Hey Hesh,
I read your piece on why frummies will never move out of New York with interest, but I have to disagree. It’s not that I love New York, it’s that I have an underlying feeling that moving out of the New York area is simply against halacha and this is probably the biggest reason people stay. Sure, the women may want to stay to be normal, but I can pretty much guaruntee you that the men are asking their Rav as to whether they should move out and their response is almost always “no”.
Now, you may say, if it were against halacha how can anyone ever leave New York. Well, the chabadnicks have a heter from the previous Rebbe, the yeshiva community is usually supporting some sort of kiruv brain drain thing in which they move a few couples out for a few years and then make locals frum and convince them to leave the city for New York or Israel. Others may be able to get heterim by being big donors or having some messed up kids at risk, but you don’t see too many normal people from Brooklyn going much further than Monsey or Far Rockaway.
You may not like New York for various reasons, but you do realize that spreading this loshon horah about New York is putting you in a serious breach of halacha. I read your site and enjoy it very much and rarely comment, but once in a while you push my buttons (which is probably your goal, though you’re too tame and fun loving to ever stoop to Shmarya’s level) It has been proven that those who move out of town tend to visit yeshivas less and eat less kosher pizza, they also tend to leave Jewish businesses without support and this is clearly a halachic breach. Less eating out equals less brachos and less brachos equals longer time for moshiach to come – you may say that those who eat out less will gain less weight and save money, but this seems to be antithetical to heimishe values which promote community over personal hygiene.
New York has all the services one could ever need, we have the most kosher pizza stores, minyan factories and bais yaakov’s. What will you do when your daughter turns 3 in San Francisco, where will you send her to school so she doesn’t turn into a lesbian? How will you prevent your sons from becoming gay, there are no gay people in the New York Jewish community so these issues are not issues at all. Think long and hard about these few facts before you cause others to stray because you, one person out of many, have found a good life away from New York Ir Hakodesh.
Find kosher pizza on 4torah.com
may you have many children in SF, so that at least half of them will be straight and rebellious. the other half, if they are gay, may they daven with the extra kavonna and dveikyus that HaShem typically gives gay yidn.
*dveikus
So not true, my family grew up in brooklyn and a few of us moved out of New York. two moved to the five towns, one moved to passaic, one moved to monsey and two moved to lakewood. there is one that stayed in brooklyn though.
When they say “New York”, I’m sure it is in reference to the general New York metro area and surrounding areas. All of those places you’ve mentioned above fall into that category. So no, they never moved out of “New York”. 😛
tell that to my folks 🙂
This is satire, yes?
obviously satire, but sadly very true. when i moved my family out of new york, people were asking if i consulted with Daas Torah before making this decision. and i wish i could say it was only one person who asked me that. because, obviously, leaving new york is against daas torah. and thats not satire, that really happened!
I actually had a rebbe that beleived (or at least claimed) that it was assur to move out of New York.
Look him up and make his head hurt by saying “I want to move out of New York and to Israel.”
Nah, my rebbeim wouldn’t think I should move to Israel. Israel is too polarized- you need to either be chareidi or mizrachi.
They don’t have the American Yeshivish community, where you can go to a high school that teaches secular subjects, and can go to work in business or as a lawyer and still daven in a yeshivish minyan and send your kids to a yeshivish cheder.
If I lived in Israel, I’d be between the two communities, and my kids would just be messed up. (Probably end up on FrumSatire like me.)
Fair enough. I was just hoping we could watch his head explode.
Make Aliyah… God says so
Stay in New York…God says so
…BOOM!
Israel needs more people in between to become less polarized! Polarization is bad for the Jewish people.
now the real question is, if a ‘new yorker’ moves out of town, who does he root for in sports? For example, if the ny giants are going against the sf niners, who do you want to win?
As an “out-of-towner”, I’m really hoping that this is satire and not the real thing. I’m new to this site, so I’m not sure.
Sadly this is a little too close to the truth to be actual satire. Most people in NY live like rats in a box.
For the price of rent of one bedroom in NY you can have a whole month’s mortgage payment on a 4bedroom house in a large out-of-town community with pizza shops, restaurants, and dozens of minyanim.
Not until you get as far out of town as me, in Seattle. The houses are stupidly expensive, and there’s only four shulen. One Ashkenaz, two Sephardic, one Chabad. And no kosher pizza places for motzei shabbos.