Several dozen person participated in a Tuesday evening 7 Shevat event in the Jerusalem Crown Plaza Hotel for the so-called ‘working chareidim’. The meeting is viewed as the founding function of the working chareidim group and forms were given out to 60 people to complete as the new movement begins building its database of members. It was stressed numerous ties that the event was apolitical, an effort to unite the people who identify with the categorization. Organizers envision uniting the working chareidim under a single umbrella towards affecting change in the community.
Speakers included Rabbi Yoel Schwartz, Yehuda Morgenstern, attorney Yechezkel Rosenblum and Michael Nechteiler.
The participants elected a steering committee of 11 people including 2 women.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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7 Responses
Maybe they can get some representation from yishai
May Hashem grant them success in all their endeavors.
What is the difference, if any, between “working Chareidim” and “working” Chareidim? Discuss.
Strengthen yourselves and be true to your mission.
More of the “working Charedim” will appear and join your worthy kehilla.
These are people that dont listen to the gedolim.
Chareidim listen to the leading Gedolim of the generation (who are identified by mesorah from Gedolim of prior generation as well as by leading talmidei chachomim of this generation). They are the leaders and are listened to unquestionably. There are working (like me) and non-working chareidim that have this philosophy. Working chareidim is a political group of people that do not subject themselves to this philosophy, but want to somehow remain chareidim. I’m sure others will disagree, maybe vehemently, but that is how I see it.
This entire discussion is pathetic. All of the “working Chareidim” whom I know over here consulted with their Rav/ Rosh Yeshiva/Mashgiach about it. Unless someone is claiming that they “misunderstood their rabbeim” or “disobeyed them,” these avreichim who started working are indeed following da’as Torah, and are ipso facto regular Chareidim. Furthermore, the significant number of avreichim who are working, how shall I put it, off the books (a common phenomenon in Eretz Yisrael) for instance, as sofrim, magihim, mohelim, batim machers, to name a few, are actually working Chareidim too. The community is in obvious need of such workers, because who else would write Sifrei Torah, Tefillin, Mezuzos, Megillos, mal their children, and so on. Presumably some will claim that spinning cow guts into “giddim” to sow up tefillin and yerios of Sifrei Torah is more noble than banging out computer code on a keyboard. This may be so, but if the Chereidi programmer consulted da’as Torah about taking that step, then — as one of them put it — “my typing on the keyboard at work is considered being ‘me’yacheid yichudim’ in honor of HKBH in that I am providing parnassa for my family.” If there was a Torah decision by one’s rebbe to go work, then the sofer and the programmer, doctor or accountant etc. are all doing Ratzon Hashem.