Take the overwhelmingly Hasidic Kiryas Joel, the
poorest place in America. As the
Times reported last year, “half of [its] residents receive food stamps, and one third receive Medicaid benefits and rely on federal vouchers to help pay their housing costs.” And boy, do they have children: The median household in Kiryas Joel has six people, and the median age is twelve.
Welfare is, and has been for some time, a crucial ingredient in these communities. While Hasidim take care of their own, they also get taxpayers to take care of them. Like Israeli Haredim, Kiryas Joel’s Hasidim vote together to secure, for instance, a “luxurious 60-bed postnatal maternal care center… built with $10 million in state and federal grants.” Off the record, New York City officials admit that Williamsburg’s Hasidim “
work the system,” and experts who don’t have to be reelected come out and just admit there’s widespread fraud. As Shmarya Rosenberg has argued,
the Haredi birthrate, to be sustainable, requires large and consistent infusions of cash from outside. In Williamsburg, welfare really is a lifestyle.