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For a while, frumkeit in America was very new york but specifically Brooklyn-centric. With many people who’ve moved out to Tom’s River Jackson Lakewood over the years, is Flatbush still in-town? Has Lakewood and the surrounding areas taken over? In Lakewood you can find restaurants open late, minyanim throughout the day etc.
In town generally refers to New York City (all boroughs), Monsey and Lakewood, along with their immediate nearby’s.
Flatbush is still in town, but the Dodgers have gone OOT
I thought R’ Kotler positioned Lakewood so that it would be at respectable distance from NYC to enable learning without distractions.
AAQ, that was before the Verrazzano.
Lakewhut, in your OP you posited that flatbush is becoming less in-town since so much of the old Flatbush crowd moved to Lakewood. Now in your follow up post you’re positing that Lakewood isn’t in town. That begs the question, if Flatbush and Lakewood aren’t it, what is?
DY> that was before the Verrazzano
Good point. Probably also better cars, cheaper gas, and more reckless driving. It was a great idea, too bad it failed.
What is the next place that could restore R’ Kotler’s dream of quality learning and still be within driving distance from NYC? Amish country? Rural CT? Or somewhere where flying with Spirit is affordable?
AAQ: It didn’t fail; it lasted quite a number of decades.
Nor was it realistically expected to last forever.
To add to UJM, and was pretty much the foundation for Torah in America.
Also, what was needed in the 40’s was not the same thing as is needed in the 2020s.
So while one can argue that what BMG offered in it’s first couple of decades, it no longer offers, it is still a hugely successful yeshiva, and it’s hard to fathom how someone can refer to it as a failure.
ujm, DY, I hear you. I am talking about what we do now. Lakewood changed and now serves a different function, agreed.
The question is – do we now need a place where people can learn the way R’ Kotler envisioned. Maybe we don’t. Maybe we do not understand what and why he wanted, as we are satisfied with the new American way. Maybe there are other places now that provide hat function, the way Torah centers moved from Bavel to Europe. Soliciting your opinion.
AAQ: I think we already have such places. There are Yeshivos today located away from the metropolitas, in areas distant from major Jewish communities.
Perhaps rethink the predicate to the question as to whether in today’s “virtual velt”, locating a shtender at some greater distance from a town with several options for gourmet Thursday night chulent means that the bochur behind that shtender will be able to shteig with greater intensity and focus. That same bochur located in Minsk, Pinsk or Nowheresivlle, can still pull a smart phone out of his back pocket and be more efficient in his bitul torah than his counterpart in BMG or Monsey.
between the lines it seems you want to discuss the changes in brooklyn specifically flatbush .
here is what some people are noticing & the question is what to make of it
1. for many years flatbush expanded on every front , do u remember when nostrand was the cut off point ,now there is a whole town till flatbush avenue and beyond. yet it seems that many shuls have less people there on shabbos & yom tov than a decade ago
2. in the 90’s married yeshiva couples stayed in flatbush & raised the level of torah life for all , now it seems that rarely are couples staying local
3.some local mosdos that had waiting lists & 2 or 3 parallels are now barely filling up 2 classes ( others are still packed yet even those will tell u that each year a number of children relocate)so really this is all a domino effect of chinuch changes in the last 25 years when learning in ey for boys and girls became standard- automatically the big bochurim were not local, were not in yeshiva, not in shul shabbos.. than many began going back to e”y for a few years after marraige so u had few new couples local , which meant that the shul’s were missing the chizuk that yungeleit provide , and finally when they came back the couples were faced with a huge challenge of the yerida or perceived yerida of american gashmius. lakewood was THE CLOSEST seviva to e”y & more affordable , and if thats where the couples are thats where the nursery kg kids are, & if the einiklach are there thats where you go for yomtov……a study was done on most mosdos in brooklyn 6th grades how many kids in that class now & how many were in the same class when it started 7 years ago in preschool & the survey showed that the avg class lost just 1 kid per year but by the time you got to 6th grade thats 20%- so much more to say maybe tomm
Meir: What you’re relaying regarding the young couples and families from Flatbush moving to Lakewood seems to be correct. Interestingly, over the last few years it is also starting to occur with Boro Park, but to a lesser degree. The Yeshivos there are still growing but at a smaller pace.
@lakewhut “Lakewood a yeshiva community to get away from the gashmiyus of the big city and Mobsey a suburb.,”
Monsey started around Bais Medresh Elyon, it was a small hamlet with 5 stores as Monsey grew the balla batim came drawn by the proximity to NYC, in the late 60s the Scver Rebbe established New Sqaure followed by Visnits a few years later and the rest is history, but Monsey was started by BME.@UJM, “Interestingly, over the last few years it is also starting to occur with Boro Park, but to a lesser degree. The Yeshivos there are still growing but at a smaller pace.”
My Brother in law is a menhal in on of the Boro Park mosdos and he told me they are losing 10-20% of the families a year for the past 10 years resulting in consolidation of the classes. Main motivation of the move is affordability, for what they are paying to buy a two bedroom condo in Boro park they can buy a house on a half acre lot in Monsey or Lakewood.
The main reason it is not even a greater exodus from Boro Park is the lack of capacity in schools, there are 5 applicats for every seat in the first grade in most Monsey school.
Greater Monsey starts in Pearl River and end in West Haverstraw 15 miles N to S and runs from Nanuet to Suffern W to E a distance of 10 miles.
Greater Lakewood Starts in Dover Twp and ends in Jackson E to West and starts in Manchester and ends in Howell N to S.
And that does not even mention all the new places sprang up in the past 10 years, Linden, Staten Island, Union NJ, Hollywood Fl. Etc.The Sephardic community is growing in Flatbush.
@ujm, its just replacing the yeshivisher crowd in flatbush, no net growth of frum families like Monsey, Lakewood or Staten Island
In the meantime While all the Ashkenazim are moving to Lakewood, the Syrians are taking over Flatbush Midwood.
Used to be the cutoff was like Ave P, then it became ave O, now you have Syrians living all the way through ave J majority, and you even have Syrians going from the Lower east all the way to the 20s.
While Yeshivas like The Mir on ave R and E 7th are slowly losing all there children, you have syrian yeshivas exploding used to just Ateret Torah now you have a dozen new Yeshivas popping up dedicated to Syrians and sephardic such as YDE.
as one group leaves another group is replacing them. Flatbush/Midwood is very much In town
The Sephardim are heavily attending the old time Flatbush Yeshivos (Mir, Chaim Berlin, etc.)
To CTLawyer: What??? Dodgers OOT??? When did that happen???
Seriously, folks, I have a friend from Southern California who was and remains a big baseball fan, and explained that he took a job in Brooklyn to be near the ancestral home of his beloved Dodgers. Dodger games against the Mets in Flushing are the hardest Mets tickets to get, and will remain so for at least another half-generation.
flatbush part 2- some of the above comments make it sound like flatbush is disintegrating thats a huge exaggeration – flatbush is & will continue to be an ir veem beyisroel
now 2 more cultural changes that had a profound affect
coming to your inlaws/ parents for shabbos & yomtov- married children coming home for yom tov was a nachas for younger siblings , parents & “THE SHUL” – the couples found a room in the house little ones doubled up & made it work , THAT CHANGED ! couples dont want to come to anything less than a suite with…. so now you have shuls that have a decent olam on shabbos but yomtov attendance drops & so does the ruach.2. connection, OR LACK OF – if one is not connected to a rov , yeshiva , shul , chavrusa.. than i can make kabolas shabbos , carlebach style in a living room on the block, yomtov chanuka in florida , shavuos in the country.. & sukkos by an uncle in toms river
boropark is a whole diff story its because the kehilos are bursting at the seems with 1000 new couples a year , each chassidishe kehiila has a exact tally of births , boys , girls .. shidduchim- and a team that looks for properties & plans for growth if you were to get a behind the scenes peak at some of these high level meetings you would be blown away (its not near 10% leaving & its basically a certain segment of specific kehillos – for an in depth analysis go on to the ivelt website for the thread by neighborhood@meir g, the shrinkage is mostly in the smaller and nominally affiliated mosdos such as Krasna, Spinka, Boyan, Stolin, Muncatch etc. those are the yeshivas with the big losses because most who send there are not really affiliated with the mosdos.
Even in Staten Island Gur, Belz and Bobov have opened botay medroshim.
I am talking fact from the insideSatmar and other major chasiduses have major and growing developments in Lakewood.
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