Ultra-Orthodox Jews: Who the Haredim Are and How They Live

Let me be honest with you about something right away: nobody I grew up with in Brooklyn called themselves "ultra-Orthodox." The word does not exist in Yiddish, it is not a term any rebbe ever coined, and you will never hear a woman in Williamsburg introduce herself as an ultra-Orthodox Jew. That label comes from the outside. It comes from newspapers and documentaries and people trying to categorize something they find hard to categorize.

Inside the community, the word is Haredi — from the Hebrew charad, to tremble, as in trembling before G-d's word. You can read more about the term Haredi and why the community prefers it. But since "ultra-Orthodox Jews" is the phrase the whole world searches for when it wants to understand who we are and how we live, I am going to meet you where you are and give you the real picture.

I grew up Hasidic in Brooklyn. I went to Bais Yaakov. My husband is Litvish, from Lakewood. My children go to Orthodox schools. I have been inside this world my entire life, and I can tell you — it is nothing like what you see on television.

Who Ultra-Orthodox Jews Are

"Ultra-Orthodox" is the outside world's term for Jews who live according to the most traditional interpretation of Jewish law — what we call halacha — and who structure their entire lives around Torah observance. These are Orthodox Jews for whom Torah is not one part of life among many. It is the organizing principle of everything: what they eat, how they dress, who they marry, how they raise their children, how they spend their time.

The Haredi world has grown significantly. According to Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics, there are about 1.3 million Haredim in Israel. In the United States, the Pew Research Center's 2020 data found that 9% of American Jewish adults identify as Orthodox, with 17% of Jews under 30 identifying that way — meaning the community is growing, not shrinking. Globally, there are roughly 2 million practicing Orthodox Jews, with Haredim making up a substantial portion.

The Two Main Streams: Hasidic and Yeshivish

Here is the most important thing to understand: "ultra-Orthodox" covers two very different worlds. If you understand this distinction, you understand most of what you need to know.

Hasidic (Chassidish)

Hasidic Jews are followers of specific rebbes — spiritual leaders who head dynasties passed down through generations. The movement was founded in 18th-century Eastern Europe by the Baal Shem Tov, a revolutionary teacher who insisted that every Jew — scholar or not — could connect to G-d through sincere prayer and joy.

Each Hasidic group (or "court") has its own rebbe, its own distinctive clothing, its own prayer melodies, and its own customs. The major groups include Satmar (concentrated in Williamsburg and Kiryas Joel), Bobov and Belz (strong in Borough Park), Vizhnitz, Skvir, and dozens of others. Chabad-Lubavitch, while technically Hasidic, is unusual in that it runs a global outreach network and has a more open relationship with the broader world.

I grew up Hasidic. I can tell you that life inside a Hasidic community is warm, full, and deeply communal. The connection to a rebbe, the singing at a Shabbat tish, the Yiddish spoken at the kitchen table — it is a complete world.

Yeshivish (Litvish / Lithuanian)

My husband is Yeshivish — or Litvish, as they also say. This stream traces its roots to the great yeshivos of Lithuania: Volozhin, Mir, Slabodka, Ponevezh. The ideal for a Yeshivish man is intensive Talmud study, ideally for many years after marriage. There is no single rebbe figure. Instead, guidance comes from leading roshei yeshiva and poskim — halachic decisors.

The Yeshivish world does not have the same colorful variation in clothing as Hasidic communities. The standard look is a black hat, white shirt, and dark suit. Clean, dignified, uniform. And while Yiddish is spoken in Yeshivish homes, English tends to be more dominant in American Yeshivish communities than in the most insular Hasidic ones.

Understanding the full contrast is worth its own read — see Yeshivish vs. Hasidic for a deeper dive. And if you want to understand where the Haredi world ends and the Modern Orthodox vs. ultra-Orthodox line begins, that distinction matters too.

Where Ultra-Orthodox Jews Live

The Haredi world has very specific geographic centers. This is not an accident — communities cluster together because nearly everything in Orthodox life is walking-distance dependent. Synagogue on Shabbat, yeshiva for the children, the mikveh, the kosher butcher — all of it needs to be within reach.

United States

Brooklyn, New York is the capital of American Haredi life. Borough Park is largely Hasidic — a dense, thriving neighborhood of yeshivos, shuls, kosher restaurants, and Jewish-owned businesses on every block. Williamsburg is dominated by Satmar, probably the most insular major Hasidic community in America. Crown Heights is the global home of Chabad-Lubavitch. Flatbush is more mixed Orthodox, but has a large Yeshivish and Sephardic presence.

Lakewood, New Jersey has transformed over the past few decades into one of the largest Haredi communities in the world outside of Israel. Beth Medrash Govoha, the flagship American Litvish yeshiva, sits at the center of a community that has expanded across entire surrounding townships.

Monsey, New York (in Rockland County) has a large and growing Haredi population — a mix of Hasidic and Yeshivish communities spread across neighborhoods like Spring Valley and Wesley Hills.

Kiryas Joel, a village in Orange County, New York, is an almost entirely Satmar community — incorporated as its own municipality, with its own public school district, its own ambulance corps, its own everything. It is probably the most self-contained ultra-Orthodox enclave in North America.

For more, the Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods in America guide goes into real detail.

Israel

Jerusalem and Bnei Brak are the twin centers of Israeli Haredi life. In Jerusalem, the neighborhoods of Mea Shearim, Geula, and Ramot are heavily Haredi. Bnei Brak, a city just outside Tel Aviv, is probably the most densely Haredi city in the world — a place where the Litvish yeshiva world runs deep and the streets empty entirely on Shabbat.

Newer planned cities like Beitar Illit and Modi'in Illit were built specifically as Haredi communities and have grown rapidly.

Europe

Stamford Hill in London is the heart of British Haredi life — a large Hasidic community with multiple shuls, yeshivos, and kosher establishments. Antwerp, Belgium has historically been a center of Haredi life, particularly connected to the diamond trade. Manchester, Zurich, and Gateshead also have established communities — many of them rebuilt by Holocaust survivors who refused to let their traditions disappear.

How Ultra-Orthodox Jews Dress

Clothing in the Haredi world is not fashion. It is a statement of identity and values.

For men, the standard Haredi look in the Yeshivish world is a black hat, white shirt, dark suit, and a beard. Among Hasidic men, clothing varies significantly by group — and for those in the know, it tells you exactly which community someone belongs to. Round black hats, high fur hats (shtreimels or spodiks) on Shabbos, long black coats (bekishes), white stockings — these details are group-specific markers. Among married women, hair is covered — either with a sheitel (wig), a tichel (scarf), or a snood, depending on community custom. Dress is modest: sleeves past the elbow, necklines high, skirts below the knee.

Language: More Yiddish Than You Think

In the most Hasidic communities — Satmar being the prime example — Yiddish is genuinely the first language. Children grow up speaking Yiddish at home, in school, and with friends. English is the language for dealing with the outside world.

In Yeshivish communities, Yiddish is present but English tends to be dominant, at least in America. Yeshiva shiurim (classes) are often given in Yiddish-inflected English — a style that anyone who has spent time in a Lakewood beit midrash will instantly recognize. In Israel, Hebrew is the language of daily life even in Haredi communities, though Yiddish remains the language of many yeshivos.

Education: The School System

The Haredi school system is entirely separate from the public system, and it is comprehensive.

Boys start in cheder — elementary school — where the curriculum is almost entirely religious from the start. They move on to yeshiva ketana (middle school equivalent) and then yeshiva gedola, where the serious Gemara learning begins. For Yeshivish men, yeshiva can extend well into the twenties and even thirties, funded through kollel stipends.

Girls attend Bais Yaakov schools — that is where I went — or similar seminaries. These schools combine a strong religious curriculum with secular studies: English, math, science, history. My Bais Yaakov education was serious and rigorous, and I am grateful for it. After high school, girls typically attend a one- or two-year seminary before marriage.

The Orthodox Jewish education system is structured this way for a reason: the community believes that transmitting Torah values requires immersion, not just Sunday school. It works — retention rates in Haredi communities are very high.

Family Life and Family Size

Haredi families are large. Six, eight, ten children is not unusual — it is celebrated. Children are understood as a bracha, a blessing, not a burden. The community is built to support big families: there are gemachs (free-loan societies) for baby equipment, wedding gowns, and medical needs; community organizations provide food assistance; neighbors help neighbors. For a deeper look at the theology and sociology behind this, see why Orthodox Jews have large families.

Marriage happens young — typically in the early-to-mid twenties — through the shidduch system. Families research potential matches, the couple meets several times, and both parties must genuinely agree. Nobody is being forced into anything.

Work, Money, and Economic Life

The stereotype that ultra-Orthodox men never work is outdated and was never entirely accurate. What is true is that young married men in the Yeshivish world often learn full-time in kollel for several years — sometimes a decade or more — supported by stipends and often by the wife's income. Eventually most enter the workforce.

In America, Haredi men work in real estate, tech, healthcare, education, diamond trade, retail, and finance. Haredi women have always worked — as teachers, therapists, bookkeepers, nurses, and business owners. In many Litvish families the wife is the primary breadwinner for a significant stretch of the couple's early years, and she carries that responsibility with dignity.

Technology: Deliberate, Not Hostile

The Haredi relationship with technology is complicated — but "hostile" is the wrong word. See Orthodox Jews and technology for the full picture.

The concern is not the technology itself. It is unfiltered access to content that contradicts Torah values. Many Haredi homes have filtered internet on a work device. Smartphones with unrestricted internet are actively discouraged; many community members use filtered smartphones or basic phones. The approach is: take what is useful, guard against what is harmful. It is not the dark ages — it is thoughtful.

What "Ultra-" Gets Wrong

The prefix "ultra" implies someone took something reasonable and pushed it to an extreme. From inside the community, that framing does not compute. We are practicing Judaism the way it has been practiced for centuries — the way our great-grandparents practiced it before the upheavals of the modern world forced Jewish communities to make difficult choices about what to preserve and what to let go.

Haredi Jews are not the extreme version of a more moderate norm. They are the continuation of a tradition. Whether you find that admirable or difficult is up to you, but calling it "ultra" is a bit like calling a French speaker who learned French from birth an "ultra-Francophone." It is simply what they are.

The Haredi world is also not monolithic. A Satmar Hasid in Williamsburg and a Brisker yeshiva student in Jerusalem share a halachic commitment but inhabit genuinely different cultural worlds. The category "ultra-Orthodox" flattens all of that into a single caricature.

A Note From the Inside

I grew up in this world and I chose to stay in it — not because I had no other options, but because I saw what it produced in the people around me. My mother ran a house overflowing with children and never missed a morning of prayer. My father built a business and gave tzedakah without fanfare. The families I know have their struggles like any families, but they also have something that is genuinely hard to find elsewhere: a clear sense of what matters, a community that shows up, and a life built around something that does not change with the headlines.

That is what ultra-Orthodox Jews are, behind the label. Call us Haredi, call us frum, call us whatever makes sense to you. Just know that whatever you call us, we are a lot more interesting — and a lot more ordinary — than most outsiders expect.