The Chabad Wedding Planner

Devorah Benjamin zips up her fatigues — a black hooded sweatshirt with “The Wedding Planner” embroidered in fluorescent pink across the back — and is ready for another day’s battle. Her army stands at the ready: musicians, photographers, florists, hair and makeup artists, and a team of middle-aged mothers who volunteer their nights to cook and donate food. Their mission: to make weddings happen, even for couples who cannot afford them.

 

 

 

A Wedding Planner for All, Including Those in Need
By TAMIR ELTERMAN • New York Times

Devorah Benjamin zips up her fatigues — a black hooded sweatshirt with “The Wedding Planner” embroidered in fluorescent pink across the back — and is ready for another day’s battle. Her army stands at the ready: musicians, photographers, florists, hair and makeup artists, and a team of middle-aged mothers who volunteer their nights to cook and donate food.

Their mission: to make weddings happen, even for couples who cannot afford them.

“I’m a part of everyone’s lives,” Ms. Benjamin said recently. “If you walk around Crown Heights and say my name, people know exactly who I am. I’m a household name.”

In Hasidic households in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, she is.

The Dutch-born Ms. Benjamin is the founder of Keren Simchas Chosson V’Kallah, a nonprofit organization that pays for and plans the weddings. The foundation’s nearly $500,000 annual budget comes entirely from donations collected at annual fund-raisers and charity drives, and via mailed-in checks.

Ms. Benjamin explained that in most Hasidic households, parents are traditionally expected to pay for their children’s weddings, which average about $20,000.

In a community where families typically have many children, make do on one income and send their children to private religious schools, weddings can present intimidating financial obstacles. Still, the resourceful Ms. Benjamin decides to operate quietly, never divulging exactly what she donates to each couple.

“I tell the couples to pay for what they can, and I’ll do the rest,” said Ms. Benjamin.

Ms. Benjamin said her organization thrives because of the emphasis on charity among ultra-Orthodox Jews, though donations come in from non-Jews as well. It is not uncommon to receive anonymous checks in the mail for $1,000, she said.

“It all runs on miracles and miracles and love,” she said.

Comments

[Yechiel]

Why aren't the rats crawling out of their spaces and start the usual junk yet? I expect to see many comments on how this great Ba'alat Hesed is just another fraud and whatever rhetoric that usually follows.

[What kind of goyishe name is Harold z"l?]

Ok, let me be the first. She's just another fraud. I have proof.

[WoolSilkCotton]

Yes indeed, she is just another fraud. I also have proof. Yechiel, send me $20,000 with a stamped, self-addressed envelope.

Why does a wedding for a 'poor' family have to cost $20,000? Oh yeah. Get nonreligious Jews to pay for it.

[Yechiel]

I becry the situation of senseless spending. However even a cheap wedding is not cheap. Many people cannot afford a basic low cost no frills wedding.
Agreed; stop the extravagant wedding parties and go as cheap as possible; the heck with peer pressure. However, even that is never free. It's nice for someone to care. In my circles I know one individual who helps many unfortunate families wed threir children. He is very particular on how the money is spent. I give any spare money I have on many different occasions. I actually feel that my money went to a good cause.

[WoolSilkCotton]

Yechiel, I agree with you.

Give each new couple a $20,000 check instead of blowing it on a party.

[Thinking Jew]

I changed my web adress.

the-thinking-jew.blogspot.com

[MM3]

so whos screwing who?
she fundraises and poor lubav get a free wedding!

[who knows]

Halachic Jewish wedding could cost as little as $0.
Where is the need for $20,000.00 wedding comes from?

[Maskil]

who knows,

It costs more than $0.00. I had a halachic Jewish wedding in Jerusalem. We had to pay a registration fee, we had to buy wine, a glass to break, rolls for the meal, some food to serve at the meal. I didn't make a full inventory but it was at least 200 dollars for the required expenses. Without that $200 there would have been no wedding.

[Isa]

Read further into this...

The typical wedding costs $20,000

This lady does it for far less

My MO rabbi's wife, obtained used wedding dresses and sent them to Israel

[barry]

MM3. The screwee is the Great American Tax Payer. Both charity and hospitality are cash businesses and ideal for tax evasion and money launderinq.

[jay]

Odd are there are hundreds of people at these weddings. Even with a token plate of challah, gefilte fish and a cup of grape juice it runs into tons of money. IMO she has good intentions and is trying to help some poor people get a little joy in their lives at a milestone event. True, the money could possible be more constructively used, but if this is where charitable people want to direct their donations- it's entirely their choice.

[Yechiel]

WSC
I have been saying this for years; stop spending money on lavish weddings. Invite immediate relatives and limit to 5-10 closest friends for the wedding meal. People's hard earned money should be allocated to better use. I agree with you 100%; the money should be used to help the newly married couple get settled. If I ever attend a wedding, I make it a point to not participate in the meal. If more people will do so, maybe we can send a message to the world; stop spending money you don't have, foolishly!
Last but not least; the subjects of the wedding should have no say in the matter...

[yidandahalf]

Why are these chicks so fucking ugly?

[Shmarya]

Why are these chicks so fucking ugly?

Posted by: yidandahalf | April 10, 2011 at 08:55 AM

And why is that relevant, if it's even accurate?

[WoolSilkCotton]

The wedding in the video is for a somewhat older couple, and seems appropriately modest, meaningful, and menschlich.

BTW, the Kingston Avenue Bakery where they sat and planned is fantastic. Terrific cakes and breads, friendly service, and they make breakfast and lunch you can sit and eat there. Highly recommended! I could get married and have the reception in the bakery!

[Mark the Shark]

That is the worst bakery on this planet! I got sick eating their sushi. several months ago I found a long black hair (from the owner, no less) in my tuna sandwich ! and when I showed the owner, he started getting angry and then started yelling at me to get the hell out of his place !
The dude needs serious medication.
I am done with that lousy Bukharian place.

[WoolSilkCotton]

I never tried the sushi.

And if you wanted a sandwich without hair in it, you should have specified as such.

I will still go there. Sorry you had bad experiences there.

[Golem]

If only I could walk into a bakery, or other food store, and see people with their HAIR COVERED, as it's supposed to be when working around food.
But these days..... oh man don't get me started.

[Deremes]

What does a positive post about orthodox Jews do on this blog?

In williamsburg there are two wedding halls that does the wedding for $10,000 including everything.

[yidandahalf]

Well, it's relevant because while we read the story we have to look at her picture. In all honesty, at first glance I thought it was a man. What's the problem about wanting to look at good looking chicks?

[yidandahalf]

I couldn't finish watching the video; it's another schnorring shtick. Benjamin is no doubt, living large with what she can siphon off along with her cronies. It's a crock of shit.

[sam]

That Kingston Avenue bakery owner (the 'buchrian guy') has the freshest sushi around. He is extremely vigilant about that, and has often refused to accept fish shipments from his suppliers that was not up to his high standard. So his sushi is a safe as sushi gets (which MAY still be not as safe as cooked fish). The place is very clean and the workers' hair is always covered. Could a hair still find its way into someone's plate? I suppose it is still possible, but it certainly couldn't have happen to a better candidiate than the nasty "Mark the Shark".

[What kind of goyishe name is Harold z"l?]

And why is that relevant, if it's even accurate?
Posted by: Shmarya | April 10, 2011 at 09:12 AM

It is relevant because Chazal tell us that ugly wedding planners should not be planning weddings.

[Disgusted]

She is my closest friend's neighbor. When I was last in the US for Purim I brought my friend sholoch munes and then crossed the street to give her tzedoko. She lives in a cramped, small apartment in a 2-family house and I don't think she is the owner. What she does, she does leshem shamayim.

[WoolSilkCotton]

Sam, thank you. I always got the impression that the people behind the counter were doing a good job, and the prep area for making sandwiches and cooking breakfast was clean and proper.

Their cakes, cookies, breads and challah are superb.

The wedding planner does indeed look like a man with a wig. 'She' could easily become a 'he' and call himself Benjamin Devorah.

[ploni]

The Kinston Bake Shop owner is known to be a complete crazy nut job, who has called the health department on his neighbor Kingston Pizza to have them shut down, cause he feared competition.
I don't defend the violations they got but nevertheless this is not the way you fight competition.
This is not a menchlich way of doing business.
He is a rat ass.

[Anon Please]

Devorah B. is a sheister and con artist.
She does not make free weddings for the poor - she demands money again and again. Only the chosen in crowd gets a good deal. She made my daughter's wedding a living H-ll. she kept calling my daughter and saying there was not enough money for things - like flowers, etc. - and then she would call me demanding money.
And then, she said that the rabbis who said they would raise money did not, and I spent 3 miserable months fighting with everyone, making them force each other to do what they promised.
Most of the things the couple get are from other, legitimate wedding groups, like Yad Ten. but she takes the credit.
Meanwhile, her fund raising events - she spends 2/3 on the event, and only 1/3 for weddings.
Shmarya - should we post the whole thing?

[Anon Please]

The big weddings are part of the Machon Chana cult. these are the people teaching innocent young women that the dead rebbe is alive, and they promise them a big beautiful wedding for free. the girls marry anyone the slick rabbis tell them to, while the girl's parents are kept in the dark.
In other words, the huge wedding is used to lure the girls into marrying into the cult and usually ruining their lives.
Hideous.

[Anon Please]

Enter the real, anti-mother, anti family Devorah Benjamin, cult leader extraordinare:
http://www.kscvk.org/generic.asp?id=22
"Another bride, a baalas teshuvah (returnee to Jewish observance), came from an anti-religious family. Devorah not only helped arrange and pay for the wedding, but held the bride's hand throughout the ceremony, supporting her in the face of the spiteful parents."
FORGET YECHI - JUST PLAIN YECH!!!

[Ali]

You guys are not addressing an important point. The desperate culture of get 'em married, get 'em breeding is the bigger problem. Those weddings are just bribes. Think you want to go to school & not marry when you're 18 little girl? Let me flash this shiny ring & images of a big wedding to help change your mind.

The thought of turning into something as ugly as that creature is enough to scare me away from marriage!

[A E ANDERSON]

Kingston Bake Shop... my fav CH bakery is actually the one at the corner of Kingston and President: it's open virtually all night, and always has coffee available.

That's important in Crown Heights, because you really run up an appetite drayen zich arum en gasse, telling tall tales of lashon hara and rechilus, and posting pashkvilen on the lamposts. And ever since Chaim Baruch Halbershtam closed his famed Ess&Bench years back, there's been a shortage of late night places to refuel in Moshiach's capital city.

Amol, there was the Albany Bakery. It still exists but its not the same as when a bachur (or bum or anybody) could enter through the Eastern Parkway driveway, and for a token dollar or two stuff his overcoat full of fresh breads, black and white cookies, pastries galore. And back to 1414 President St. to chap a free quart of just-delivered milk sitting outside the back door before the kitchen staff arrive to take it in.

We'd pretty much just roam around Crown Heights at night, from one bull session to the next. At 11 pm, we might make a newspaper run to Grand Army Plaza, where the newstand got the early New York Times. Maybe an early drive in a rental car around Manhattan, to gawk at the prostitutes on West Ave (we were too shy, and probably too poor, for much else).

Bull sessions were best at Fourteen Fourteen, the normal 770 dormitory. Certain guys could always be counted on to hold court in their dorm rooms. Seven Forty Nine was by then mostly for DIBs on kivutzah. Occasionlly, we'd stop by Hadar Hatorah to engage the cracked baal teshuvahs. The idea was to chat with them earnestly and let them parody themselves with their overly earnest mannerisms punctuated by funny Hebrew and Yiddish pronunciation.

I don't think most BTs realise that when they're talking to Lubavitchers, they're really being laughed at much of the time. To the FFB Lubabvitcher, the BT almost always remains a "case," somebody to be dealt with on Mivtzoyim, rather than a true peer or fellow hasid.

Thanks for the memories.

[MM3]

Teh important thing to know is what do it mean a person gets married without a nickel in his/her pocket? no money work to pay for your own wedding@! why is somebody always bailing you out? no marriage until all the money is in the account, smaller weddings and less lavishing gifts
thank you

[rebeljew]

Why should people disparage this chesed? Why should a kallah hang her head if she didn't have the basics? If people want to see to it that she can spend the evening as a kallah queen, seeing relatives that may be from far away whom she may rarely see otherwise, instead of feeling like a shlump every time she sees her friends, why should we begrudge her? Judaism goes to lengths to avoid this kind of class disparity, which leads to feelings of not belonging, at ultimately to assimilation. It is ludicrous to divine something amiss here.

[Maskil]

rebeljew,

Because, rebeljew, the basics are a quarum of ten men, including two kosher witnesses, a wedding canopy, a cup of wine for the benedictions, enough bread for the 11 people to eat a se'udat mitzva, wine for the benedictions at the meal, wine for the afterblessing, a ring, a glass to break, a piece of paper and a pen for the ketuba - these are the basics. hachnasat kala is for the collection of money to give a guy enough incentive to marry a girl who otherwise would not be able to get married due to lack of money, status, good-looks, a nice personality, a good work ethic, emotional stability, intellectual development or a combination of the above - which can be solved with enough money of course.

It is ludicrous to divine something amiss here.

No, it is ludicrous to contend that a wedding with "the basics" is amiss of something divine. And what more is necessary?

[Dr. Dave]

We need a Rabban Gamliel (who had his funeral made simple to stop everyone from going broke on funerals) type Gadol to make an extremely simple wedding for his daughter to set an example for everyone.

[yidandahalf]

Great post, A.E.

[Anon Please]

Dear Rebel Jew; Bully Benjamin won't allow it!!
Funny point!
You wrote
"..people want to see to it that she can spend the evening as a kallah queen, seeing relatives that may be from far away whom she may rarely see otherwise..."
Well, just so you'll know, Benjamin's policy is the reverse.
She refuses to help a family if they bring siblings back to the US for the wedding!
Honest!
For example, one family had 2 daughters studying in Australia - common in Lubavitch circles.
Bully Benjamin was doing something for them and the wedding, and when she learned the sisters were coming back to USA for the wedding, she threatened to stop. The family was so desperate and dependent on her that they told the sisters to stay in Australia and miss their sister's wedding in the USA! In another case, the tickets were already obtained - maybe not even cash - and still Benjamin dumpted them.

[Yoel Mechanic]

>She refuses to help a family if they bring siblings back to the US for the wedding!

This is implausible. But if you really believe it to be the case, discussion with a Rav in private would be be in order.

[Maskil]

The Rebbe wrote to a young yeshiva student and subsequently publicly published his expressed opinion that the presence of a sibling at his sister's wedding is not required if there is already a minyan and does not justify missing days of yeshiva. It may not sound so implaiusible in this context, and it brings into question whether a Lubavitcher Rav could "re-educate" this woman.

[Hometown Postville]

Give each new couple a $20,000 check instead of blowing it on a party.
Posted by: WoolSilkCotton
I agree WSC! Or better yet, donate it to SMR's fund where it will be put to much better use!
But REALLY! In these times, spending what you don't have, just to save face, does not make good economic sense. If at least half of the Haredi population doesn't work, whose pocket is it coming from? Donating $20k to Haiti, Japan, or heaven forbid our own disasters in the U.S. would be much more commendable. Modern weddings in the U.S. joining career couples who already have established households sometimes request gifts towards charitable causes.

[Yoel Mechanic]

>But REALLY! In these times, spending what you don't have, just to save face, does not make good economic sense.

Here is the economic sense: those philanthropists who support this (which is certainly their free choice) are creating a ripple effect in the economy similar to that of giving out unemployment payments, which stimulates about $1.50 in economic activity for each $1.00 spent. Consider it subsidy for all the caterers, flower arrangers, make-up artists, bensher printers, tailors, dry cleaners, etc. Not a bad stimulus package but a far cry from the $3.00 ripple effect of a manufacturing venture. For my part, I would recommend the money be spent on rent & groceries while using money from http://www.fafsa.ed.gov/ to finance full time (preferable) or part time attendance at a local community college. In the long run this will be fulfilling the directive from Pirke Avot; learn a trade, so that...

[Moish the spacedout BT]

AE Anderson went drove at night to Manhattan to gawk at the kurvas and then hung out at Hadar ha Torah to make fun of the shleppy BT's.--- I was one of those shleppy BT's and your'e one of the reasons I'm not living in Crown Heights- you putz. I wonder if people like you were the rule or the exception in the 70's CH.

[Magic of Making Up]

I really think it's possible...and something I want to learn...to be succinct and still funny/meaningful/sad/obnoxious/insightful...the list goes on.