Long Island, NY - Culture Clash In The Five Towns
Long Island, NY - In the Five Towns these days, how you feel about life in this predominantly Jewish area of the South Shore often depends on which religious group you belong to.
Lisa Gray, a member of a Reform Jewish congregation, describes being awakened by honking horns as late as midnight as Orthodox Jewish worshipers leave the recently built yeshiva across the street -- and again at 8 a.m. Sunday when school resumes. On Fridays, she steers clear of Central Avenue, the main shopping strip, because drivers double-park for last-minute purchases before the start of the Jewish Sabbath. On Saturdays, she dreads driving through streets clogged with walkers, sometimes 10 abreast, en route to the shteeble, or small synagogue, that opened two blocks away in what had been a private home.
But nothing has galvanized her anger like the election of an Orthodox majority to the Lawrence school board last month. Gray, a PTA president, said she fears for the future of her two public school children and thinks about moving. "I am now a minority in the neighborhood I grew up in," she lamented. "The Orthodox chose to move here and that's fine. But they're not looking to coexist. Their attitude is, 'This is how we live our lives, and if you don't like it, move.'"
What is happening in this affluent community is nothing less than a seismic demographic shift, spurring typical tensions over traffic, land use and yes, schools.
Lisa Gray, a member of a Reform Jewish congregation, describes being awakened by honking horns as late as midnight as Orthodox Jewish worshipers leave the recently built yeshiva across the street -- and again at 8 a.m. Sunday when school resumes. On Fridays, she steers clear of Central Avenue, the main shopping strip, because drivers double-park for last-minute purchases before the start of the Jewish Sabbath. On Saturdays, she dreads driving through streets clogged with walkers, sometimes 10 abreast, en route to the shteeble, or small synagogue, that opened two blocks away in what had been a private home.
But nothing has galvanized her anger like the election of an Orthodox majority to the Lawrence school board last month. Gray, a PTA president, said she fears for the future of her two public school children and thinks about moving. "I am now a minority in the neighborhood I grew up in," she lamented. "The Orthodox chose to move here and that's fine. But they're not looking to coexist. Their attitude is, 'This is how we live our lives, and if you don't like it, move.'"
What is happening in this affluent community is nothing less than a seismic demographic shift, spurring typical tensions over traffic, land use and yes, schools.
posted by VOS IZ NEIAS @ 6/11/2006 11:53:00 AM
4 Comments:
At 11:54 AM,
VOS IZ NEIAS said…
Cultural divisions
But something else is fueling bad feeling: A discomforting religious subtext runs just beneath the surface of many conflicts, pitting people like Gray in the assimilationist Jewish world that once dominated the area against an unabashedly observant, confident and increasingly politically savvy Orthodox community.
Many Orthodox Jews say the divisions are overblown, a result of acrimonious school elections.
"Are there people in the Orthodox community who should exercise better judgement in how they talk and act? Absolutely," said Rabbi Hershel Billet of Young Israel of Woodmere, the largest Orthodox congregation.
"Are there people in the non-Orthodox community who are disdainful of the Orthodox? Absolutely. But I don't think most people in either community are that way."
No one, however, disputes the scope of change. Over the last 15 years, the Five Towns have become one of the premier suburban centers of Orthodox Judaism in America, bursting with synagogues, yeshivas and Kosher restaurants.
Community leaders estimate that Orthodox residents account for 60 to 70 percent of the village of Lawrence, with communities in neighboring Cedarhurst, Woodmere and Hewlett.
"We're seeing exponential growth," said Steven Laufer, Long Island regional vice president of the Orthodox Union and a Lawrence resident.
"Young families are moving in and having lots of children, which is fueling growth in the schools. And as the schools improve and more open up, it attracts new people."
Lawrence Mayor Jack Levenbrown recalled that it was "a big to-do" when he became the first Orthodox Jew elected to the village board in 1988. Today, all five board members are Orthodox, and "almost everyone moving into Lawrence is somewhere in the Orthodox spectrum," he said.
As the majority became a minority, the landscape of this suburban community has shifted. With an overwhelming number of residents now sending their children to parochial schools, disagreements have revolved around the size of the public school budget and how that money should be distributed.
Growing influence
Burgeoning Orthodox institutions -- for instance, a Little League that fields about 80 teams on Sunday -- have eclipsed their secular counterparts. "We're down from about 300 kids six years ago to the low 200s today," said Joe Montilli of the Cedarhurst Little League. As a result, he said, Cedarhurst plans to merge next year with Woodmere-Hewlett.
Some old-timers rue the transformation of Central Avenue in Cedarhurst, once the South Shore's Rodeo Drive and a place to see and be seen on Saturdays. The street is still tony, with chain stores like The Gap and Williams-Sonoma alternating with glatt kosher restaurants and Judaica shops. Most are shuttered on Saturdays out of respect for the Jewish day of prayer and rest.
On both sides, residents express bitterness about the way they believe they are judged.
Many Orthodox express heartbreak at the perception they are insular or snobbish, when they say they are simply trying to follow religious dictates.
Adhering to Jewish law means they cannot eat at the homes of people who do not keep kosher. They do not attend social events Friday night or during the day Saturday because they are observing the Sabbath.
"I absolutely understand the suspicion that comes from our desire to send our children to Jewish schools," said Mimi Fragin, 30, of Lawrence, an Orthodox mother of four. "But that decision doesn't stem from bigotry. It stems from our desire to impart to our children the Jewish education that our parents provided to us, and that we feel is necessary to maintain our heritage."
And she noted that rudeness runs both ways.
"I was on Central Avenue last week and a woman was double-parked," Fragin said. "Someone shouted out of their car window, 'Typical Orthodox woman! No respect for anyone!' But on the next street, another car was double-parked and the driver was not Orthodox. No one shouted at her."
Most disturbing for the non-Orthodox is their perception that the Orthodox deem them -- and their children -- unwholesome influences.
Penny Schuster recounts how an ultra-Orthodox neighbor stopped her children from playing with Schuster's daughter because she wore pants.
"The idea of Jews against Jews makes me want to cry," said Schuster, a leader of Temple Israel of Lawrence, a Reform congregation.
"I grew up in the post-World War II period after Germany tried to annihilate the Jews. And here, 50 years later, this is what we've learned?"
Surprising success story
In many ways, the Orthodox is one of Judaism's most surprising success stories, said Samuel Heilman, a sociologist at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.
Most had predicted the group would wither away after the passing of a generation of Eastern European rabbis who had come to America as war refugees. They occupied the lowest rung on the economic ladder and were often viewed with contempt by more assimilated Jews, Heilman said.
But the group did not die out. In large part because of its high birth rates and support of yeshivas as a way to pass on its traditions, the Orthodox community is thriving, while more liberal Jewish denominations battle soaring intermarriage and declining affiliation rates.
They are still a minority of American Jews, about 13 percent, but their dense settlement patterns mean Orthodox Jews dominate communities such as Borough Park, upstate Monsey and, to an increasing degree, the Five Towns.
When the growth began on the South Shore, it was hardly noticeable. A handful of Orthodox families established their first synagogue in a Cedarhurst storefront in 1928, said Rabbi Kenneth Hain of Beth Sholom Congregation, which evolved from that storefront.
They struggled to live as observant Jews in the beginning.
"When I first came here in 1950, we didn't even have a supermarket that sold kosher provisions," recalled Gilbert Klaperman, rabbi emeritus of Beth Sholom, now 85.
Frustrated by the lack of amenities -- Klaperman sent his daughter by bus to a Flatbush yeshiva -- the rabbi did two things that changed local history.
He opened the Hillel School, one of the first local yeshivas. And in the early 1960s, he and another local rabbi sought to create an eruv, a boundary around a Jewish neighborhood inside which activities can take place that would normally be banned on the Sabbath. An eruv makes a community more attractive to observant Jews.
"An eruv is an essential part of a Jewish community," Klaperman said. "It gives us the opportunity to do something on the Sabbath which normally we couldn't do. You couldn't push your baby carriage, for example [Jewish law forbids 'carrying' outside the home on the Sabbath] ... And with the growing community, baby carriages became a big issue."
Just as advocates had hoped and opponents had feared, the eruv acted like a magnet and drew waves of new residents.
"Once a community takes off, others begin to gravitate towards it," Heilman said. "The nature of Orthodox life is that people have to walk to synagogue, and so they need to cluster."
And as the community grew, it began to diversify.
The first arrivals had been Modern Orthodox, whose adherents believe they can fully participate in the world while they uphold Jewish law. Well-known members include Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman and recent "Apprentice" finalist Lee Bienstock of Lawrence. Many send their children not just to their own institutions, such as Yeshiva University, but to secular colleges and universities. The ultra-Orthodox tend to patronize secular schools only for professional degrees.
Orthodox growth
Over time, more and more ultra-Orthodox settlers began to migrate, especially to Lawrence.
"Why did the ultra-Orthodox come out? Two words: Far Rockaway," said William Helmreich, director of the Center for Jewish Studies at Queens College. "They spilled over the border from a contiguous right-wing neighborhood."
After the school elections, Orthodox leaders acknowledge their growing power and do not apologize for it. But they say they are determined to respect all points of view.
"Change is always uncomfortable," acknowledged Hain of Beth Sholom. "You can fold your arms in a certain way and when you try to refold them differently, it feels awful."
But he is optimistic about the prospects for compromise.
"The rabbinic leaders have worked very hard to impress on people -- particularly now that we have more power -- that we need to exercise it responsibly and fairly and justly."
At 12:26 PM,
Anonymous said…
I think that the orthodox can try to do some outreach to the non religious community, and they should also try not to step on the feelings of that community. They should try to act with proper decorum in how they park their cars, how they drive, not be overly pushy etc. It is natural that some non religious people feel uncomfortable about orthodoxy, they make have some feelings of guilt or of "who do you think you are?" They feel threatened by the frum existence and some may even move away to "greener" pastures.
At 1:24 PM,
Anonymous said…
Tell her to check into the Local Chabad House in Lawrence, they will except her and her kids with open arms.
At 1:41 PM,
Anonymous said…
sound to me that the kvetch has a very guilty consience. one could always find fault with others if they watch them long enough.
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