While consumerism and materialism were once thought to reside outside the Orthodox experience, today, they have been brought in-house. Luxury tastes and habits now occur within a distinctly Orthodox sphere and reflect a clear religious logic and legitimacy.
Whether in the form of Judaica markets, the increasing size and amenities of a frum home, the rise of the luxury simcha industry, the emergence of food, wine, and entertaining culture, the frum fashion industry, high end kosher travel, the outsized proportions of certain Judaica silverware— luxury has been translated and internalized. These material markers each respond to the halakhic requirements and religious aspirations of Orthodox life. They are then propagated, amplified, and reinforced through print and online media channels that cater specifically to the Orthodox community.
Luxury is no longer a lifestyle that some who happen to be Orthodox share with other high net-worth Americans. Rather, as the norms of frum society shift, luxury has become a central part of an aspirational Orthodoxy. Attaining it no longer requires Jews to assimilate into the broader American sphere because it has been wholly assimilated into frum culture. American frumkeit itself has become a luxury brand. A closed culture with limited venues to enjoy wealth does not produce its own standards of luxury. Those who can afford it tend to do so in less religious and even “goyish” venues. The impact “echoes out” and bears little imprint on the culture and identity of yiddishkeit. For example: The cruises that Orthodox Jews of our grandparents’ generation embarked on in the 1970s and 80s were not designated as kosher. They ate “dairy,” or if more observant, “double-wrapped fish,” and saw and participated in the onboard entertainment meant for the general population. While not exactly a “don’t ask don’t tell” policy, people understood that these pleasures should be enjoyed discreetly, outside the earshot of the official organs of the Orthodox community.
Today, the cruise would be OU-level kosher replete with shiurim, minyanim, daf yomi, panels on frum topics, frum entertainment and entertainers, separate male/female swim times, etc. Such cruises are advertised in frum media, and frum influencers are paid to rave about it back to their followers. The cultural echo sounds “inwards.” Alongside Pesach programs, these are experiences that belong uniquely to Orthodox Jews and mirror and define their standards.
The New York Times has reported how kosher food has become far more sophisticated (“Tuna tartare is the new gefilte fish”), as people have more leisure time and resources to devote to upscale dining. Our communities abound with services for private kosher chefs, Michelin-star glatt kosher tastings, let alone customized proverbial “meat boards” now de rigueur at kiddush. One short-lived Orthodox men’s magazine called Mochers billed itself as “the premier Jewish Men’s Lifestyle experience” [sic], offering content on alcohol, meat, cars, cologne, “man caves,” “chosson’s watches,” and men’s fashion. Meanwhile, the successful glossy magazine Fleishigs caters to a high-end kosher clientele, trying to take their cooking and entertaining to a Saveur or Bon Appétit level. Even our charity events have gone luxe; whether cycling in Bike-4-Chai or dining in support of the Mir, one must marvel at the professional polish and sophistication of frum non-profits today.
Travel for the Orthodox Jew has also been seriously upgraded. Boutique Pesach programs sell not only luxury room and board, but identity and social capital: Access to a glittering dining room which allows one (and her eligible daughter) to be seen in certain social circles, scenes which Jane Austen would have enjoyed describing. One can now book a private kosher chef at many high-end international resorts, where they will mimic the hotel’s acclaimed menu to provide kosher guests the full local experience. Well-connected rabbis and Hasidic rebbes—whose ancestors may have been content to travel via horse-drawn carriages—now deign to fly private, borrowing jets from their billionaire supporters.
Some of these changes are welcome, making frum life ever more convenient and in some ways more sustainable and enticing for the younger generation. Tzeniut is easier than before as the disheveled basements of old have given way to the elegant shops of Central Avenue, Cedarhurst, and to the modest couture department store at the American Dream Mall—which of course comes replete with a kosher food court.
It is impossible to overstate the importance of social media in establishing these new norms, and in particular, Instagram, the social media platform of choice for most frum American women across age ranges. Religious texts extol the influence of the female homemaker in creating culture, and her online consumption has shifted the norms communally. On Instagram the typical frum housewife is bombarded with advertisements about haute couture long-sleeved dresses; recipes for racks of lamb for the yontef table; frum-friendly plastic surgeons offering mommy makeovers after the birth of the sixth child, Botox to hide the years of stress-induced wrinkles.
A recent video advertisement for a popular cookbook featured a faceless frum woman sporting the iconic Van Cleef Alhambra necklace ($17,800) as she prepares dinner for her precocious son. The advertisement sparked the usual furor of responses from frum women, raging about the shameless consumption, the spoiled child, the faceless woman, the palatial house—but once the outrage died down, the cookbook continued to sell. And with each sale, aspiration—walk into just about any frum jewelry store, and you’ll see the replica of that very same clover-studded necklace.
Tradition Journal
