Last week I noticed that that J-blogosphere was awfully quiet. Regular bloggers weren't posting or posting sporadically, and the few who were posting had nothing but "good news" posts up. What a relief! "Maybe this is really the season of miracles," I thought to myself. No such luck, as it turns out. We're right back to business as usual.
A pashkevil here, a kol korei there and, for a change, a scandal brewing involving a well known rabbinic personality, whose former employers reacted by praising his work to the sky. For a change the Internet is under fire, chareidim picking now to ban blogs, all blogs, even the frummy ones. For a change, a well known rosh yeshiva has decided to lump as sonei Yisroel the "heretics" of the reformed, the conservative and the MO branches of Judaism. Teaneck took heat as being too modern, having too many restaurants, not having proper tsnius standards, and not giving enough tzedaka. For a change, a well known rebbe is defended as not having done anything really wrong because tax fraud against the government is not really stealing. For a change, a get is finally given to an agunah of many years standing because her family was finally able to raise the outrageous sum that her husband was demanding as her ransom.
Other good news? Well, no yeshivas have announced that they are reformulating their budgets to take into consideration that parents simply cannot pay the exorbitant tuitions. Oh yes, and those same yeshivas have not announced that they are cutting down on their highly superfluous and extremely well paid staff. No rabbanim have gotten up and announced that parents, who simply don't have the money, will no longer be forced to send their children to summer camps or to Israel post high school. No rabbanim have stood up and said that simcha celebrations are simply too costly to Klal in all ways to continue the way they have been. No rabbanim have announced that they have seen the light and come to realize that their not being part of the solution to Klal's problems means that they are part of the problem. The right, the middle and the left are still happily taking potshots at each other, proving yet again that "kol Yisroel areivim zeh lo'zeh" are only words on paper, not a philosophy to live by.
In retrospect, those few days of comparative silence on the blogs were the lull before the storm. Given all the pots coming to a roaring boil now and all the pots that should be on the flame but are stone cold, boring would be welcome.
6 comments:
Isn't there some kind of saying that bad news comes in twos or threes? Would settle for that number instead of the number we're getting. Truthfully I'd like to see none of that bad news--hasn't happened yet in my lifetime.
Not sure at this point if I would be able to recognize boring having had so little of it. Bad news for klal? And this is unusual just how?
There's an old saying that if it weren't for bad luck I'd have no luck at all. Well, if it weren't for bad news the frum world wouldn't have any news at all either. Isn't there anything good going on anywhere in our communities that someone could publish? Yes I would take boring. It sure beats the news we do get.
I take issue with some of your issues. Actually, in the past year, not going to Israel post high school has become more and more accepted, at least according to several younger cousins of mine who have gotten speeches from their principals about the fact that going to Israel is not a necessity. Also, as the daughter of a woman who works as a principal in a yeshiva school, and is paid far less there than she was paid as a teacher in public school, I can vouch for the fact that most yeshivos do not have superfluos, highly paid staff--if there are superfluous faculty, they are paid the same way as other faculty members--late and less than they should be. I don't mean to criticize our yeshivos; I think they do a great job considering that although the tuition is high, a c. 2007 paper http://www.pcssonline.org/forms/cost_educate_child.pdf said that PA allocated between 8000 and 21000 per child in public school. I'm not denying that many of these problems are problems....just not all of them.
i just found your blog, and am almost in tears... you write really well and the pain you've kept inside for so long is very well expressed..
Aliza,
I'm not saying that every person working in a yeshiva is overpaid nor that they are superfluous. Clearly there are necessary, hard working people in yeshivas who are not being paid what they are "really" worth, nor are they being paid on time. But I'm looking at a staff listing from a large boys yeshiva and administrative staff outnumbers teaching staff by a ratio of 2 to 1. And yes, those administrators are being paid quite well, too well I believe given what teachers and the truly necessary staff is making.
Post a Comment