Should the Township of Lakewood be renamed the Shtetl of Lakewood?

Home Forums Local & Neighborhood Issues Should the Township of Lakewood be renamed the Shtetl of Lakewood?

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  • #1318857
    Joseph
    Participant

    By will of a majority of the electorate, as is its natural right.

    And Monsey become the Shtetl of Monsey.

    Now that Lakewood and Monsey have become the sizes of cities, ka”h kein yirbu, rather than their former incarnations as villages, it is a good time for a name upgrade.

    #1319119
    M
    Participant

    Imagine, for a moment, that Lakewood became a completely independent township/shtetl/etc. Even better, imagine that it became its own state or country, and no longer had to pay any local, NJ, or federal taxes. Who, then, would pay for all of the social welfare benefits? Do you think that the amount in taxes paid by all residents of Lakewood more than cover all of these benefits, so that breaking away would save money? The costs of maintaining roads and parks and utilities, and of school busing, and rent subsidies, food stamps, etc? My guess is that if Lakewood became independent, it would either very quickly fall into terrible disrepair (much worse than its current state), or else quickly people would realize that the model cannot survive, and way more people would start working.

    #1319298
    Joseph
    Participant

    A huge portion of federal taxes go towards national defense and homeland security. Another huge chunk of federal, state and local taxes go towards social benefits that are in excess, per capita, of benefits the average frum family receives (including the very many who receive no such benefits) than the average frum family pays in federal, state and local taxes to cover said benefits.

    So overall we’d be better off by reducing said taxes and self-funding our own community charitable benefits.

    #1319208
    👑RebYidd23
    Participant

    That’s a translation, not an upgrade.

    #1319341
    Joseph
    Participant

    At least it’ll be in the correct shprach.

    #1319406
    M
    Participant

    Joseph – “A huge portion of federal taxes go towards national defense and homeland security.” Are you suggesting that the US cuts such spending? or only that frum Jews don’t benefit from this spending? This sounds strange to me. I mean, should a farmer in Iowa pay less taxes if he doesn’t feel like he benefits from national defense and homeland security?

    Also, “Another huge chunk of … taxes go towards social benefits …” Roughly half of the federal budget goes towards social security and medicaid, medicare, chip, etc. Are you suggesting that frum Jews don’t benefit from this? Unemployment and disability? I imagine that frum Jews in Lakewood, let’s say, receive at least as much if not more federal/state/local dollars in aid as they pay in taxes. If 49.2% of Lakewood residents report income below the poverty level (2015), then certainly they’re not paying much in taxes. It’s hard for me to imagine that the remainder of those living there make so much as to offset what they are receiving.

    At the end of the day, I think that frum Jews are very happy to be living here, paying taxes, and receiving welfare from the state.

    #1319431
    Joseph
    Participant

    I was addressing your novel idea that Lakewood become an independent country. I was using those parameters you set. In such a scenario, there’d be immediate savings from those budgetary expenses I identified.

    I am most certainly suggesting that Orthodox Jews/Frum Jews utilize welfare and other social benefits below the average, per capita, national utilization of those entitlement benefits. And eliminating them, and reducing taxes correspondingly, would result in a net savings for us.

    Lakewood’s non-Jewish population (which represents a strong percent of the local demographics) is largely black and Hispanic, who utilize entitlement benefits far above the national average and above the local Jewish average. That’s where and why those figures are raised to the levels you cited.

    #1319467
    Joseph
    Participant

    Upon reflection, I think RY23 is correct. It should be called the Shtot of Lakewood.

    #1320559
    DaMoshe
    Participant

    Joseph, the correct “shprach” would be Hebrew, as it has holiness to it. Yiddish has no holiness whatsoever.

    #1320567
    Joseph
    Participant

    DM: Loshon Kodesh shouldn’t be an everyday mundane speaking language.

    #1320562
    Lalalala321
    Participant

    Totally maskim

    #1320961
    Solaro
    Participant

    Hebrew and Loshon Kodesh are 2 sepreate things: Loshon Kodesh is holy. Hebrew is not.

    #1320986
    Joseph
    Participant

    Solaro, true. Modern Hebrew is not different than Turkish or Farsi – it is the language of a secular culture complete with all those things that we want to stay away from. The fact that some of those who speak Modern Hebrew are religious Jews is not different than the language of any country Jews are in where they speak the language of the land.

    The Chasam Sofer writes that the reason Jews do not speak Loshon Hakodesh as a speaking language is because it is inappropriate to use a holy language while enveloped in Tumah, which is our current status. So to cause Loshon HaKodesh to be used as a street language, complete with all the disgusting ways it is used today in Israel, is just more of a reason why we should make sure it never gets into the streets.

    The Kuzari writes that Avrohom Avinu, therefore, spoke 2 different languages. One for holy speech – that was Loshon HaKodesh, and the other for mundane speech – that, the Kuzari says was some non-Jewish language that Avrohom Avinu took and changed around a little on his own. And thats the idea behind Yiddish. It is a non-Jewish language that we took and twisted a bit in order to make it exclusive among us.

    Edited

    #1321916
    Solaro
    Participant

    Maskim
    I wasn’t criticizing people who speak Hebrew. I was just pointing out that Hebrew is not holy, as DaMoshe said it was.

    #1321933
    DaMoshe
    Participant

    So Joseph, basically, you’re saying that Yiddish and Modern Ivrit have the same status – a language that is used by Jews, which separates us from non-Jews?
    Please don’t argue that Ivrit is used by secular Jews, because for many, many years, so was Yiddish. There even used to be Yiddish theaters in NYC. Nowadays, Yiddish is actually seeing a revival among secular Jews, who view it as part of their cultural history, and therefore are studying it again.

    #1322054
    zahavasdad
    Participant

    DaMoshe

    There really isnt a revival of Yiddish among secular jews, Even the Folksbien has to perform many of its shows in simulcast in English because there are few Yiddish speakers left.

    More Jews likely speak Spanish than Speak Yiddish

    #1322052
    zahavasdad
    Participant

    The difference between Modern Hebrew and “Loshon Hakodesh” is the differnce between modern English and Shakesperean English. Meaning some words go into disuse and new ones are created

    “Loshon Hakodesh” or what some claim it is, is just Hebrew without those changes, so there is no words for “Car” in Loshon Hakodesh

    #1322080
    Solaro
    Participant

    Yiddish IS the same holy as Hebrew.
    Not holy at all.
    The reason that only frum jews speak it now is because all the irreligious American Jews have either died or became much more Americanized and wouldn’t want to identify as Jews through the language they speak.

    #1322089
    Joseph
    Participant

    There are hundreds of thousands of Jews who speak Yiddish, including a huge portion thereof who Yiddish is their first language. There are not hundreds of thousands of Jewish Spanish speakers.

    #1322093
    Joseph
    Participant

    Yiddish was created by frum Jews. Only much later did non-frum Jews adopt it for their purposes.

    On the other hand, Ivrit was created by the anti-frum anti-Torah Mr. Ben Yehuda and his ilk.

    #1322148
    lesschumras
    Participant

    Joseph, non frum Jews didn’t adopt Yiddish. They continued to speak it after becoming non frum.

    #1322151
    zahavasdad
    Participant

    There are about 200,000 Jews in Argentina and about 50,000 Jews in Mexico alone

    Plus there are jews in other South American coutries and in Spain and there are jews in the US who also speak Spanish

    #1322157
    Joseph
    Participant

    There are more Yiddish speaking Jews in the world than Spanish speaking Jews.

    #1322164
    👑RebYidd23
    Participant

    You’re counting those who claim to speak Yiddish but don’t speak authentic Yiddish.

    #1322178
    Joseph
    Participant

    And you’re counting those who claim to speak Spanish but don’t speak authentic Spanish.

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