Over the weekend, I saw a very interesting documentary on the Hasidic Jew communities of New York. It spent a lot of time discussing how they work to avoid the corrupting influences of the American culture. That got me to wondering why they haven’t moved to Israel. I would think that they would be the most gung-ho about living in a Jewish state. If they are moving to Israel, it seems to be more of a trickle, rather than the exodus I would expect. Is it simply a matter of not being able to afford to move? Do they have some sort of problem with Israel as it currently is?
IANAJ, but I do know that many religious Jews are not Zionist at all - as I understand it*, they feel that the re-instatement of the state of Israel is the job of the Messiah when he comes, and for humans to attempt to do so is blasphemous…
Gp
[sub]*This knowledge gained from a reading of The Chosen quite a while ago[/sub]
davidw, you have no idea how hard Ultra-Orthodox Jews is Israel work to avoid the corrupting influences of Israeli culture.
Was that the Nimoy documentary, and if so where did you see it?
These particular groups are of the belief that only Moshiach (the Messiah) can gather all Jews into Israel. Until that time, there is no commandment to move to and live in Israel. This is the famous position of the Satmar chassidim, among others. I also understand that they do not accept any money from the state, not even for their schools. They also do not vote in elections.
Yeah, I saw it on the Metro channel (NYC) on Sunday afternoon.
Hah! I wish!
Well, maybe the Satmers don’t. But the others - hah! A very, very bitter “Hah!”
For the Satmar Hasidic sect, the answer is just as Knighted Vorpal Sword said it.
For others, it’s a matter of practicality - family, money, etc…that they feel it’s easier to stay in a non-Jewish country than move to Israel.
And finally, something that Alessan somewhat touched on - in some ways, it’s easier for Hasidim to keep their children sheltered in a country where disapproved-of behaviors can be pointed to as non-Jewish than in a country where everything is Jewish, including the things the parent Hasidim don’t approve of.
You mean like, “Short skirts: The Scourge of the Gentile!” That sort of thing? 
its dangerous over there!
I think that the Chassidim stay here in America simply becuse the Rebbe tells them to stay. If the Satmar Rebbe got up tomorrow and told the Chassidim to move to Israel, Williamsburg would be a ghost town within a month or two - if that long.
Having just moved myself, I can tell you exactly why the Hasidic Jews don’t move out of New York and into Israel:
Moving is a pain in the butt!
You’ve gotta sell your existing house, find a new house where you want to live before the escrow-and-rent-back period expires, find a new job in the area you intend to move into if you’re moving far away, pack everything, call all your utility companies, hope that none of your utility companies don’t let your request slip through their cracks like my Cable company did (not that I’m bitter, nooooo), get the movers to come in and haul everything off, get the keys to your new house from either your Realtor or the seller’s Realtor (once they make the sale, coordinating these crucial details isn’t something Realtors make any money on, so they can get kinda sloppy), let the movers in, send out a zillion change of address to a zillion different agencies (each of which requires that you use a different change of address form), wait around all day (maybe for more than one day) for the various utility companies to start all your services in the new place, call the Cable company and complain that your cable service suddenly got shut off 8 days after they were supposed to have turned it on only to discover that they’d just gotten around to executing the disconnect order from the previous occupant (not that I’m bitter again, noooooo), and then try in vain among that myriad of packed boxes in your new house to locate the bottle of vitamin pills that the packers packed while you weren’t looking.
Bah. Next time, I’ll just burn it all.
This is a bit obscure perhaps, but it is something I heard years ago, while getting a few years of Jewsih education:
The theory was that until the time was right (probably until the time the messiah arrived) that it was not a safe thing to have all the Jews in Israel because those who would like to exterminate all Jews would have a better chance of succeeding. IOW, with every Jew in one place, one bomb is all it takes, while large Jewish populations in Europe and the U.S. would be much more difficult to deal with. Anyone else hear this before?
Yes, many times through the years . . . from my mother! This was her idea - that there was a secret conspiracy going on to kill all the Jews.
:rolleyes:
The fallacy of course is “secret”.