Exit 109. 
It’s an excellent question, and worthy of some flogging 'round these parts.
And maybe there’s almost a quantitative approach. Maybe defining any entire population by anything less than a clear majority … is just too risky, hasty, judgmental, or – in the literal sense of the word – prejudicial.
And, of course, it’s risky to assume you’re accurately characterizing a majority of most groups, unless – as in my example of Evangelicals and belief in God – it’s epithetical to that group – the very definition of who they are.
To your other point … I’ve often said that my beloved uncle can be quite an asshole. But that has absolutely nothing to do with him being gay 
Right, but if a clear majority, for example, all vote the same way to put Hasidim on the school board when they don’t even attend the public schools, for the purpose of defunding the public schools, can I say that the Hasidim in that school are anti-school? How about when the yeshivas in Brooklyn violate state rules to teach a general education and only teach religious instruction instead? Can I say the people who send their kids to those schools, and the ones running the schools are anti-school? Seems like a clear majority of Brooklyn and Rockland County Hasidim.
No one defends the fundamentalist Mormons, the Taliban, the Westboro Baptists saying that we can’t paint them with a broad brush.
While I am happily ignorant* of the precise religious differences between/among orthodox, ultra-orthodox and Hasidic Jews, on the subject of vaccination the problem among Hasidic Jews appears to be a subset of members influenced by jackasses like Rabbi Handler, as described in this article:
http://forward.com/news/national/424479/measles-vaccines-rabbi-anti-vaxxer-symposium-new-york/
During the measles outbreak in NYC in 2019, it was noted that overall vaccination rates in Orthodox schools were as high or higher than the city average, but that a sizable minority were considerably under-vaccinated. Put that together with high population densities and frequent personal interactions in these communities and you have a recipe for outbreaks.
Any and all religious sects that foster destructive behavior that spreads diseases are richly deserving of censure, regardless of what other positive contributions they may make.
*speaking of ignorance, for a long time I placed Rutgers in south Jersey. 
Y-y-y-yeah. I guess you could. I probably wouldn’t, though.
When the opponents of abortion use building codes in order to make it cost prohibitive for abortion providers to stay in business, there really isn’t a whole lot of wiggle room about what their aims are. They’re pretty unambiguous about that.
They use a veneer of “for the patient’s safety,” but there’s no end of text in their literature that speaks to the deception and sophistry of that charade.
From the example you gave – and I’ll confess to knowing very little about it – I’d personally be hesitant to ascribe motive until and unless I’d been able to clarify it.
Would they agree with the characterization of “anti-school ?”
We have conservative Christians making no end of similar moves in my state regarding public schools and the curriculum, but I dont think they’re “anti-school.” They just want taught what they want taught and how they want it taught.
It might be splitting hairs, but …
But I think it’s because they’re being attacked at an epithetical level. I don’t think the fundamentalist Mormon sects, the Taliban, or the WBC would argue with the accusations that are leveled against them.
While not every single devotee believes in or practices every single precept of these organizations, they are “on the platform.” It is more or less the code by which they operate.
Do you think the same could be said for the ultra-orthodox Jews ?
They buy a lot of hats.
What I said was:
I made a clear and specific causal connection there, not some unwarranted generalization.
Bollocks. Nobody is broad-brush denigrating an ethnic identity here. We’re criticizing people who choose to hold presposterous, dangerous and bigoted beliefs.
If you say that you can never criticize a group at all, well then you can’t criticize the KKK, can you? Maybe one specific person is the founder member of the Reform KKK that loves everyone and fights for racial equality.
At some point, if you’re an adult and you choose to associate with a group with a certain general set of beliefs, you have to accept that it’s reasonable for you to be associated with the general beliefs held by that group.
I think you’re asking if we can treat a group of people who…
…typically live close together in the same neighborhood
…have all the men dress basically alike
…have all the women always wear skirts and either shave their heads or cover their hair
…are responsible for at least three CV outbreaks right now
…have had multiple measles outbreaks, to the point where the NY governor was threatening to close their schools
…have ignored social distancing requirements
can we make some broad brush assumptions? Unlike pro-lifers or whatever your example was, rather than having that one thing in common, Hasidim have their entire lifestyle in common.
Anyway, like I said, I’m happy they’ve contributed that one positive thing (plasma donation). Good for them.
Here’s the thing – some of the Hasidic sects in Brooklyn absolutely act as a bloc. It’s the source of their political power, which is disproportionate to their numbers. In local elections, nobody is getting elected to, say, the City Council without the Hasidic vote, in those districts heavily populated by Hasidim. Voter turnout is excellent among the group, and the group votes as one, as directed. Even in the mayoral election, the Hasidic vote must be courted.
Note that I am not saying that their political power is illegitimately gotten. It is not. It is gotten in exactly the way political power should be gotten – by organizing, by leveraging superior voter turnout, by making entirely legal financial contributions to politicians and to causes, and by showing up for every single local political event.
Their political power is, unfortunately, sometimes used for what I consider to be illegitimate purposes. Lately we’ve seen sometimes violent demonstrations in Brooklyn against authority, without a single arrest being made. In the past, we have seen incidents of racist violence committed by the Shomrim patrols in Hasidic neighborhoods. We have seen the silencing of victims of child sexual abuse.
That said, it’s certainly not the case that the Hasidim are the only group that has behaved like this.
However, since the Hasidim act as a bloc, it is fair to respond to them as a bloc. In fact, the community is so insular that it’s the only possible way to respond.
Has any reclusive hard-core cult ever contributed anything positive to society?
Some do.
The Amish make great baked goods and their furniture is supposed to be pretty good quality, for those who like that Shaker style.
Also, shout out to Benedictine and Trappist Monks.
Yup. The Amish go out to the sticks and take care of themselves. They work hard and sell goods and services to the English. The Hasidim live in crowded apartment buildings in the city and are more often on public assistance because their job is to study, not to make money, and they have lots of kids. That’s probably why more scorn is directed at the Hasidim than at the Amish.
I just want to point out some valid criticisms of some of the Ultra-Orthodox Jews that are NOT anti-Semitic as they are not tied to people being Jews but rather their actions. Sorry for “picking” on you RitterSport but I thought you did a good job of it.
Valid criticism: substandard education. Which has always struck me as bizarre because as a whole Jewish culture usually values education, hence the prominence of Jews in science, among other subjects. This is something some communities choose to do (Satmar, Hasidics, etc.) and not mandated by their religion.
Doing things that are harmful to both individual and public health, check.
More bizarre anti-education bias in their community - check
Again, a problem of insular communities that want to settle problems (which is often a euphemism for “sweep under the rug”) within their own communities and not involve “outsiders”. This is a problem of social isolation.
Personally, I find their veneration of certain rabbis to be creepy. I mean, WTF? Sure, there are Judaic scholars throughout history (a couple thousand years of writings by them, as well) but this veneration of some of the current guys… it just rubs me wrong.
Perhaps, if such a thread was started, it might be better to discuss how insular, semi-separated groups in general are an issue? Because the problems of being neighbors to folks like the Brooklyn Hasidim are not a problem of them being Hasidic, there are problems that the neighbors of any insular group will have.
Certainly, most Jews do not feel compelled to live such restricted lives, “Modern Orthodox” certainly do not, and the whole Hasidic thing is not some timeless legacy of a distant past, it’s a 19th Century religious revival movement based on charisma and trying to out-do each other with how pious a person can be.
The Amish are also known for rendering aid to their “English” neighbors during/after natural disasters.
You sure that’s Shaker style?
Not everything is nice and idyllic with the Amish and their brethren all the time but your point is important. It’s not so much a matter of positive contributions to society as it is about maintaining a balance between what you take from society and what you give back.
Thanks! I’m not going to go after Hasidim for being Jewish since my mother’s family is Jewish (I guess that makes me Jewish, too, but I wasn’t brought up observant in any way) and her father, my grandfather, lost his whole family to the Nazis. I live in a fairly Jewish neighborhood and, yes, some of my best friends are Jewish. 
Among religions, I like the Jewish religion and it’s avoidance of evangelizing and its focus on being a good person for its own sake.
Except you seem to have missed the part about how it’s become an issue during these pandemic times. So likely things specific only to these Hasidim - not masking, spreading contagion, etc.
This isn’t necessarily true. Every insular sect has its own relationship with the outside world, and they’re all different.
The Amish, for instance, seem to me to want to keep their interaction with the modern world and the community around them to a minimum, and they (as far as I know) do not seek to bend the world around them to suit their beliefs.
Some of the Hasidic sects in Brooklyn are different.
For example, the views of the Hasidim on what constitutes modest dress for women would not be an issue (except for Hasidic women and girls, of course), except that they have objected to bicycle paths through their neighborhoods because women riding bicycles will dress immodestly (in their view), since they’ll be wearing shorts. They failed in that attempt, but they did try.
In a park near me, there is a water park. Sprinklers and all kinds of flowing water stuff, watermills and so on… It’s fantastic for little kids in the summer.
Hasidim with their families often come to this park on Sunday. All well and good. But they sought to reserve the water park section for themselves. They would do this by simply blocking the entrance to the water park with strollers (and large men). There was a neighborhood negotiating committee – nobody wanted to make this a police issue. We learned that their objection was to little girls dressing immodestly (!), meaning they will be wearing bathing suits, and their justification was that they only got to go to the park on Sundays, so they should have the water park to themselves, and “we” (meaning the entire rest of Brooklyn) could have it on Saturdays.
This is, of course, ridiculous. And despite attempts at reasoning with them, it never changed. Ultimately people in the neighborhood started to fear that there would be violence, and it did become a police issue.
The problem is that the Hasidim are “insular” in one direction only. I suppose in that sense they are, as you put it, “semi-separated.” They want, and receive, a huge range of city and state services, they want to live in the heart of a major city, travel and do business throughout the city, and at the same time they expect to be exempt from the secular law, to be permitted to regulate everything in their community as they see fit, and to be treated very differently from everyone else in the city.
It does not work well. Here in Brooklyn, there is eternal friction between the Hasidim and their neighbors, which has been massively aggravated by the Hasidic (or at least the Borough Park Hasidic) response to the pandemic, which endangers everyone in the city. It is going to kill people. It is that serious. And the refusal of the Borough Park Hasidim to abide by quite sensible city and state regulations is absolutely unacceptable.
And the response to any criticism is always an accusation of anti-Semitism.
Amish style furniture includes Shaker and Mission style furniture. I guess it’s not original to the Amish but I believe it’s largely associated with country and arts & craft design that the Amish adopted. At least that’s been my experience.