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Amazon Has Transformed the Hasidic Economy
- fortran77 7y agoBuzz Feed News (yes!) covered this same story with much more sensitivity several weeks ago. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/leticiamiranda/amazon-orthodox-jews https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/leticiamiranda/amazon-o...
- dangerboysteve 7y agoAnd fast company did this story back in 2013 https://www.fastcompany.com/3021229/chaim-pikarski-the-amazon-whisperer https://www.fastcompany.com/3021229/chaim-pikarski-the-amazo...
- microcolonel 7y agoHonestly asking what due sensitivity was missed here.
- fortran77 7y agoThey talk about the Hasidic community as if they were Martians.
- atonse 7y agoGot any examples? I didn't see anything like that in the article.
- enjoyyourlife 7y ago"Alexander Rapaport... often serves as an informal guide for reporters to the insular Hasidic communities"
- jf22 7y agoHasidic communities are extremely insular...
- ghostbrainalpha 7y agoCareful now... that comment seems to have a strong anti-Martian bias.
- mtnGoat 7y agoI didn't feel that it represented them like that at all. They are walk unique way of life and outsiders have questions, I felt it did a good job conveying why some of their religious practices make them ideal candidates for Amazon businesses.
- MisterTea 7y agoMy commercial tenant is hasidic and he and his brothers might very well be from mars. It's a very insular community and they don't mingle with outsiders as much so it can get a little strange or awkward. If I stop by and one of his brothers is there they act as if they are afraid to talk to me or dont want to. Feels awkward. If he's there, he hands me a beer and chews my ear off for an hour while chain smoking. Very cool dude and usually the convo is about interesting stuff like culture, art, life and politics. Though he admits that he is the black sheep of his family and half a pariah in the community because he does what he wants. Has more energy than the sun.
- joecool1029 7y agoUnderstand that the way Buzzfeed covered it obscures the very real fact that there's a huge amount of controversy regarding this specific Satmar Hasidic community. This is not a question of Antisemitism, there have been very real issues directly caused by prominent rabbis within this community. These controversies are known to pretty much anyone in the NY metro area, so it makes sense that the NYTimes (being located in NYC and publishing in the nyarea section) would cover it in such a way. They say this in the Buzzfeed article: >But on an economic level, this commitment translates into a 28% poverty rate among Orthodox Jews in New York, according to the UJA Federation of New York. Many Orthodox Jews find employment at religious schools and rely on welfare to support their large families, which have an average of seven children. This completely ignores that welfare fraud has been a perennial issue in the Lakewood [1] and Brooklyn [2] Hasidic communities. The community knows it can take advantage federal, state, and local programs so they do. The same community has issues with overt employment discrimination [3], and is also known for being one of the more vocal anti-vaxxer communities [4]. I deliberately chose local, Jewish, and official state sources to appeal to your sensitivities. I understand if you aren't from the area and/or have never associated with members of the Hasidic community so I encourage you to review and understand why the NYTimes article was written the way it was. [1] https://www.app.com/story/news/investigations/watchdog/2018/03/27/amnesty-program-results-lakewood-nj-welfare-fraud-arrests-recovery/948466001/ https://www.app.com/story/news/investigations/watchdog/2018/... [2] https://forward.com/news/351162/wealthy-orthodox-couples-charged-in-13m-brooklyn-benefits-scam/ https://forward.com/news/351162/wealthy-orthodox-couples-cha... [3] https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/ofccp/ofccp20170814 https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/ofccp/ofccp20170814 [4] https://forward.com/news/national/422354/hasidic-measles-outbreak-peach-handbook/ https://forward.com/news/national/422354/hasidic-measles-out...
- tdfx 7y agoI think anyone who is not familiar with these particular communities in Lakewood and Brooklyn will see warning flags of anti-semitism in a lot of related comments about them. I would just like to voice some support for the people speaking up about them, because this is not a problem with Jews, or even Orthodox Jews. It is specific to these particular Hasidic communities and the fraud is rampant and expanding.
- kova12 7y agoarticle is behind paywall
- eldenbishop 7y agoSeems like an unusually large percentage of posts on Hacker News are behind paywalls, some soft, some hard, some with a maximum free articles per time-unit. I peruse most of the top stories daily and can't read a good number of them making me have to just read the comments to get a sense of the article. It is seriously annoying. I wish there was some kind of flair or warning on these posts.
- helpPeople 7y agoI'm with you. Mods currate the front page, so everything I read here seems like an advertisement.
- dang 7y agoWe curate the front page for interestingness (see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html). Advertisement has nothing to do with it. If there's a class of articles you're seeing here consistently that you don't think gratifies intellectual curiosity, I'd like to know what they are. Usually the trouble is that users don't all share the same curiosity, but it's possible that we need to make a change somehow. We also try to make sure that hard-paywalled articles don't appear on the front page, though that's gotten complicated because those publications work differently for different users.
- curiouscats 7y agoThanks, keep up the good work. I agree with the other user that mentioned it would be nice to have some indication of hard or soft blocks. I realize that wouldn't be easy, especially to be completely accurate with, but even if it was done for a subset of sites that often appear it would be a nice feature.
- 7y ago
- jweir 7y agoAbout 6 years ago I ordered a tv on Amazon, it was going to be shipped out and delivered in about a week. About an hour later I got a phone a call with a thick accented voice – "John, John, are you home?" "Who is this?" "I got your TV, we can come over right now." Sure enough they pulled up with their van and I got my TV about two hours after I ordered. Unknown to me I had ordered it from a Hasidic run company just down the street from my home in Brooklyn.
- GhettoMaestro 7y agoNice! I wonder if the vendor gets his money earlier from Amazon if he delivered it faster.
- drdeadringer 7y agoAll other things being equal, if 2hr delivery happened to me I'd at least be tossing referrals around if not being a return customer [maybe they sell only TVs and I only needed the one].
- jweir 7y agoI dug up the seller info - Always A Deal https://www.amazon.com/sp?_encoding=UTF8&asin=&isAmazonFulfilled=0&isCBA=&marketplaceID=ATVPDKIKX0DER&orderID=111-2142812-5432229&seller=A1KA0BTOUH8C9F&tab=&vasStoreID= https://www.amazon.com/sp?_encoding=UTF8&asin=&isAmazonFulfi...
- CydeWeys 7y agoDefinitely. The credit card only charges when it ships.
- GhettoMaestro 7y agoI never thought about that. I figured Amazon was just being a middle-man for some insane amount of money and making a nice spread off of it.
- electriclove 7y agoPeople making a business selling on Amazon.. If you left out the religion, would this be a story? Is the point to get NYT and BuzzFeed clicks? Is it to get more attendance at the 'how you can get rich selling on Amazon' conferences? For better or worse, is it to show how a certain demographic is making a lot of money? I'm not a fan of these articles..
- gbear605 7y agoIt’s interesting that a extremely disproportionate number of Orthodox Jews sell on Amazon. The mesh (as opposed to clash) of religion and modern technology and culture makes the article meaningful.
- electriclove 7y agoThis type of article panders to a couple audiences: - 'Gee, those super religious Jews who I though are technologically deficient.. well they are really quite capable and successful selling on Amazon' - 'Those Jews are making a lot of money selling on Amazon' I have issues with both of those responses
- zaptheimpaler 7y agoSo you assume only bigoted responses to anything that mentions religion, meaning you have issues with any mention of religion at all. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- wbronitsky 7y agoThere seem to be quite a few people on this forum that both find this article interesting, and don't fall into the enumerated thought buckets. I, a Jew, don't think either of those things and do think this article is interesting and has merit.
- mlevental 7y agoit's interesting because it gives insight into a culture and community we typically don't have access to. the point isn't amazon - the point is the hasids.
- supahfly_remix 7y agoDoes the Hasidic community have any advantages in the reseller market? With some of their traditional businesses, such as the diamond trade they do: evaluating gems, connections for sourcing stones, etc.
- degenerate 7y agoI know nothing about the culture, but if the fathers are already in these trades and instill a business mindset in their sons early on, it makes sense that they excel in running the trades they grew up watching, listening, studying, and helping their fathers run.
- yellowstuff 7y agoB&H, an electronics super store in Manhattan, is owned by Hasidic Jews, and it sells new and used gear. The web site won't even take orders on Shabbat. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the people selling new or used electronics have some connection to B&H or another brick and mortar store.
- protomyth 7y agoB&H has been our goto place for electronics / computers lately. They deal well with educational institutions, will take a PO from an community college on a reservation in North Dakota, and have excellent customer service. I do keep track when I can order, for instance right now they are closed for Succos.
- brianpayne2 7y agoI had no idea. Ordered some camera gear from them years ago and they had great prices/service. Cool.
- electriclove 7y agoThere are also some online communities that facilitate networking in this area such as https://forums.dansdeals.com/ https://forums.dansdeals.com/
- undefined3840 7y agoI think there’s something about knowing you need to care for a large family (e.g. a member of a religion that values having lots of kids) that is motivating for entrepreneurs in a way I don’t always hear about e.g. entrepreneurial tendencies among Hasidic Jews and Mormons
- shoes_for_thee 7y agoThat'd be pretty to think so, but the wide majority of the Satmar community lives in poverty and is dependent on government benefits. The tendency towards entrepreneurship -- if there is one -- is more likely to be the result of being unwilling or unable to assimilate into a non-religious society. I can't speak for the LDSs, since I don't know them.
- jonny_eh 7y agoExactly, it probably has more to do with setting your own hours plus not needing to ask permission to take off for religious holidays or even Saturdays.
- undefined3840 7y agoI grew up with a lot of Mormons...anecdotally would say their families were more often SMB owners than not. Utah also has a pretty happening tech scene nowadays.
- richeyrw 7y agoI am a Mormon SMB owner, and I agree with your point, but in the interest of full disclosure, there is a darker side to this tendency as well. Utah (read Mormons) is the MLM capital of the world, with other get rich quick schemes being pretty popular as well. https://talkingpointsmemo.com/theslice/mormon-utah-valley-multilevel-marketing-thrive-doterra https://talkingpointsmemo.com/theslice/mormon-utah-valley-mu...
- jermaustin1 7y ago
- searine 7y agoConsidering how prevalent state-provided aid is among ultra-conservative sects like this, it is good to see a viable career path for them.
- defterGoose 7y agoKinda funny how antithetical that is to tradional conservative values regarding entitlements.
- LegitShady 7y agothe 'conservative' here does not refer to traditional conservative politics that include those values. You're being confused by two definitions of 'conservative'.
- defterGoose 7y agoI'm really not though. I'm aware that 'conservative' has specific religious connotations, but on the Venn diagram with political conservatism, there's a lot of overlap. Trump won many predominantly Jewish districts in the last election.
- LegitShady 7y agoNonetheless the values of receiving and giving charity are more common in the community in question than your comment about conservative values, because conservative doesn't mean "trump supporter" or "same values as Republican party". So aware or not your previous comment was wrong in every way because you cannot or will not separate different meanings of "conservative". You smeared all with one brush and your subsequent worldview is just as nonsensical as one would expect from such a nonsensical approach to viewing others. Your comment was the opposite of insight - anyone who read your comment was actively mislead. You are fake news.
- defterGoose 7y ago
- Mathnerd314 7y agoThe manufacturing is in China; I wonder how the tariffs affect them.
- nullbyte 7y agoThe article says they acquire most of their merchandise through local, physical clearance sales. I don't think they're ordering much from China.
- avremel 7y agoFor those who are manufacturing private label items in China, tarrifs are have the potential to be damaging (depends very much on the product category).
- seibelj 7y agoYet another example of how a decentralized free market has innumerable and unexpected positive outcomes, such as letting a restricted and insular community become prosperous and self-sufficient. Don't be fooled by calls to allow the government to take over tech - this outcome would never have been centrally planned by any bureaucrat.
- cm2012 7y agoEarly in my career, I worked for two companies run by orthodox Jews that sold lots of goods on Amazon.
- julianozen 7y agoThis makes for interesting contrast with this two part story on Reply All about a Hasidic Jew who discovers the internet and begins to struggle with his community. https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/39hzw2 https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/39hzw2 https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/awhm5x https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/awhm5x
- knodi123 7y agowow, that was a great story, thanks for sharing
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- evancox100 7y ago'“Whatever you decide to sell doesn’t matter as long as you meet Amazon’s requirements,” he said.' That's about all you need to know about Amazon these days.
- qwerty456127 7y agoAmazon is great yet I wish there were more sites like Amazon and eBay so healthy competition between them would stimulate further improvement. BTW why people won't use OpenBazaar instead?
- ghostly_s 7y ago> BTW why people won't use OpenBazaar instead? I strongly dispute your "Amazon is great" statement but I digress. I think I heard about OpenBazaar when it launched but just checked it out again and having no web frontend for a marketplace is total crazysauce. People who are looking to buy something elsewhere from Amazon find those storefronts through search.
- toasterlovin 7y agoBuyers go where there are sellers. Sellers go where there are buyers. This is the classic network effect.
- glennpratt 7y ago> BTW why people won't use OpenBazaar instead? Disputes and legal recourse.
- realthing 7y agoFor anyone struggling to understand why this might be interesting , do yourself a favour watch “one of us” on Netflix. The disparity between Hasidic culture and our modern world is massive.
- azernik 7y agoBelated cultural note: Both the article and many in this comment section are using the term "Hasidic" to refer to all ultra-Orthodox (aka Haredi) Jews. This is not the case. As the article briefly mentions, Hasidism is a recent (~18th-century) ecstatic religious movement that split off from conventional ultra-Orthodoxy. Non-Hasidic Haredim originally called themselves Misnagdim ("opposition"), but these days are usually called Litvish ("Lithuanian", since that was the stronghold of Misnagdi thought). The two have since reconciled over their combined opposition to later secularist Jewish religious and political trends, and through the efforts/existence of groups like Chabad which blur the binary; but the separate identities are still strong. Borough Park, the neighborhood the article is about, happens to be majority Hasidic, but also has a substantial Litvish minority which is subject to all of the same pressures and constraints that draw Haredim of all stripes to online businesses.