Activism!

Driving home from work yesterday I was interested in a little talk radio. Since all the FM talk stations are full of garbage in the afternoon I tuned into AM 560 with Michael Medved as the talk show host. Usually I like what he is talking about and yesterday was the case as well. His show was focused on the fact that Cultural decisions matter. That what we do as a culture and what an individual does to fit into a certain culture s(he) wants to belong to, matters. Some of his examples included: that some people choose to send their kids to private school, others give donations to their spiritual organizations and other still do nothing. His main point was that Cultural decisions have more impact on your day to day life then politics do.

Well, I could not agree more! It happens to be that as orthodox Jews we have some cultural decisions that are expected of us. One of these decisions is sending children to private schools. Another cultural expectation is for women to wear shaitals (they range anywhere from $10-4000+). Now, let’s think about politics. Will it affect me one way or another if McCain gets elected over Obama? Absolutely not. Both are crooks as all politicians are. They will both implement “changes” and stimulus packages that are dictated to them by the house and senate. So will it effect me personally, maybe but on a much smaller level than if all of a sudden beef Jerky became Kosher!

How then are cultural decisions impacting my life? Well, one other interesting point that Michael Medved had was that if you are poor in America it is your own decision to stay poor in America. He mentions cultural and societal pressures and influences that will keep you down and will keep the poor, poor. At first I disagreed with him, and then I thought about being an Orthodox Jew and what that entails culturally. Then I went back on some recent discussions I’ve had with a variety of different people, and some interesting blogs that I’ve read about TUITION!!! That is when what Mr.Medved said started to become absolutely true. People in our communities complain about tuition. They complain that they cannot get on top because they have to pay tuition, no matter how little the amount it is still larger than public school which is FREE. They complain that they can no longer maintain any resemblance of the life style that they once had because these tuition bills are burdening them and are really keeping them down. So then here it is, is it a cultural decision of the orthodox Jews to keep people poor? Is it a cultural decision to work hard, and then still have to tell your child no to something that you would rather say yes to if you did have a disposable income? Is it that we as a nation in America and in other parts of the world other than Israel, are doing this to ourselves? Well, according to Michael Medved, yes we are. And I for one agree with him. As orthodox Jews we cannot send our children to PUBLIC school because of all of the negative influences, yet private tuition is not something that everyone can readily afford. What are the options? On the blogosphere there is talk about people who are at their ropes end, unable to stand it any longer have pulled their children out of private school and have put them into public school with tutors on the sides for Jewish education. Eliminating the stress of paying tuition, lifting that weight has strengthened their perspective on life and in some cases has saved marriages that were very fragile from all of the financial stress. Not everyone is built to be able to stand the stress of being in debt and unless you can afford tuition for all of your children it seems(1) that the average working middle class Orthodox American is in debt.

It seems that Americans once upon a time had an aura of Activism. America in general stood for something and somebody! Today a statistic on the Michael Medved show said that 78% of College aged Americans believe that recycling is a form of Activism! Oi is what I have to say to that. Yet, at least there is some understanding of doing something for someone else, or for something else such as the environment. So, if I were conducting a poll: what would the average Orthodox Jewish person say activism is? And, what are they making a stance for? What do you think they will say?

1. From my personal experience which includes reading blogs, papers, and speaking to people on a daily basis. Papers include: Haaretz, Jerusalem Post, CNN.com, MSN.com, bbc.com.