What are the costs of Orthodox Judaism?
The Times of Israel Daily Briefing
The Times of Israel
4.5 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 29 May 2026
⏱️ 26 minutes
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Summary
Welcome to The Times of Israel's Daily Briefing, your 20-minute audio update on what's happening in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world.
Will Orthodox middle-class life in America remain sustainable for future generations? Stub opens by discussing how and why Orthodox Jewish communities are financially drained. He explains how -- through a combination of private education, elite housing locations and larger households -- the cost of living is increasingly more than families can afford. He drives home that the challenge is not only how to remain financially afloat today and mentions how one possible solution to the growing issue in the US is immigration to Israel.
We discuss Stub's recent reporting on a related matter: With growing numbers of Diaspora Jews seeking a foothold in Israel, market players are rewriting the rules of real estate, reimagining community around rabbinic leadership, municipal planning and group purchasing models designed to meet their needs.
Stub also elucidates how, despite the attractions of moving to Israel, many American Jews harbor deep fears about exposing themselves to the challenges of life in Israeli society. Differences in language and cultural norms — from navigating bureaucracy to casual conversations— are frequent sources of anxiety that leave newcomers overwhelmed. He explains why this leads many American Jews to group together within Anglo-centric communities.
We close the episode with a brief teaser of what to expect from the upcoming Maccabiah Games in Israel. Despite concerns and cancellations from delegations from several countries following continued tensions with Iran, about 5,000 participants from more than 40 countries are still expected to compete in the two-week international competition that starts on June 30.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Times of Israel's The Daily Briefing. Today is Friday, May 29th, and I am your host, |
| 0:10.4 | Gabriela Jacobs, here from our Jerusalem studio with real estate and diaspora affairs reporter Zev Stubb. |
| 0:17.5 | Welcome Zev. Hi, Gabriella. That's great to be here. Today we're going to start off by |
| 0:22.4 | speaking about the cost of living in Orthodox Jewish communities across the United States. We're |
| 0:27.8 | going to talk about issues that arise from that and how it might relate to trends regarding |
| 0:31.9 | immigration in that community. After that, we're going to move on to talk about broader immigration |
| 0:37.4 | trends across the Jewish world. |
| 0:39.5 | What are immigrants looking for when they're looking to buy a home in Israel and how is that affecting the Israeli real estate market? |
| 0:47.5 | Finally, we're going to close off with a brief overview of the Maccabia games that are expected to take place in Israel in July. All that and more after the break. |
| 0:58.0 | And we are back. |
| 1:11.6 | So Zeb, you have an article that recently came out on the financial difficulties facing |
| 1:16.6 | Orthodox Jewish Americans. What are the issues facing the community? Are they old? Are they new? |
| 1:21.6 | Tell me about it. |
| 1:23.6 | So the big story is that life for Orthodox Jews in the United States is really, really expensive |
| 1:30.3 | to the point where many people who are even making very respectable salaries just are struggling to make it. |
| 1:37.3 | One person I spoke with told me that you kind of have to be among the top 3 to 4% of earners in the United States just to be able to make it in the Orthodox community in New York. |
| 1:49.1 | Most of those people are not among the top three to four percent of the earners. |
| 1:53.0 | And there's big challenges. |
| 1:54.3 | I spoke with people, you know, I spoke with one woman who said her household income was about $150,000 a year, and they're barely scraping |
| 2:04.1 | by. Another woman, $400,000 a year with their household income, and they were like kind of on the brink. |
| 2:11.8 | What's the story? A lot of it is school tuition. School tuition is a major issue in the Orthodox community. |
| 2:21.9 | I just want to explain a little bit about the importance of schools. |
... |
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