocked my post which criticized that response, by the way. Says a lot, if you ask me.)
Okay, this letter is ridiculous. He isn’t criticizing the data- he’s completely ignoring it. What he’s in essence saying is, there is no way to really run this survey because we can’t ever trust the people being surveyed, so instead please trust and accept my forty-five-year-old remembrances about college coeds’ white teeth which only apply to about 10% of the population surveyed. Because I am more worth trusting.
Judging people favorably would really be an admirable thing for him to do in this scenario. He’s just being incredibly dismissive, especially in many of his responses to reader comments.
Exams I don’t know. I don’t think there will be a fully online seminary/midrasha complete with tests. But sites like naaleh.com and YUTorah.org will have lecture series with great lecturers who are teaching the same classes they teach in yeshivos/seminaries. They’re generally sorted by topic and by teacher.
IITFT: I haven’t read the Nineteen Letters in a long time, so I don’t know the context for this, but on surface level-
are you really saying that only charedim and RWMO would rescue a child from a burning building? Or is there some background I’m sorely missing?
I know a very frum MO couple who made two siyumim at their wedding- on a mussar sefer and on a masechta. Definitely not what “the olam is noheg” (though maybe their olam) but they’d recommend the general idea of learning together as bonding (they started learning together once they realized the relationship was getting serious).
MDG: The point is that everything’s (going to be) so different now. An article from 2014 means little at this point. The UK’s going to lose loads of international companies’ offices- my dad’s company, one of the biggest corporations in the US, already publicly stated that they’ll be severely cutting back in the UK and moving to mainland Europe- and while the lowered pound exchange rate may benefit some trade for now, the lack of connection to the EU will change the whole way the British economy and trade agreements work.
The pumpkin is, IIRC, put up by someone in the neighboring house for Halloween.
I had a school bus driver once who was very into ghostlore (she was a bit weird) and she told us that apparently there had been a dispute between the Indians and the Dutch settlers and someone had been murdered and the ghost haunts the road at that spot.
She was a bit of a nut, as I said. That could be a known story or not, no idea. But I’ve never heard anything about avodah zarah.
Look. This isn’t a community notifications bulletin. This is a business site. It thrives on the advertisements it posts for the kinds of people who read it. It then posts pictures of simchos to attract people. In order to attract as many people as possible, it posts all the pictures it gets. I know people who have had both types of pictures- the up-close-and-personal and the separated-by-a-flower-arrangement- and their one unifying factor is that someone posted them both to SimchaSpot and therefore their pictures were posted so that these two very disparate groups could both benefit from their advertising. They currently have no incentive not to post. If there were a mass yeshivish/chassidish ban and boycott, perhaps they would get the message and move in one direction or another (toward or away from the RW market, depending on which was more lucrative) but right now why should they choose to do anything different?
These sites have their own clientele. YWN has a simcha section with just names, and plenty of people submit to these site with just names and a generic graphic- that’s really nice. But the sites advertise and thep people to whom they’re catering don’t care. Everyone has the option of not posting (most of my friends don’t). If they are posted against their will (as happened with my cousin, who was photographed with his kallah before they were engaged and posted without consent) they can complain and have it taken down. This is not a service or whatever that anyone has to use, and the wonderful thing about the internet is that it takes about thirty seconds to open a competing site al taharas hakodesh.