A green tax imposed on single-use plastic four years ago — and later repealed — led to a long-term drop in support for environmental issues among ultra-Orthodox Jews, a new study shows.
The ultra-Orthodox community, in which families are often large and can use disproportionate amounts of disposable kitchenware, viewed this as a direct attack upon its way of life.
Israel is one of the world’s leading per capita users of single-use plastics, partly due to the Haredi community, which accounts for 13% of the population. This group uses more single-use plastics than any other demographic.
In November 2021, the coalition headed by then-prime minister Naftali Bennett introduced a tax on disposable plastic plates, bowls, cups, and straws. The environment minister at the time, Tamar Zandberg, predicted that it would reduce purchases of such items by 40%.
The tax on disposable plastic became a major political issue for this population, including during the national election campaign.
The Haredim joined the coalition headed by Benjamin Netanyahu.
The repeal of the plastics taxes were the first decision by new Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich of the far-right Religious Zionism Party.
The community is more highly affected by poverty,
Durable reusable utensils are wayyyy cheaper in the long run than disposable. So, bullshit. Poverty has absolutely nothing to do with this.
and families are often large, making affordable disposable kitchenware useful in easing the heavy burden of housework.
Wut? With that many people you can very efficiently distribute the work load and get things done a lot faster than one person living alone can do the equivalent amount of housework. So, again, utter bullshit.
This just sounds like self-righteous laziness.
You can get a family pack of metal utensils at the dollar store for like $5
$10 says the “disproportional usage” is largely tied to them not “working” on the Sabbath and using disposable utensils as a loophole.
See, this is how I know religious people are full of shit. “God is all-seeing, all-knowing, and all-powerful! Anyway here’s one of a couple simple tricks we do to get around his rules.”
Don’t forget the eruv circling Manhattan so they can ignore other Sabbath rules wholesale while going about their days.
Just pile them in the sink like a normal roommate!
Orthodox Jewish families managed to do just fine without plastic for thousands of years.
These ones think they need to destroy the environment instead of learning to wash.
I recommend we export all of our plastics to them instead of weapons.
Your religion is a choice. If single-use plastics make it more convenient for you to practice your chosen religion, to the detriment of everyone, go fuck yourself.
You don’t get to make the whole world pay for your choice.
Religion is not so much a choice, it is a conviction. If you believe in God and his laws, then you have to observe them as good as possible.
That is also not the point here. Jews did just fine without single use plastic for thousands of years. There is no religious reason as to why they need that stuff. I am not familiar enough with the specifics of Judaism to say for sure, but i would expect that the preparation for and work that is left over after the Sabbath is part of the concept.
So just leave the dishes and clean them the next day.
The research concludes that policymakers need to better explain the purposes of environmental legislation in culturally sensitive ways
I am so sick of the willfully ignorant expecting society to repeatedly bend over backwards to slowly drag them out of the dark ages without hurting their feelings. Fuck!
Is this because they can’t do the dishes between Friday night and Saturday night? Feels like a bit of a self-own. Haven’t people been Orthodox for thousands of years?
Yes they have. Also “Orthodox” is a quite difficult term in regards to Judaism. “Orthodox” Jews outside of Israel are among the strongest critics, as Israel is a direct violation of Gods command for Jews to remain in exile until the Messiah appears. (According to Jewish scripture). The Zionist “Orthodox” are already quite selective of which parts of their faith they emphasize and in which they are “flexible”.
Ultra-orthodox anything is going to be filled with nutjobs like this. They feel anything that slightly inconveniences their chosen brand of religion is an attack on religion itself. They want to have their stupidly large families but don’t want to pay for it themselves, either through work to wash dishes or through the tiny tax on their plastic forks. Same shit happens with Christians here in the US.
super concerned about cross-continuation in kosher context
wears mask below nose. And mouth.
There should probably be a tax on anything that can be described as “ultra-orthodox” of any kind. I’m not a theologian but I’m pretty sure the concept of “plastic” isn’t banned in any faith tradition’s holy book.
