Volume 29 Number 66
Produced: Sat Aug 28 22:11:23 US/Eastern 1999
Subjects Discussed In This Issue:
A Tax for Day School Tuition
[Nina Butler]
Permissability of Obesity (3)
[Janet Rosenbaum, Rick Turkel, Russell Hendel]
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From: Nina Butler <nbutler+@pitt.edu>
Date: Sun, 22 Aug 1999 12:11:24 -0400
Subject: A Tax for Day School Tuition
The following excerpt comes from my doctoral dissertation, and is info
regarding the day school tuition.
One of the newest and most ambitious campaigns is Chicago's "Operation
Jewish Education: The 5% Answer." Real estate developer, and United
Jewish Federation Vice Chairman George Hanus had an original idea. "My
idea wasn't a new idea," he admitted in an interview (February 2, 1999),
"It's really 2000 years old." Hanus reflected that the idea was
originally reported in Talmudic times, the establishment of an organized
Jewish community or Kehilla, imposing a tax on its people for communal
education and other charitable purposes. In a memo to all North
American Jewish leadership (August 1998), Hanus and his "National Jewish
Day School Scholarship Committee" explained,
There is a crisis in our community. Rampant assimilation and
intermarriage are obvious to all and, tragically, accepted by far too
many. Unless our children can connect with their heritage, the American
Jewish community will drift into oblivion. Jewish leadership must
prioritize this need and dedicate resources, energy and facilities
commensurate with the immense loss that threatens us. We must educate
our children. With historic precedent and authority, rabbis and lay
leaders across American have established an extraordinary initiative to
support day schools. Every Jew is mandated to will 5% of his or her
estate to a day school endowment fund. If this is implemented, day
school education will be available to all families who seek it,
irrespective of their financial resources or religious affiliation.
This is our communal responsibility.
Hanus proudly reported (interview, February 2, 1999) his progress in
Chicago, where Operation Jewish Education is firmly in place. "In
Chicago, every Orthodox Rabbi, all 228 of them, 90% of the Conservative
Rabbis, and 30% of the Reform- all signed this as mandate that all Jews
take 5% of their estate when alive or at death for endowment for the day
school of their choice. Everyone's got to give something. At least 5%
of what they' ve got. Our goal is to raise $300 million. At 7%
interest, every Jewish child in Chicago could have the option of
attending a Jewish Day School tuition-free until perpetuity."
Hanus was troubled by what he calls an "economic barrier to entry" ,
barring all but the wealthiest or most committed families from seeking
Jewish day school education.
We are convinced that massive amounts of money have to be placed in
endowment funds, locally and nationally, for two different populations:
those currently in the day school system, and those not in the system.
Those currently in the day school system, based on tuition that can
typically run from $7000 to $10,000 per year and up, per child, are
forcing current day school families into Chapter 11 bankruptcy. That
much tuition per student per year is unrealistic for the vast majority
of Jewish families.
The second population is those not currently in the system. Current
statistics are that 82% of Jewish families are not sending their
children to day schools. The more tuition increases, the less likely
people will be to take money out of their savings or living expenses and
make this a priority." (interview, Feb. 1999)
Hanus went on to project a disturbing split within the Jewish
community: "We are basically setting up an economic barrier of entry for
young families, and a blueprint for Chapter 11 for those in the system.
Our community will grow increasingly polarized between two factions:
those who know a substantial amount of Torah and those who know nothing.
And those who know nothing are sure targets for assimilation."
The idea of imposing a tax on all families in the Jewish community is
revolutionary in our times. The official reaction, by the National
Council of Jewish Federations, was to establish a 'task force' to look
into the feasibility of Hanus' scheme before signing on. But Hanus'
passion could not be contained, and he commandeered the full support of
his local Chicago Federation. The Jewish Federation of Metropolitan
Chicago agreed to form a Jewish Day School Guaranty Trust Fund, annually
paying out as income approximately 7% of its principal, per capita, to
all day school students in Chicago regardless of denomination. And the
Federation agreed to match all funds raised by individual school
endowment funds with a 10% contribution from their Day School Guaranty
Trust Fund.
When asked how long Hanus has been working on this idea, he answered,
"Six or eight months, We've started a billboard campaign, we're
collecting Letters of Intent from individuals, we've gotten people to
assign life insurance policies, grants; we've created a buzz around the
country! We've already collected a couple million dollars!"
Elliott Abrams, Director of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in
Washington, D.C., was generally supportive of The 5% Answer, but pointed
out that the majority of Jewish children will still turn down day school
education regardless of tuition. Abrams pointed out that Catholic
schools are well established and relatively inexpensive, but attract
only about 25% of Catholic children. "What about the others?" he
asked. (Gootman, 1998) Other resisters are concerned that
disproportionate dollars will go to benefit Orthodox Jews. Elissa
Gootman reported in the national Jewish weekly, The Forward, that "the
skeptical reaction the plan is getting in some quarters is also an
indication that there are still plenty of doubts about day school
education as a cure-all for the Jewish continuity crisis." (1998)
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From: Janet Rosenbaum <jerosenb@...>
Date: Sun, 22 Aug 1999 11:07:58 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Permissability of Obesity
Russell Hendel <rhendel@...> writes:
> As to the actual prohibition against obesity unfortunately it is not
> like smoking. For smoking is ITSELF an act. Obesity is not an ACT but
> an ATTRIBUTE of the act of eating excessively for a long period of time.
> Consequently there is no point in time
> at which you can point your finger at a meal and say 'That is prohibited'
additionally, there's a lot of variability in terms of what constitutes
"unhealthy" since even people of the same weight and activity levels may
need drastically different diets to lose weight.
since a prohibition on obesity would be problematic for these reasons of
it not being a well-defined act and not prevented by well-defined
measures, i was thinking about how the halacha on brachos would apply to
the question.
if someone's trouble was simply general overeating (which, some studies
have shown, tends to occur in the form of mindless snacking between
meals when bored. i.e., neither for nutritional benefit or taste), such
snacking could be achila gassa and is not actually eating, so one should
not say a brocha and thus should not eat because such is generally
considered to be a repugnant act. similarly if someone was completely
full and was going to eat dessert anyhow only for gluttony. to some
extent this is tenuous ground since one who might ordinarily snack
mindlessly could simply make sure they taste at least the first bite;
still, other studies have shown that merely making people pay more
attention to the food they eat (benefitting from the taste, that is)
will make them eat less.
on the other hand, r. forst writes in his sefer on the laws of brachos
that if an act of eating causes pleasure without acute harm, a bracha
should be made. he uses the example of a diabetic who eats sweets and
gets pleasure from them, despite any unhealthy side-effects which might
later come. this would seem to imply that if someone knows that there
are particular foods which are unhealthy for them (e.g., some people are
led to overeat when they have any sugary foods, and others for fatty
foods) because such foods are not acutely dangerous, one is not
prevented from saying a brocha and eating them unless there is a factor
such as a vow, though i can't imagine that a person who knew that
someone was trying to avoid certain foods shouldn't still not offer
them.
the references r. forst gives to his conclusion here are somewhat
sparse, though. on the diabetic he cites brachos 36a and bach 202, and
on the acutely dangerous, he cites responsum #260 of maharam shick (who
wrote in the late 19th century), so without looking inside any of them,
i would imagine that the actual definition of dangerous isn't so
well-defined in these.
> In passing, I note the fact that the AMA (American Medical Association)
> has recently revised its defintion of obesity: A person is obese if their
> BMI (Body mass index) is above 25.There is enormous statistical evidence
> that BMI above 25 (indepedent of any other factors) correlates highly
> with many diseases. The formula is
> BMI = 705x[Weight in pounds] / ([height in inches] x [height in inches])
> It is an excellent rule of thumb and guideline. Currently over 50% of
> Americans are obese
actually, 25-29 is "overweight", and 30+ is "obese".
this perhaps proves the difficulty we might have delineating the
problem, but the BMI is a notoriously poor gauge of overweight: given
that muscle weighs more than fat, many muscular athletes with very low
body fat percentages show up on the scale as overweight or obese. it's
still a decent guideline, but it's a good idea to cross-reference by the
met life insurance tables as well as to step on a demo model of a
bodyfat% measurement "scale" at your local home appliances store before
one reaches any conclusions about someone's overweight status.
my jumping to clarify this issue reveals another aspect of the problem:
those (primarily women) who develop eating disorders due to poor body
image, reinforced by general social concern for such issues. i would
guess that e.d. are somewhat less prevalent in the observant community
than in the world at large, but still not a non-issue.
janet
(harvard school of public health, though eating disorder epidemiology is
not my area.)
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From: Rick Turkel <rturkel@...>
Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1999 14:39:15 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Permissability of Obesity
Russell Hendel <rhendel@...> wrote in m.j 29#55:
>As to the actual prohibition against obesity unfortunately it is not
>like smoking. For smoking is ITSELF an act. Obesity is not an ACT but
>an ATTRIBUTE of the act of eating excessively for a long period of
>time. You cannot say that an individual act of overeating is
>prohibited (the way an individual smoke is) because eg if you have been
>working alot you might need the extra food. Consequently there is no
>point in time at which you can point your finger at a meal and say
>'That is prohibited'
I can't buy this. No matter how much an obese person is
working, there is no excuse for a high-fat, high-carbohydrate meal. I
would think that such a meal would be prohibited to any obese person.
The one issue not dealt with here, however, is that of a person
whose obesity is the result of a hormonal imbalance - not everyone who
is obese got that way from overeating; sometimes a person's size is a
problem of physiology rather than appetite control.
>In passing, I note the fact that the AMA (American Medical Association)
>has recently revised its defintion of obesity: A person is obese if
>their BMI (Body mass index) is above 25.There is enormous statistical
>evidence that BMI above 25 (indepedent of any other factors) correlates
>highly with many diseases. The formula is
>BMI = 705x[Weight in pounds]/([height in inches]x[height in inches])
>It is an excellent rule of thumb and guideline. Currently over 50% of
>Americans are obese
I can't believe that this formula is correct as stated. If it
is, then the AMA has been taken in by Madison Avenue's idea of what is
attractive, and it is itself at least partially responsible for those
who turn to binging-and-purging for weight control. I am 5'10" tall and
weigh 170 lbs., with a slim, muscular build and a bit of middle-age
spread. According to this formula my BMI is 24.46, i.e., I'm borderline
obese. I've been called lots of things over the years, but "fat" isn't
one of them. :-) Russell, are you sure of this formula?
Rick Turkel (___ _____ _ _ _ _ __ _ ___ _ _ _ ___
<rturkel@...>)oh.us| | \ ) |/ \ ein |navi| be|iro\__) |
<rturkel@...> / | _| __)/ | ___) | ___|_ | _( \ |
Rich or poor, it's good to have money. Ko rano rani | u jamu pada.
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From: Russell Hendel <rhendel@...>
Date: Sun, 22 Aug 1999 22:59:19 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Permissability of Obesity
In mj v29 n57 Rick Turkel writes that he is 170 lb, 5'10" and therefore
his BMI (705*170/ (70*70))=24.46 (YES THAT IS CORRECT)
Rick continues "Hence I am borderline Obese"
NO!. The recommended range is 20-25--everything in there is non
obese. The old recommendations state that 25-28 are borderline obese and
28+ is obese.
Furthermore a real doctor wrote me offline and corrected me: While the
original BMI studies may be well supported he was of the opinion that
the new recommendations (that obese starts at 25) have been criticized.
Finally Rick answers his own question when he says
> I can't buy this. No matter how much an obese person is
>working, there is no excuse for a high-fat, high-carbohydrate meal. I
>would think that such a meal would be prohibited to any obese person.
> The one issue not dealt with here, however, is that of a person
>whose obesity is the result of a hormonal imbalance - not everyone who
>is obese got that way from overeating; sometimes a person's size is a
>problem of physiology rather than appetite control.
That is my point. An individual person at an individual time may have
the "right" to eat a meal that for most of us would be wrong. Hence I
suggested formulating the question as "Are obese people obligated to
lose" not "Is any particular meal prohibited".
Russell Hendel; Phd ASA;
ModeratoR Rashi Is Simple
http://www.shamash.org/rashi/
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End of Volume 29 Issue 66
