That’s far from the truth. OK, I’ll grant you that those three elements are not considered important to already be fully present and developed BEFORE marriage, but the couple needs to feel there’s the potential for these to develop. Love between husband and wife is extremely important in Judaism (including “Ultra-Orthodox”), couples are not expected to (forgive the paraphrase) “lie back and think of Jerusalem.” If they don’t care for one another, they should not be married and producing babies for the sake of baby production.
This is true, but bear in mind that the point of this is so that couples who might produce children with deadly genetic disorders will never even meet or develop an emotional attachment to one another. This avoids the heartbreak of having to choose between one’s heart and one’s potential childrens’ health. It’s not some sort of eugenics program purely for the sake of making more babies. It’s about young men and women not being subjected to various forms of emotional torment.
On the contrary, it’s all about faith…careful ritual observance is the gateway to faith, not an end in and of itself. Passover in particular (which is the subject of this portion of your post) is meaningless without the element of faith in G-d having taken us out of bondage in Egypt. Every element of Passover ritual is for the purpose of passing along this faith to future generations in a tangible, relatable way.
Unlikely. Replacing major appliances on an annual basis is expensive! Those who have large houses and/or resources might have an entirely separate Passover kitchen (bought or built ONCE) and they will lock up their regular kitchen for the Passover holiday. Perhaps some who need to replace an old appliance anyway will hold out until before Passover so that it can be used for the holiday without scrubbing it (I have in fact done this myself with out oven) and then will be used for years, cleaning it before Passover. If anyone does it, it’s not because of a community custom, it’s because they’re filthy rich. But people don’t get rich by being wasteful like that, more likely they have that separate kitchen.
I did not get the impression that she was referring to buying new appliances every year . I think she was referring to something more like keeping the Passover appliances in a garage or basement or a room other than the kitchen when it’s not Passover and swapping them out - IOW, replacing the refrigerator that’s normally kept in the kitchen with the Passover refrigerator that’s normally stored on the back porch, not “replacing” in the sense of buying new but in the sense of “reposition” .
If that’s what she meant, then more likely it’s as I said - close off regular kitchen, use porch kitchen - rather than actually going through the labor-intensive moving of major appliances.
I can’t say no one does it, but I’m fairly certain it’s not just uncommon, but very uncommon.
I understand your sensitivity to hints of eugenics, cmkeller. But for what it’s worth, I read that as a sensible precaution to reduce dangerous genetic disorders in an insular, endogamous community. Sounded like good community health policy, rather than social control. YMMV, of course, but that’s how it came across to this non-Jew.
I’ve never heard of any culture that practices arranged marriage NOT hoping that love, affection, and romance bloom between the two people in a couple. It’s just that other factors drive the marriage as much, if not more so, than love and romance.
This series touches on that, with the two families going into the kitchen to talk and leaving the two young people to get to know each other a little bit.
The degree to which a couple can court prior to marriages varies considerably, but although gender segregation is practice in these communities the presence of relatives means that young men will get some information about the girl from his female relatives, and the girl will get some information about the man from her male relatives. It’s likely that they will have seen each other in the community. People have reputations in such communities.
Arranged marriage cultures, including brokered marriages like what we see, arise out of cultures/histories where securing a financially secure future (whether that’s money or agricultural resources) for one’s children and grandchildren is very highly valued and you try to set that up with the idea that in such an environment the two spouses will be able to develop deep bonds of affection. As opposed to romance marriage cultures where two people with emotion and passion get married and hope the finances and other things will work out down the line.
It’s not that people in our mainstream culture don’t marry for reasons other than strictly love and nothing else, or that prior affection and romance can’t exist in an arranged marriage culture. There are overlaps. The difference is where the emphasis lies.
I do think that Judaism, even the Ultra-Orthodox, has one up on traditional Christianity in that divorce is allowed. If things are really not working out the marriage can be dissolved. Not that that is without obstacles, but even if the option requires some work to get to it strikes me as more humane than chaining two people who turn out incompatible together for life.
Yes, I am aware of that. I even mentioned that this takes place before the marriage is finalized which, in the context of “dating” being only closely chaperoned meetings and typically not many of those would help prevent such pairings. I’m not sure why you somehow skipped that when you have clearly read my post.
And, I’m sorry - yes, these people WILL meet given they are living in the same community and are often neighbors. What they won’t do is marry and have children that might be affected by diseases. It’s not the only means to achieve that end, but it does have the feature of being relatively low-cost in monetary terms, and if done early in the matchmaking process, low-cost in emotional terms.
Maybe for you.
There are plenty of “good Jews” who follow the customs, rituals, traditions, and rules and find a great deal of satisfaction in being part of the culture, but don’t have a deep and abiding faith in G-d. Faith is not the first requirement in Judaism the way it is in Christianity or Islam, Judaism starts with following ritual and rules. That doesn’t mean Jews can’t develop a deep faith - many if not most do - just that it’s not required. I suspect having a deep faith in G-d makes following all those rules and limitations easier.
But following the rules doesn’t automatically make for faith, just having having faith doesn’t automatically mean a Christian or Muslim automatically follows the rules.
Again, in the end there is considerable overlap, but each group starts from a different place.
Um… what makes you think they’re throwing out their appliances every year?
The Ultra-Orthodox in Rogers Park, Chicago have an ideal of one set of appliance for meat, one for dairy, and one for Passover - three stoves, three sinks, three microwaves… Of course, poor Jews can’t manage that but it is the ideal. There’s a community of Jews in Manchester, England that have the same ideals, sometimes keeping the appliances they’re not using in a shed in their yard or otherwise stored away. Again, the poorest of Jews can’t manage all that, and even for the well-off in a densely urban area like New York where space is at a premium not practical, hence all the business with foil. It’s like the eruv - it’s a way to manage living under all those restrictive rules.
Frankly, it’s my observation that being an observant Orthodox Jew, much less an Ultra-Orthodox one, is quite expensive. Kosher food costs more everywhere you go - well, maybe not someplace where “kosher” is the default food production and processing but outside of Israel I’m not sure where that would be. Having separate pots, plates, and cutlery is expensive. Having separate appliances are expensive which is why poor Jews often don’t go to that extreme. Wigs for the married women are expensive. Those circular furry hats for the men are just as expensive. Mezuzah costs aren’t too bad individually, but outfitting every doorway in a home adds up. Religious paraphernalia adds up - 104 candles every year just to cover sabbath just to start, plus all the other bits and bobs. Membership in a synagogue has a cost, there’s the costs of the community maintaining the mikvah, Hebrew school, and so forth.
Not that this is all bad - I’m am somewhat involved in the local Jewish community and not only pay what’s asked for various programs I participate in but more on top of that because I do get something in return. I get from the community as much, and sometimes more, than I give. That’s how it is supposed to work.
But like every other human institution Jewish communities have their flaws. Not everyone fits in. Poverty is an issue and has been since forever. There’s plenty of hypocrisy. There are all the failings found in any human community. Because we’re all human.
Needless to say, after WWII Jews were VERY sensitive to eugenics.
Dor Yeshorim is not without some controversy, but they are very, very careful to maintain privacy. Every person in their database is issued a PIN, which they are encouraged to keep private. When a couple is considering marriage - which, keep in mind, with the matchmaking system this might happen even before the first formal date although it’s usually between the first and third - they both submit their PINs for comparison. The result comes back and all their told is if there’s a potential for a bad outcome, and not anything more. No one needs to know who carries which particular undesirable trait(s). Participation is voluntary - in some communities there might be social pressure to participate but it’s not like there’s some law requiring all Jews to submit their genome for evaluation. If children are not a consideration - older people marrying, someone who, for example, might have survived a disease or condition leaving them sterile - the couple might not bother.
Some of these communities have a very small gene-pool - the Satmar community, for example are named for the village the sect originated in and they’re almost all cousins to one degree or another. I got the impression Esty’s mother, while Jewish, might have come from outside the Satmar sect, and certainly the members of this community are aware that bringing in non-related people is a good idea from a genetic standpoint - the hitch being all those social and religious requirements. So a self-imposed genetic screening program makes a lot of sense. No one is being sterilized against their will, executed as a lesser being, denied marriage, denied the opportunity for children. They are trying to avoid generating people whose lives will be short and miserable and without hope of cure.
You can argue about the details but I don’t see much amiss with the goal or even most of the methodology.
If I may throw personal experience on the pile: I’m a raised-Catholic who married a culturally Jewish woman; and every year we go to her cousin’s home for Passover. Cousin and his wife are deeply involved in their synagogue, and throw a great seder every year, for which I’m grateful to be included. But they’d probably describe themselves as agnostic. For them, it’s all about being part of the culture and sharing and passing on the traditions.
Who’s arguing that premarital genetic scans are a bad thing? As I said, Dor Yeshorim sounds like a rational, sensible, and, as you’ve described it, compassionate solution to the problem of endogamy.
I’d say that the potential for love and romance drive it more than anything else. Yes, having children is important, but while pre-marital genetic testing is common in the Orthodox community, there is no sort of medical testing for fertility prior to marriage. Children are important - they’re very, very important - but men and women (even older men and women who are beyond child-bearing age) are encouraged to marry as much for the sake of finding personal “completeness” as for having children. Marriage is considered an absolute good in and of itself, not only for the sake of procreation.
I could debate this, but this isn’t really the place. Could we at least agree that the Satmar Hasidim depicted in the Netflix series would, like I said, consider faith to be central to the ritual performances?
Nothing is automatic, but it’s intended (per the beliefs and practices of the Orthodox in general and the Satmars in particular) to lead to that point.
That’s what it sounded like when you said “replace.” I didn’t imagine someone having a major appliance in a storage shed and disconnecting/moving/connecting them (and back after Passover) every year, but apparently this is a practice in Manchester, something I was unaware of. The Rogers Park practice you mention is more in line with my experience, that those who can afford it have a room in the house with a Passover set of appliances and they lock one room and open the other for Passover.
One thing I wondered as I watched was whether anyone outside the community could convert into the community or is it something you would have to be born into?
Easiest “conversion” would be someone from a less restrictive Jewish sect who enters the community and adopts its rules and customs. Which, strictly speaking, isn’t really a conversion because the person is already Jewish, but it would require some changes that might feel somewhat like that.
A non-Jew can definitely convert to Judaism, but it’s deliberately made difficult. Potential converts are, traditionally, sent away/discouraged three times. Even when a non-Jew is allowed to convert it’s a length process involving study and at the end some rituals specific to that conversion process (men have to get circumcised, for instance, and if already circumcised still have to get a ceremonial nick) and a trip to the mikvah. They only want people who are really, really, really motivated to make the change and make it stick. In an earlier post I mentioned a woman I know who converted to an Ultra-Orthodox group in Michigan, it does happen.
Most of what I know (or think I know) about Orthodox customs comes from being a fan of Faye Kellerman’s Peter Dekker/Rina Lazarus books. How does the Orthodox community feel about her books? Are they accurate/approved of?
(One thing I learned from her books was about women wearing wigs to cover their natural hair in public. My SO is, by heritage if not belief, a Russian Jew, but he had never heard of this and when I mentioned it for some reason he insisted I was crazy because, hey, who would do such a thing? Google came to the rescue and I was able to demonstrate to him that this is, indeed, a thing.)
Could a convert come to THAT particular sect though? They were suspicious of Esty simply because her mother left even though she was IN their group. I can’t see them welcoming any outsiders.
I was really put off by this sect and all it seemed like to me was a cult. They shame anyone for being different. Shame anyone for wanting more. Shame women for having hair, shame women for having periods, shame women for not wanting to be baby making machines. I have no problem with Judaism and my best friend of over 40 years is Jewish and at one time I thought I’d like to convert too but you say some women want that sort of life in that particular sect. I’m wondering how many would want it that weren’t conditioned to think it was normal from birth. Looking at how Esty thought she’d be sick from eating ham, how she was just waiting for the vomit to come up because she was taught it was poisonous. Who would want that sort of life if they had a choice? She wasn’t even taught about sex. She just thought she was a cooking, cleaning semen vessel. She didn’t know kissing or affection was part of it until she got away. And I get that it’s just one side but it’s the side of someone who had been in the sect. The actor who played Moishe was raised in a Satmar community too. I read about why they need to be so insular. That’s the only way they can keep younger generations from walking away. I don’t even think Moishe wanted to come back, he just didn’t know where else to go because he was such a royal fuck-up.
Never even heard of them before, and haven’t heard anyone mention them in particular. Interesting, given that I’m no stranger to mystery book series - I’m a big fan of Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone. But I’m afraid I have no answer (from personal experience, I could Google your question, but so could you) to your question.
Rushgeekgirl:
They’d be welcoming of anyone who is sincere about it. Granted, it’s very strict and therefore might not appeal to people who aren’t Jewish (if you’re Jewish, there’s no need for any sort of ceremonial conversion to a particular sect. You’re pretty much what you say you are, a long as you act in accordance with it). But if a non-Jew can convince a Satmar rabbinical court that they are sincere about converting to Judaism and subsequently being part of the Satmar community, I don’t think they would ultimately be rejected.
I have no doubt that this portrayal is very off-putting. However, at least some of this is extremely off-base. No woman is shamed for having periods, they are very much acknowledged as a natural part of women’s health. Yes, women have to separate from their husbands during and for a week after their period and then use a Mikvah (ritual bath), but this is not at all a shameful thing. Heck, among Satmars, men use a Mikvah every morning! And as for “wanting more”…well, I think that the whole concept that some value that is not based in their particular tradition is “more” is offensive to them, though it’s obviously the sort of perspective that a former sect member who leaves the sect and takes his story to Hollywood would have. (This paragraph also addresses much of the last paragraph of your post, which I won’t bother quoting separately.)
…to what form of Judaism, though? Even if not Satmar, does this refer to the broader world of Orthodox Judaism, whose value system is also informed only by the Torah and Talmud (if not necessarily by Hasidic traditions)? Or to the more liberal practices of non-Orthodox Jews? Not having a problem with a Judaism that happens to align with a world-view you already have (at least in large part) has little relation to how you’d feel about a Judaism whose world-view has stubbornly ignored various social progress movements of the last two centuries or so.
Maybe the most famous convert to Judaism is Ivanka Trump.
I knew a guy and his girlfriend’s parents did not want them to marry since he was not Jewish so they just lived together. Eventually he converted and then they married.
Nothing to do with the show in question but I’ve always idly wondered–I live in an area with a fairly significant Muslim population and do a fair amount of shopping in halal butcher’s shops because it’s the best way I know to get local meat, and it seems to me (as neither a Jew nor a Muslim) that the kosher and halal requirements are pretty similar so would an Orthodox Jew be open to shopping at a halal store? Because there are way more halal stores around than anything tagged specifically as kosher so I’ve always wondered about where the observant Jew gets their food in an area without a significant Orthodox presence.
They’d have no trouble shopping at a Muslim-run store, but Halal meat is not Kosher. There are some similarities between the two religions’ practices, but they are not identical. Observant Jews in an area without enough Orthodox presence to financially support any local Kosher stores at all will generally have a large freezer or two (or even more) in their house and get wholesale-sized amounts of Kosher meat shipped to them frozen to last several months, or perhaps drive to a larger Orthodox Jewish community and pick up large amounts themselves. Like, if an Orthodox Jew lives in central Wyoming, he might drive to Denver. If he lives in the Yukon, he’d more likely get stuff shipped.
Eventually he converted and then they married.