Ex-CTLawyer

@iacisrmma
Things are different OOT.
Large building fund pledge pledges and expensive dues are the norm. Shteiblach really don’t exist in any real numbers outside of big cities. Shuls tend to own their own cemeteries and burial is mostly restricted to dues paying members.
I own my seat, as do the other members of my immediate family, the seats have our names on engraved brass plates. That doesn’t mean I don’t pay yearly dues.
We have plot in a family cemetery in NY, but are also entitled to plots in the local synagogue cemetery.
Shul Rabbis OOT tend to be full-time employees of the congregation, quite a different position from the Rav in a shteibel.

They are 4 hours closer by air to NY than Hawaii

Quite simply, American immigration policy prior to the 1970s assigned most of the quota to northern European countries…those likely to send white skinned emigrants.
The WASPs running the State Department were not interested in dark skinned, olive complected residents from the Med, North Africa or the Levant.
My maternal line had no problems getting visas to enter from Germany in 1868. My paternal line came in 1872 and 3 from what is now Belarus. They were forced to split the family as the quota for 1872 had filled and the mother and youngest two children followed using the 1873 quota.
The only Sephardim I know whose families came between 1880 and 1924 are Dutch. This is different from old time Spanish Portugese colonial family descendants

@WTP
I can assure you that I am mortal. But no one who has met me or seen me would call me ‘mere’ (smallest or slightest).
It is now 11:05 am. I got up at 5 and let the dogs out. I took the carcass from Friday night’s turkey and put it in a pot with freshly chopped veg and spices and water and set it to boil for soup. I through a load of wash in. At 6:45 I turned the pot down to the lowest setting to simmer, moved the wash into the dryer and left for minyan. After minyan, I learned for 45 minutes and then came home. I turned off the soup, removed the carcass from the pot and placed the covered pot on my patio table to cool (so I could skim the fat off later and serve the soup for supper tonight).
I then made breakfast for Mrs. CTL and myself. At 10:45 I had a scheduled teleconference with a client and his accountant for 15 minutes. I’ll work on their request in the office tomorrow.

I’m spending a little diversion time in the CR and at noon I’m taking my 12 year old grandson to the local middle school for open rec basketball

About 3PM I’ll feed the dogs.
I’ll put supper in the oven about 4:30pm, tonight it’s easy …Turkey pot pies made with leftover turkey from Friday Night.
While it bakes, I’ll go to mincha,
The grandchildren are coming for supper, after supper Mrs. CTL and I will enjoy the kids while their parents clean up, do the dishes, etc.
Around 9PM, when it quiets down, I’ll get on my treadmill and read while I walk for about 45 minutes.

With planning I’ll get a lot in today. Yesterday was my day of rest

@AviKand 2
For someone who doesn’t live in the USA you have a lot to say about how we live.
How integrated is your neighborhood in EY? How many non-Jews are ion the state run schools in your neighborhood?

There are 14 houses on my immediate block. 8 are owned and occupied by American born whites (2 belong to me and my daughter and her family occupy one of them that had been my late MIL’s). There are 2 African-American families, 2 Indo-Pak and Hispanic families.
I’d call that integrated
I’ve been to Mississipi, Jackson, Biloxi and Pass Christian on legal business for one of my trust clients. The neighborhoods are not integrated, nor are most public schools. In the 60s and 70s whites fled to gated communities and private schools.

As for the Federalist Society, they have only one adult chapter in CT and it is restricted to lawyers, I am not interested in joining.

@Joseph
I attend local government meetings in my small town 2-3 nights per week this time of year, This is both budget formation time and prime time for P&Z applications, because builders/developers want to have shovels in the ground come May.
I enjoy the character of my small town and like being involved. Unlike NYC with its myriad of paid elected officials, our town has only two elected paid full time officials and two part-time. All other elected officials and board and commission members are citizen volunteers. That’s the New England way.

I have a major investment in this town, homes, office, commercial property and like to protect my investments.

You haven’t seen me chime in on the vaccination threads as they are not an issue here. I could care less about the white shirt threads. Private schools get top set uniform requirement.

Affordable for whom?
In some jurisdictions that means low income housing, in others it can be single family houses that are on half acre plots and cost 400K.

Most suburbs fight developers whop want to build low income housing because each home generates less than average property tax revenue and the inhabitants tend to have more children attending public school placing a burden on the town.
Being anti-low income housing is often a smoke screen for being racist…not wanting minorities moving in who can’t afford the regular minimum acreage zoned homes.

City politicians fight to force developers to build affordable housing units in their projects, suburban residents fight to keep them out. I was a a local Planning and Zoning hearing last night. A developer wanted a variance to build 14 cluster single family homes on a 9 acre plot. The P&Z regulations would have permitted 9. He threatened if not approved he’d build 4 story affordable housing walk up apartments (50 units). The state permits this when a town ha less than 30% affordable units.
The public doesn’t like developer using this law to change the character of the town, so he was granted a variance to build the 14 homes, but restricted to 2 bedroom no den models, and every home must have a two car garage underneath, no on street parking permitted, guests must park in driveways or a private lot he must construct at the rear of the property,

@Joseph
I manage well on 4 hours per night. My parents had similar sleep patterns as do my brothers. My elder sister requires 7 hours.
The 4 hours is an every night thing. When I was younger I could skip a night’s sleep each week without it affecting me, but since about the age of 50, I need to sleep every night.

I always found the hour of 5:15-6:15 to be ‘my time’ and very productive, no interruptions.

@BenL
Which candidates running on a platform of raising taxes did explicitly support?
I know I voted against Trump.
Just because a tax increase is in a platform does NOT mean it is the reason I vote for a particular candidate. I’ve never read a party of candidate’s platform (outside of my own candidacy for local office) and found that I agreed with 100% of the words therein.
I don’t support school vouchers, I do support increased funding for libraries and schools, if this requires increased taxes, the increase is not the reason for my vote.
I voted in favor of a sewer tax in our town 25 years ago, as I believed sanitary sewers were better for public health than septic tanks, and cesspools.

@Ben Levi
You are making false accusations
I have never voted to raise taxes on other people as you claim.
Saying I am willing to pay higher taxes is not the same thing.
I do not live in a town where tax rate is subject to a plebiscite (although that is the system less than 3 miles from my home),

@anonymousjew
NY 2018 State income tax top rate 8.82%
PLUS there are city or county income tax in some places such as NYC and Yonkers, NYC is almost 4%

CT State income tops out at under 7%, no state or county income tax.
Very few people leave CT because of the income tax rate, more because of the stagnant economy, and local property tax rates and northern weather

I have many clients who now have Florida residency for tax purposes and still own homes an businesses in CT. They moved, but are still here.

I have not done my 2018 taxes yet, but will be paying at least 30K more than 2017 tax year due to changes in the IRS code pushed through by Trump. B”H I can afford it, but many of my neighbors cannot. It doesn’t take much of a house and income to exceed the 10K deductible limit now in force.

@2scents
Those who inherit their money are also subject to inheritance tax, as well as income tax. Your inventor is not.
I’d like to tax all estates starting at 5 million dollars. There was no reason it jumped to 11 million in 2018 to benefit trump’s cronies.
And yes my estate would have to pay taxes

@2scents
Your premise is faulty. Many of the rich did not figure out how to make money, their parents or grandparents did.

I have trust clients who receive annual incomes in the millions because great grandfather made a fortune. The current recipient(s) have never worked and would have no way to amass a new fortune.

I’m a child of the 1950s not the 80s.
Television went off the air at 11:30 after the newscast. There weren’t 24 hour video diversions and personal computers to distract you and keep you up late.
Since my teen years I go to sleep at 1am (meaning turn off the light after I may have been reading in bed) and I wake automatically at 5am. I don’t use an alarm clock, I have an internal clock.
There are no electric or electronic devices ion my bedroom to disturb sleep. This means nothing is plugged in which has colored lights showing it is charged, charging, synced to wifi, etc. My cell phone is on my desk in my home office, it does not come to the bedroom. The days of a baby monitor are gone. no noises to wake us during the night. I let the dogs out at midnight and again at 5:10.

I also drink coffee top relax at night, the caffeine does not keep me up, Mrc. CTL cannot drink caffeine after 3PM if she wants a good night sleep.

When the grandchildren are here for the summer we have set sleep times. Under 5, 7:30pm, 5-8, 8:30 pm, 8-13, 9pm, Teenagers 10:30pm and everyone up by 7:30, 8am minyan in the house, 8:45 breakfast.

@Uncle Ben
In the morning the older boys/girls learn with the younger ones for a while. We have a built in swimming pool, tennis and basketball court and baseball/soccer layout for sports. We do arts and crafts, Mrs. CTL has taught most of them to play piano and I play and can teach clarinet and saxophone. We take them to area parks and attractions and sailing on Long Island Sound. The kids spend time learning to cook and I teach home repair skills.
They each are given a small patch in our vegetable gardens to plant and care for. They go for hikes and bike rides on our 4 town trail.
Mostly they use their imagination to keep busy with each other, they don’t need the over-programming of school and camp. Nothing wrong with hanging out under a tree and reading a book, jumping rope, playing with a toy or doll, shooting baskets, playing with the dogs and just being a kid.

It is not just Yeshivos who have added breaks and cut instructional time.
When I went to college, semesters were 15 weeks plus exams.
My oldest had 14 weeks including exams
Many college semesters are now 12 weeks.

Cutting instructional time allows institutions to cut expenses while still raising tuition. Shutting down in winter also saves on heating costs.

If the cost of running the schools was not so high and income so low, we would not be seeing all these days off

Uncle Ben
In the past 40+ years I’ve known more than a dozen Orthodox Jewish Lawyers who have held elected positions in suburban CT. This includes towns/cities such as West Hartford, Bloomfield, Stamford, Norwalk, Westport, Fairfield and others I shall not name.
Most of these elected positions are part time on Boards and Commissions or the town legislature. They are without pay, In addition I knew such people serving in cities such as New Haven, Waterbury, Norwich, New London, Bridgeport. Not all of these have an orthodox community anymore. Some such as Bridgeport are cities in their own right, but also commuting suburbs of New York

Order delivery,
Leave payment with company receptionist

@Whitecar,
Make sure you open and install it, not a handyman. There’s an envelope inside for the two of you

Four generations of my family lived in NYC from 1868 until my parents decided to make a 75 mile move OOT in the early 1950s. They chose a city with a yeshiva, day school, mikveh, many shuls, kosher bakeries, butchers, delis and restaurants. My mother did remark that there was only one appetizing store. My older siblings were born in NYC, but I was born OOT.
My parents found that NYC outer boroughs were becoming ghetto like with the settling of the remnants of frum European Jewry. Growing up they had lived in mixed ethnic neighborhoods and buildings and they wanted their children raised in a mixed American community. This was important as we were expected to be professionals who made our living from the populace as a whole. The family was proof that we could live the American dream, live outside an exclusively Jewish enclave and remain frum.
My grandchildren (and my siblings’ grandchildren) are now 7th generation frum Jewish Americans. Our localities no longer have the plethora of shopping and dining choices as the Euro-Traditional Jews who supported them have died out and their non-Frum children no longer kept kosher out of habit (as opposed to belief) as their parents and grandparents did.
All of our children and neices/nephews spent some time in Yeshiva or seminary in NYC. None wanted to settle there.
Personally, I would not want to live in a high rise apartment of 5 or 6 rooms or a city house that is only 12 feet from my next door neighbor’s wall.
I like being close enough to go into the city to shop or attend cultural events, but not have the hassle of living in a city of 8 million people.
When I read the complaints in the CR about the school buses parking streets, or neighbors who have illegal curb cuts, fake garage doors, etc. I say who needs the hassle. If I never rode a subway again, I would not miss it.
OOT we have a true feeling of community, all Jews make an effort to get along and respect each other’s differences.
As a young married, I belonged to a shul that was composed of two shuls established in the late 1880s who merged in the 1950s. One was a Litvak misnagid shul, the other Lubavitch, but not chasidim (they were families who came from that town in Russia and davened Nusach HaAri. The shul put the Litvak name first and used the Lubavitch siddur and followed their calendar.
I started attending minyan each morning and the shammos started asking me to daven for the amud. I explained that I did not daven that nusach. He said to me: I’ve watched and see you daven from a Tikun Meir nusach Ashkenaz…that’s frum. Go to the amud and daven from your siddur, no one will object. I refused the honor and said I’d check with my father and Zaideh. They both told me, in your own seat use your own siddur, but for the harmony of the kahal, from the amud daven with the shul’s siddur. You will not be betraying your minhag, but honoring the shul’s.

OOT is not for everyone. My children’s spouses are all OOTers. I don’t know if a potential spouse who was dependent on picking up prepared food at will, and being a short walk to most of his/her relatives and friends would have wanted to make the change. I know that my children did not want to make their lives and raise their families in NYC.

@Joseph
I am the youngest child in my family, my parents were the youngest in their families as well.
I have no first cousins left alive at this point
There are a few second cousins surviving, the youngest of whom is more than 20 years older than I am and we were never close due to the age gap. I am close with some of their children.
I have about a dozen third cousins on my paternal side who are within 5 years of my age and all live within a 90 minute drive. We are very close, talk every week and see each other many times each year.

I hope not.
He must not be a two term President, he has done enough destruction already. Putin’s Puppet needs to go

@AviK
I prefaced my remarks about voting laws/procedures being jurisdictional
If someone attempted to write in a name not registered with the Secretary of the State as a ‘write-in’ candidate, the computerized tabulation reader/scanner would not recognize it or count it as a vote having been cast for that office.

I do believe in school choice. Choose to send your children to public schools and all taxpayers share in the cost of the cost of the kids’ education. Choose to send your children to non-public school, then pay for it your self (or myself for 5 children).

Competition has not forced public schools to get better. In our area they have opened many Charter Schools. They don’t take any special needs kids, and as soon as a child becomes a behavior problem, the kid is dumped back in the public schools. The public schools get stuck with the lowest achievers and those needing the most extra and expensive services.

I have a deaf nephew. The local yeshiva day school refused to accept him (and he would not have been a scholarship kid). He went to public schools and the taxpayers paid for his additional services then on to university. He speaks, hears with hearing aids and can sign if need be. He is a public school principal in his mid 40s.
In NYC there are yeshivas who accept some special needs kids, but out of town, it’s public schools that fill tyhe need. Way back in 1960, my late mother offered to teach special ed late afternoons at the local day school. She taught special ed in the public schools. The Principal refused, he didn’t want any of those children in is school, it would scare away parents of full tuition students.

@klugeryid
No problem.
I retired as an elected official in 2017
I don’t know any current Frum elected politicians in my state and have no connection to NY Politics. The last ‘frum” NY politician who caught my attention is the now disgraced and convict Sheldon Silver.

Pandering to ‘Frum’ Jews in CT would be a waste of time and resources for any politician. there aren’t of us to swing an election.

@Klugeryid

I am a Democrat and am happy to support a number of yeshivas…by writing checks from my OWN funds.
I would strongly oppose any funding for them from taxpayer dollars. I know many Republicans who feel the same way.