Putting Money Where the Torah Is: New Haredi Consumer Bloc In Israel April 30, 2007

From The Jerusalem Post:

The haredi community launched what might prove to be the nation’s largest-ever consumer bloc on Sunday.Dozens of yeshivot, seminaries, women’s schools and other educational institutions from all walks of haredi society - Lithuanian, Hassidic and Sephardi - plan to concentrate their buying power. Working together, these institutions hope to eliminate the middlemen and pressure wholesalers to lower prices.

The official creation of the consumer bloc was announced Sunday at a conference at Airport City near Ben-Gurion Airport.

I say it time and time again. Economic empowerment is the key to the upward mobility of any community. Charedi Orthodox Jews, who for a while had the dubious honor of being Israel’s most hated group, battle against institutionalized stereotyping (because even working 12 hours a day, to some the pe’ot still mean “parasite”) and often voice complaints of Torah values being undermined and all but done away with in some sectors of Israeli society.But when potentially millions of shekels go walking, the businesses come talking. In Yiddish and lashon ha’kodesh. With a rabbi in front of them.

“We hope to achieve savings on staple products and food of as much as 30%,” said former Knesset Finance Committee Chairman Ya’acov Litzman (United Torah Judaism)…Every fourth baby born in Israel is haredi and so is 52% of the Jewish population under 18 year old.

Haredi demand for some products - such as diapers, soft drinks and public transportation - far exceeds the community’s relative size in the general population. This became apparent during the El Al boycott: Haredi consumers, guided by their spiritual leaders, put pressure on the national airline to stop flying on Shabbat by brandishing their disproportionately high demand for aviation services as a bargaining chip.

“No other consumer group enjoys such discipline and unity,” said Dr. Shlomo Ness, an attorney and accountant who chairs the professional advisory committee that will help the amalgam of haredi institutions organize under a single banner.

First of all, let us not overlook the gravity of that statement: the demographic majority of Israeli youth in 2007 are charedi Orthodox. Bli Ayin Ha’ra!Orthodox institutions from all over Israel, uniting under a single banner, to make sure that Torah-observant consumers have their concerns addressed and their needs met. Making sure Torah gets a fair shake in the Israeli business arena.

A new application of Torah im derech eretz — Torah together with the business world.