tO: MDD: “Where do you suggest the Chareidim get parnosah, for crying out loud?”
1. Employment as teachers and support personnel in Israel’s world famous yeshiovos. Jerusalem and Bnei Brak (and other places) are to yeshivos, what Oxford and Cambridge are to England, or what Cambridge, Mass., Morningside Heights in Manhattan, or Hyde Park in Chicago, etc., are to universities. Would you ask why so many people in Oxford are “unemployed” because they are sitting around in scholarly pursuits.
2. Selling things to, and making goods and services for other Hareidim. Many people whom the Israeli government regards as full time students are gainfully employed, but are evading taxes (and also evading military service), but that’s a different issue (on professional versus conscript armies).
3. Working for goyim (or frei Jews). This is relatively hard in Israel since most good jobs require one to be a veteran of the army – something not a factor in other countries since in almost all countries the military is professional rather than conscripted. If you apply international trade theory to intercommunal economics, the relatively low percentage of frum Jews working for (or selling things to) goyim is the cause of relative poverty.