December 2005 Archives

One of the good things about year-in-review articles is that you can really catch up on intersting tidbits you may have missed. My daily FARK habit directed me to one such article from the BBC titled "100 Things We Didn't Know This Time Last Year."

Here's number 8:

Devout Orthodox Jews are three times as likely to jaywalk as other people, according to an Israeli survey reported in the New Scientist. The researchers say it's possibly because religious people have less fear of death.

From said New Scientist article (January 2005¹):

The ultra-Orthodox inhabitants of Bnei-Brak were three times as likely to break these rules as people in Ramat-Gan, the team found.

Rosenbloom thinks that ultra-Orthodox faith might contribute to this cavalier behaviour by making people respect religious law more than state-imposed rules. It is also possible that religious people take more risks because they are more fatalistic and have less fear of death."

It would be interesting to see if the studies included Shabbat, which would likely skew the data.

I'm still not convinced that either reason is the primary determining factor. Yes, the hareidi community has a virulent disdain for secular laws, but I don't think they go out of their way just to break them. I would also doubt the reasoning of being "fatalistic" as the cause of jaywalking since many probably don't register the dangers involved.

I would suggest that the reasons are more sociological then necessarily religious. In New York at least, commuters are notorious jaywalkers, regardless of faith. One would also have to look at other factors of jaywalking including traffic patterns or the time of day (i.e. a rush hour).

If religion does play a role I would sooner suggest that more religiously zealous generally focus more on the commandments between man and God than on the commandments between people, but that's a discussion for another time.

1. It's old, but the only other coverage I've seen on the web is from the appropriately named J-Walk Blog.

As a public service for those who complain that I'm too difficult to shop for, I'm hereby publicizing my Amazon Wish List and linking to it on the sidebar. Yeah, you could probably get stuff cheaper at Walmart or elsewhere, but people seem to like Amazon.

So if you've been pondering what to get your favorite socio-religious, guitar-playing, inconsistently blogging Rabbi, you now know where to go.¹

1. If you're not into the whole gift-giving thing, I'll just pull out Proverbs 15:27 (sonei matanot yichyeh). I win either way.

The following is an exposition of an idea quoted in the Daily News (December 25, 2005)

I've always found it interesting how Hannukah, a relatively late Rabbinic enactment, has become of the most widely recognized and observed Jewish holidays. To be sure, its proximity to Christmas has helped; Hannukah falls around the most celebrated holiday worldwide and comparisons or connections between the two are understandable. Thanks to an increasingly politically correct climate, Menorahs are often displayed in more ecumenical seasonal displays, further increasing Hannukah's exposure.

But I would also suggest that it is Hannukah's intrinsic messages and meanings which inspire countless generations. Compared to other Jewish holidays, the primary themes of Hannukah are not exclusively relevant to religious Jews, but are universally fundamental and basic to the larger population as well.

Now the the transit strike is finally over, analysts are now trying to figure out what if anything can be learned from the strike. As you might expect, what you'll find is subject to the spin of the source. The NYTimes blames both sides and hits the classic liberal trifecta calling the strike a "clash of race, culture and class." Others discuss the ramifications of the pensions, with the NYPost taking the perspective of the city and MSNBC covering the viewpoint of the workers.

In discussing the economics of the strike, it is tempting as many outlets have done, to focus exclusively on the Government and the Union. In this dichotomy, the Government gets the role of the Big Corporation while the Union represents the downtrodden. Fortunately, others have recognized that there is a third economic group involved - the people of New York. Yes, everyone covered that the people were thoroughly inconvenienced, but there has been a growing awareness among that not all "workers" are equal. Compared to many of their fellow New Yorkers, the TWU actually have fairly sweet deal already. As Forbes reports:

According to the Manhattan Institute, the average bus or subway driver--the most-skilled job in the union by most standards--is already paid $63,000 a year. The person who sits behind the bullet-proof glass in what used to be called a token booth, and who now says for most purchases you have to use the metro-card machines, takes down an average of $51,000. And the least-skilled work, though certainly the dirtiest, is the subway cleaner who clocks in at an average of $40,000.

Compare that with the average New York worker. Take out Wall Street, where mega-bonuses skew the average unfairly, and the average private sector worker earns $49,000. Peel off the college-educated (which you don't need for most transit jobs) and the average income drops to well below $35,000. That includes everyone from a skilled factory worker to the clerk in Bloomingdale's.

Nationwide, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average unskilled worker (we'll put the cleaners in that category) earns $23,753 a year in the private sector; in the public sector that jumps to $30,056, but is still ten grand less than a New York subway cleaner. The disparity jumps even further when you look at the nationwide "transportation workers" as a specialty. There the average annual wage is $30,846 in the private sector and $34,611 in the public sector. Clearly, it pays to work for the government. But it pays even better to work for the MTA (Metropolitan Transit Authority)--indeed 80% better. New York is expensive, but not that expensive.

Note that this doesn't even account for the guaranteed pensions and that Transit Workers can retire at 55, thereby cashing in even more.

Despite the occasional socialist rantings, maybe there really is a class warfare going on in New York, but it's not simply between the Big and Little Guys - the haves and have nots. Bloomberg implied as much saying, "You've got people making $50,000 and $60,000 a year keeping people who are making $20,000 and $30,000 a year from being able to earn a living. That's just not acceptable."

Perhaps it's time to acknowledge that unions may deserve their own economic class to account for their financial and political security which is disproportionate to skill or education.

On some level, the public is starting to realize just how different the regular workers are when compared to the unions. The TWU itself reminded the New Yorkers of this by causing many to not work or lose business. As a consequence, it's possible that the public's response could extend beyond vitriol to the point where the Unions may actually lose political capital as well.

It's been a while since I've written about politics, but today's New York Times carries a really disturbing editorial. The Times argues against Israel's position to bar East Jerusalem Arabs fom voting in the PA elections in which Hamas is on the ballot. For the Times, such an action violates the fundamental principles of democracy:

The messy thing about democracy is that people tend to vote for the candidates they want - a point that seemed lost on Israel...Israel is concerned about a strong showing by Hamas. That's understandable, but democracy doesn't work this way.

Of course, the Times conveniently forgets that Hamas is not just a political party, but an officially designated terrorist organization. For the Times, Hamas achieving power democratically "is the lesser evil because any movement, once in power, is compelled to supplement its bluster with deeds." Considering that one of their "blusters" is that "Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it," are we to assume that the Times then is advocating the destruction of Israel?

The issue here is not merely on the rights of democracy, but of responsibility. Thomas Jefferson famously declared "the price of freedom is eternal vigilance,"and legitimizing a terrorist organization as a policital party hardly demonstrates vigilance.

Hitler also rose to power through the democracy of the Weimar Republic, and we see how well that worked.

The New York Post has some excellent coverage of the strike including some history of past strikes and apparently, my observations from yesterday could have used a little more research.

The Transit Workers Union was formed way back in 1934 and even went on strike in 1966. Back then, the public sector employees were subject to the "Condon-Wadlin Act" which also prohibited city workers from striking, but imposed such harsh penalties that it wasn't enforced.

Although then Mayor Lindsay acquiesced to the union, Governor Rockefeller commissioned a new panel to reevaluate and redefine the labor arrangement for employees of the public sector. This panel was chaired by George W. Taylor and its recommendations ultimately became The Taylor Law. Striking was still prohibited, but the penalties, while harsh, were more reasonable and thus would have a better chance of being enforced by the courts.

That said, I still share the views of the many angry New Yorkers who are fed up with the union.

After weeks of posturing and threatening the Transit Worker's Union (TWU) finally went on strike, thereby disabling New York's public transportation system. Personally I'm not really affected by the strike. My inability to find an apartment has, for once, worked out to my advantage since my commute requires New Jersey Transit as opposed to the subway.

However, like most New Yorkers, I am thoroughly annoyed at the TWU.

For as difficult as it must be to write quality fiction, it is probably more challenging to write good Jewish fiction. Not only must the author tell a compelling or insightful story in a specific religious context, but s/he must do so without resorting to shallow stereotypes, condescending explanations, or heavy-handed moralizing. Sadly, I've found that most authors of Jewish fiction fail on one or more of these areas, and in the worst cases do so while compromising the actual story. The result often is not only a biased or inaccurate portrayal of Judaism, but also a work of bad fiction.

That said, I was pleasantly surprised by Rabbi Gidon Rothstein's Murderer in the Mikdash. While exploring the highly controversial Messianic era, R. Rothstein skillfully addresses significant religious issues without compromising or distracting from the core narrative. The end result is a readable work of fiction in which the narrative is supported by educational material and social commentary.