Matzav Inbox: Where is the Keren to Help Frum Families in America Who Are Drowning?

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Dear [email protected],

I am writing to express my profound admiration for the askanim who have initiated a fund that I read about on Matzav.com to raise an astonishing $107,000,000 for the Olam Hatorah in Eretz Yisroel through the newly formed “Keren Olam HaTorah.” This initiative is nothing short of unbelievable. Klal Yisroel’s capacity for generosity continues to amaze me. Despite the economic hardships many are facing, our community’s commitment to tzedakah remains unwavering and inspiring.

However, I am left with a pressing question: Where is the emergency fund for the thousands of frum families in America who are struggling with deep credit card debt and can barely make ends meet? Where is the fund for families like mine, who are burdened with debt, unable to pay it off, have no money to make simchos, and are continuously falling behind financially?

Please understand, I am in no way, chalilah, impugning the remarkable effort to support Eretz Yisroel. I believe it is truly extraordinary and commendable. My intention is merely to highlight a parallel crisis that requires attention. American bnei Torah and baalei batim are drowning financially and have been for several years now.

As we continue to demonstrate our generosity globally, I humbly ask: Where is the keren to support those in our own backyard who are in desperate need?

Sincerely,

Left Wondering

42 COMMENTS

  1. The simple answer is that 100 Million will not solve the inherent shortfall of the average American family.

    In Eretz Yisroel, a few hundred Shekels a month DOES make the difference for the average kollel family.

  2. How many leased cars do you have? How many times a month do you eat out? Are you surviving on the bare minimum when it comes to food shopping or do you shop at Gourmet Glatt and Breadberry? How much did your wifes Sheitel cost? Do you send your kids to summer camp and go on mid winter vacations? If the answer to any of those questions is yes then you cant be compared to the kolel yungerleit in EY who survive on the bare minimum

    • I have not bought a sheitil in the last 10 years, do not lease a car and shop at All Fresh. I am also an almanah which put the burden of supporting my family completely on me. I do not have any rich relatives and work several jobs to make ends meet. Which never happens. What happened to helping an almanah?

    • “If the answer to any of those questions is yes”. Only 1 out those 5 questions could possibly be answered with “yes”

  3. I feel your pain too! I don’t have a clue how my next mortgage payment will be made. I am a rebbi at a yeshiva/cheder and I don’tget oaid during the summer. I did take a day camp job becausea) teachingis my lassion and b) I do have to earn some money but it in no way covers. My wife of 13 years and I have 6 children b”H – 4 of which have to be in day camp; sleep away for my 12 year old son is a non-issue. My car is a 2006 Honda Odyssey. We don’t get new clothing each season. Thankfully my Yeshiva gave us a $1,500 bonus for Pesach – it certainly helped. We’re dying to get away for a little getaway but, I guess, we’ll just dream about it and that will suffice. How can I think of giving funds away to others when I know that my summer expenses are nowhere near covered. We are a happy family but we are choking!

  4. I agree to the problem you are mentioning, however the solution isn’t a Keren to help families with financial assistance. The real help we need to help hardworking Balei Batim be able to make ends meet is 1. Lower the crazy high standards of living and lifestyle that have become the norm regardless of income levels. 2. Learn responsible living that generations before had engrained in them, which has gone out the window in this age of credit cards and not saving responsibility (In part because of #1).

  5. hey there Left Wondering- dont wonder – get of your chair and do something- go start fundraising. if no wants to give, then you know that no one besides you care (enough) about it to do anything. If people give, then you are correct and you helped a lot of yidden- win/win situation- why couldn’t you think of this yourself?!?!?!

  6. If the readership of this site takes this message seriously, there will be another one weekly, maybe even daily. And it may progress to attaching names of our rabbinic leaders as endorsers.

    Yes, there are families drowning. Yes, credit card debt is outrageous. Yes, and yes, and yes. The approach of establishing a keren sounds like a simple solution, but it is barely a bandaid. Those who use credit cards indiscriminately are spending more than they can afford. Should I look forward to bailing out these families that placed themselves in harms way? I would rather look to assist those whose tzuris were not foolishly chosen, but were thrust upon them. And sadly there is an abundance of this.

    We actually have organizations that guide people how to budget and how to reduce their debt. I have observed struggling families buying meat boards etc. to keep up with the Kleins. How often do we observe families with wagons full of nosh and paying with food stamps? How many families go to hotels for Yom I’m tovim but fail to pay their tuitions?

    Times are not easy, and Biden created monsters with damaging policies. Can we truly judge the desperation of any charitable cause? Yeshivos will yell that supporting Torah takes precedence. Others will scream about hachnosas kallah. The needs and the lists are endless. Should we be supporting the shuls where we daven? What about the collectors that arrive in our shuls daily? I say that we should continue giving tzedokoh as always, and then some. But we should not begin the endless spiral of placing responsibility on the Klal to clean up others’ mistakes.

  7. I’m with you, brother. Apparently, the way it works here is that one of the spouses has to either die suddenly or have (certified by a doctor) stage 4 cancer rachmana litzlan, BEFORE any askanim/gevirim get involved in a serious way. So what they are essentially saying, is that one day before the parent died, all their finances were honky dorey, but now that someone is dead and the children are yisomim, oh, now suddenly they’re as poor as can be and they must step in to help out immediately. Only families of a nifter are poor and struggling. Never a physically healthy family where everyone “seems and looks” happy. So unfortunately, the only eitza is either for you or your spouse to die rachmana litzlan, and then and only then will your fellow Yidden step forward. Sorry to sound harsh but this is the emmes hadvorim. I once brought up this issue with a well connected individual and his response was: how can we possibly help every struggling yiddishe mishpacha? It’s too overwhelming, too many nitzrachim, so someone must die first. Sorry.

  8. I completely agree with the letter writer. Over the course of the many years our 6 children were in Cheder and school, high school, seminary and Yeshiva in Eretz Yisroel, we easily spent more than $1,000,000 in tuition. Being part of the forgotten middle class, no school would ever give us a break on tuition, even though our combined family tuition bill for the year exceeded $70,000.
    After marrying off one of our older sons, we had a total of $25 left in all our accounts. The pressure was unbearable, crushing. And we were not able to get any help. There were times my wife and I simply could not breathe because of the enormous pressure we were under. Refinancing the house, Home Equity Lines, maxing out yet another credit card – just dug us deeper into debt that took many, many years to emerge from.
    עניי עירך קודם
    B”H, we are now back on our feet financially, but we can fully appreciate the writer’s anguish and pain, and try to shoulder the unbearable pressure he must be feeling.
    It’s really nice and important to do something for the Mosdos HaTorah in Eretz Yisroel – but we should be helping our own first.
    עניי עירך קודם

  9. Actually as you were writing this someone on another news site wrote a solution for their Bobov community. Maybe every community should copy them in that regard.

  10. This is letter is like asking why are they making a collection for his yesomim what about all the families that both parents are living who need money?

    The current situation in Eretz Yisroel has been very difficult since sukkos. On top of it there is a $107 million dollar loss of funds that was just in place by the government. The appeal is in direct response to that specific know disaster. It is an emergency situation that needs immediate dealing with.

  11. To Anonymous 7:15: Do you really think that is what makes the difference? My wife and I bring in about $200k per year, and can barely make ends meet. We don’t take vacations, and have one car with 125,000 miles that is paid off in full.
    After deductions for health insurance, taxes, etc. the take home pay is about $11,000 per month.
    Here is an example of some monthly expenses:
    Mortgage $3500
    Tuition $2500
    Food $1000 (this has gone up significantly over the past couple of years)
    Utilities (gas, electric, water, internet, phones) $700
    School transportation (bussing is not free where I live) $400
    Gas for car $250
    Life Insurance $200
    Home Maintenance $150
    Medications (children with ADHD and asthma, plus I’m diabetic) $150
    Car Insurance $120 (this will go up soon, as I will have a child getting their license)

    Add in miscellaneous expenses, like clothing, shoes, small repairs that pop up for things in the house/car, toiletries, cleaning supplies, then add in the costs of camp for the summer (even day camp costs a ton these days), and making Yomim Tovim, and people are under water. Then figure that if you have an event that takes a LOT of money, such as a major repair, or a serious illness (I had to deal with both of those in recent years), you start building debt. Debt that can accrue interest rapidly, and takes another huge chunk of your monthly income to pay back.
    Most people aren’t wasting money. Costs just keep on rising, and salaries aren’t rising at the same rate.

  12. Everyone has true points. However the primary issue in today’s American generation, is not a financial one, it’s a mental one. The mentality of what is considered basic necessities today’s is what many in previous generations and what many in Eretz Yisroel consider and considered the ultimate luxuries. And that mental problem gets engrained into our children who grow up viewing these luxuries as basic necessities. That mental problem ultimately affects even the most responsible of parents, as the chinuch questions start coming into play, “I don’t want my child to be deprived and left out, and all his/her friends have or are doing…”. And the mental problem gets much deeper than that, it’s the fact that he who spends more, is looked at with a higher respect, rather than someone who can have and do the same thing, on sale or for free. We started respecting waste, as something of stature, and we have the gedolim of our generation partaking silently and then some. I understand that this is how fundraising is done in 2024, however, don’t tell me it’s not coming at a large mental cost to the המון עם watching and then feeling the need to mimic.

  13. Why do some people assume struggling families live too lavishly and its their own fault they are in debt? We have 1 car, a 10 year old van with problems. We smush 7 ppl including 2 with special needs in a small 2 br apt. Dont eat in restaraunts except may get pizza when they have a special. Haven’t vacationed in 10+ years. (Except went to poconos for a day and and a half if that counts) My husband was a mashgiach for years making 20 an hr and recently quit due the severe mental and physical toll it took on him (abusive environment- which only mashgiachs would understand). I make an “ok” salary but not enough to survive in NY But need to be here bc of my kids. BUT even with that. Chasdei Hashem! He provides for us. My kids are in schools. We have food to eat and we dont live in a shelter. And somehow Thank you Hashem!!

  14. @anonymous. I don’t blame people as I have been and an in many respects in the same situation. However, the first step to fixing a problem is recognizing it. And I realized that were we to transplant ourselves into let’s say for example the Israeli chareidi system with the same incomes, we would be able to be financially positive. Now, that isn’t to say that it’s as simple as that, however it is good for though to recognize how many things we look at as “making ends meet” when you can look at other people living so much happier and simpler in many other societies be because things we take for granted are really luxuries. And if society wouldn’t require these “luxury necessities” then most people would ultimately be fine living without them and would be financially much better off. Camp for example, day camps for us need to provide a much higher level of entertainment then camps in other societies because our kids demand as much, hence higher camp costs. Speak to any middle aged person about what camp was for them and what was considered fun, and what small trips were the excitement of camp. Then, think if those things can even entertain for 5 minutes the children of today’s generation. Lets not even think about trying in 2024, the thin beds and no AC which was considered standard in sleep away camps of yesteryear. It is no wonder that camp costs have gone up so much over the years, because what we have to provide to this generation is so high!!!

  15. 1) When people in America struggle financially, it’s very difficult, but there is food on the table. In eretz Yisrael, when families struggle, there is nothing to eat. There are many families whose kids only meal of the day is the hot lunch at school.

    2) These rabbanim started a keren because they saw a need and believed that they needed to figure out how to raise the money. Rather than complaining about others who took the initiative and did something in their own interests, you should be the one who starts something that will benefit these people whom you view as an acute need. Hatzlacha

  16. The only real solution here is tuition reform. Whether that means a minimal community-wide tax that is always paid regardless of whether you have kids in school (like p.s. taxes) instead of being billed in astronomical amounts during people’s most expensive years of life, schools drastically cutting their expenses or another solution, it’s the only real way to solve this crisis.

    There are too many families that are NOT big spenders and are completely drowning in today’s economy. And then they go and raise tuition again…

  17. To those of you who didn’t read the message of PW at 11.19 pm. PLEASE read and open your hearts and minds. This is an almana what it seems like living in our community/area, who is NOT being taken care of by askanim some of you mentioned in messages. No, very often these heart broken families are seen to in the beginning when tragedy strikes and then with time for some unknown reason people think they manage. WAKE UP there are people in your own neighborhood/shul/family ( yes !) that can’t sleep at night because they don’t know how tomorrow they’ll have basic needs as food and basics. Maybe PW come out with more details so we can figure out a way to help you and yes take care of our own. There’s definitely something about supporting aniyei eretz yisroel but doubt that’s before an almanac/yisoimim.
    I have been in a matzav where my husband and I both worked full time and were choking not knowing how to buy basic food for supper and tuition for our kids, and no we don’t own any car, go on vacations, camp, country or did anything that this crazy high standard living in America does. I’m stressing America because I’m from Europe and all what’s considered the norm here is NOT done there even by the richest people. Wake up, things have to change.
    1. THE TZEDDAKAH YOU GIVE SHOULD FIRST BE GIVEN TO YOUR OWN RELATIVES AND NEIGHBORHOOD/COMMUNITY members and them you can donate to any organization, raffles, Chinese auctions etc.
    2. The standard of living here MUST CHANGE. (At the same time it’ll help those families choking feel like they’re not the second class)
    I think it even says that a person should give to his own relatives first. Look out and you’ll be shocked and surprised how you didn’t know someone very close to you was acting and really is walking around with a heavy heart not knowing what tomorrow will be.
    Let’s all try our best and hashem should bring brachos and shefa upon all of Klal yisroel!

  18. Good points …however , every child needs to go to camp ,the same way they need to go to Yeshiva . A sheitil … no women ask for the price to be ‘thru the roof ” . Living under your own roof ? How many Yungerlight own their own homes . And on & on . This is what’s known as ” a Shteken Mit Tzvay Eken ” A dble edged sword . All sides have their own points . There is no simple solution .

  19. We are all entitled. Can someone help me payoff my mortgage I am struggling borrowing money to make payments. I don’t have a car. Real Estate taxes is about a thousand a month. I don’t have a car. Where do I apply?

    • First of all, they pay plenty of taxes to the Zionists who, as the “governing” entity there must provide basic services including welfare and the like as real countries do.

      But there is a much better question: Did anyone ever criticize the Israeli government for intentionally impoverishing our brethren there by denying them the ability to work until long after they’ve married and had children all because those Jews don’t agree to being shmaded in the Zionist shmad army?

  20. Yes i always wonder, we do so much chesed and money for people from abroad, are we in denial that right next to us there are people that are in debt and not going on fancy vacation and have old cars, but are too embarassed to collect.
    Tomchei shabbos is not enough even if they decide to get it.
    If the askonim have so much money to shell out on this and that, why is it only for a crisis something flowery or heart tugging or something abroad. Why are we in denial about whats right here among us.

  21. Yes i always wonder, we do so much chesed and money for people from abroad, are we in denial that right next to us there are people that are in debt and not going on fancy vacation and have old cars, but are too embarassed to collect.
    Tomchei shabbos is not enough even if they decide to get it.
    If the askonim have so much money to shell out on this and that, why is it only for a crisis something flowery or heart tugging or something abroad. Why are we in denial about whats right here among us.

  22. There is a very good organization called Chasdei Yosef that helps people get out of credit card debt. Their number is 9174268726

  23. Alot of the comments above suggest living within one’s means. Well, do you know what BASIC necessities cost these days? Much more than an average two spouse income. Tuition, mortgage (if one is lucky to have been able to buy a home), insurance, taxes, food & camp for bochurim is NOT luxury. I do not go out to eat, i do own or lease a car, i do not go on winter vacation or summer home/bungalow upstate & i do not make ends meet. Food prices are astronomical. I do not receive food stamps, medicaid or vouchers since I & my spouse actually WORK & are not eligible. So yes a keren for hardworking drowning usa families would be greatly appreciated. Good luck to all!!

  24. Bottom line: There is a big disconnect between the haves and the have-nots. Those who have don’t understand or comprehend the true hardships of those who don’t have. They right away accuse and blame the local poor people for being poor, as if they are lazy and just looking for handouts. Their neighbors who they see everyday in Shul, they look down upon, but some phantom person in a far away country, who they’ve never met or know if he’s legit, that they bend over backwards to support. Better to let their struggling brothers, living right there on the same block, suffer and instead contribute to some flashy online campaign with supposed prominent endorsements. To their great credit, the Flatbush Community Fund DOES do a lot for the local struggling yiddishe families. Flatbush helping Flatbush. Ashreichem!

  25. A Groisser Yasher Koach to “Left Wondering” and to most of the excellent comments here for brilliantly showing a gigantic area of strongly needed Tzedaka, which, hitherto has not been adequately addressed with many people in need “falling through the cracks.” B’Ezras Hashem, please permit me to add that, along with these two gigantic areas of strongly needed Tzedaka discussed here (of drowning Frum families in Eretz Yisroel and drowning Frum families here in America), there is another large area of strongly needed Tzedaka, which, hitherto has not been adequately addressed with many people in need “falling through the cracks.”

    This area is that of Frum INDIVIDUALS who are drowning. Obviously, a healthy individual with even just an “average” Parnossa income, with no family to provide for, is almost always able to fully take care of him or her self. However, where there are difficult circumstances, like where the individual is heavily handicapped, that is clearly a very different picture. With limitations on where such an individual can turn for assistance, he or she is probably going to “fall through the cracks.”

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