Poll: "How should the pritzus problem during Simhath Beth HaShoevah be stopped?"

25 of the Seventh Month 5769

Well, time's up, and the results have been tabulated. Many of you are already familiar with Blogger's poll feature (See "Layout" - "Add a Gadget"). This one was my first, and I had a little fun with it.

Every year in Jerusalem, though not so much this year, there is an uproar over the "Pritzus" problem (immorality, permissiveness, promiscuity) during Simhath Beth HaSho'evah (today's vernacular for "Sukkoth celebrations). "Pritzuth HaGadder" (lit.: "breaking through the fence") can include anything from women being dressed inappropriately in public, intermingling of the sexes, male-female chit-chatting, hand-holding or worse, which I will not mention here. Like it or not it's a bit of a subjective term these days, as are "inappropriately," and "intermingling."

Scientifically, there are many problems with this poll, mainly sample size, sample draw, and even response choices. The opportunity to vote for some of the options may have been more of an incentive to bother to vote at all, than other options.

I won't even bother with any statistical tests, such as an analysis of variance. It wouldn't mean much anyway. However, I believe that I can infer a few things from the poll, or at least have a little fun and guess at who reads my blog, or at least visited the URL at least once.

First, here are the responses and the associated results:

Answer	# Votes	%
1. Get Toldos Aharon and Toldos Avraham Yitzhaq to stop serving food.	1	3.6%
2. Impose a curfew on the women.	2	7%
3. These heinous and oppressive acts of the patriarchal hierarchy must stop!	4	14.3%
4. What pritzus problem?	21	75%

I am quite surprised that only one person voted for #1, probably the most neutral and logical of the four options. The person who voted for this option is probably one of the few people who voted who has actually ever visited one or both of these batei midrash. (I know that there are more than one of these individuals who has paid them a visit.) Feeding the hungry is an important misswah. Yet, providing only drinks will attract those actually interested in the music and dancing, and not just in sitting around fressing and kibbitzen.

Those who voted for #2 simply want to know who is at home watching the kids. Yeah, right. I'll take the Fifth....

Those who voted #3 include tinoqoth shenishbah, feminutsies, and/or followers of "She who must not be named" (AKA: The Dark Mistress). I threw in this option to see what would happen. But then I made the mistake of mentioning the poll while commenting on a post by Jack at The Muqata, where such individuals might have been lurking about at the time. I don't regret mentioning it. I just think it may have skewed the results, and now there's no way to know for sure.

Those who voted for #4 include a diverse group of people, which I believe includes, but is not limited to, "American Haredim" (not all Haredim who are American fall into this category, not by a long shot), Modern Orthodox (who didn't vote for #3), mainstream Chabba"dniqs (as a lot of the complaints are against one of their Sukkoth celebrations), mamlachtim, and Jacob Da Jew, who like myself, sometimes finds himself outside of the box.