Being a part of the Orthodox Jewish community, I'm not so sure this is true. I live in NY, and while my experience is largely anecdotal, it is very rare for me

Being a part of the Orthodox Jewish community, I'm not so sure this is true. I live in NY, and while my experience is largely anecdotal, it is very rare for me to meet an Ex-Soviet, and I'm pretty confident I can say that I've come in contact with a significant percentage of the other Orthodox kids my age when I was in High School (three years ago.) The truth is the Orthodox Jewish community pushes education a very much. In the Modern Orthodox community this translates into both Academic and Torah learning. While in the Ultra Orthodox communities, this often times (not always) translates into learning Torah for most if not all of the day. It is also very expensive to live an Orthodox Jewish life. Kosher food is more expensive, living in an Orthodox community is more expensive, and Jewish private school tuition is a minimum of $19,000 a year per kid for high school. It is pretty much a prerequesite to make over a hundred thousand in order to live in the Orthodox community.