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Originally Posted by adam613
(I was once an Orthodox Jew, and have worked for two Orthodox Jewish companies.)
Like everything else in Judaism, it depends on who you ask. The people who own and run B&H are from a very very right-wing sect that lives upstate (in Rockland County). From what I understand, the guys in that community who can't cut it in yeshiva get sent to work at B&H.
The owner of B&H is a conservative (in lifestyle -- I make no statement one way or the other about his politics) orthodox Hasidic gentleman who happens to reside in Brooklyn. There are Hasidic enclaves in both Brooklyn and Rockland county. Saying that our Hasidic employees are those unable to "cut it in yeshiva," is gratuitously insulting. We have a diverse staff and many of our Hasidic employees are remarkably bright, intelligent, multi-lingual people with advanced degrees and a great deal of business acumen who elected to pursue careers in business. If every Hasidic boy grew up to be a rabbi, there'd be nothing else and each family's economic base would crumble.
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(While I don't know specifically what the rabbis of that sect hold with respect to B&H, there are a number of potential issues:
1) Most businesses owned by Orthodox Jews (excluding restaurants, which must close on the sabbath and holidays to be certified as kosher) can remain open on days when work is prohibited, assuming that all business activities on those days are conducted by non-Jews. But there are some who hold that an Jewish-owned business can not do any business, even when that business is conducted by non-Jews.
This is incorrect. I am not, nor have I ever been orthodox or Hasidic but it has been explained to me that on Sabbath and other days requiring Sabbath-like observance no work may be done by the owner or those under his control. This means no commerce. Once it meant no work for the family head and his family and servants, etc. Now it means the owner's company and its employees.
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2) There are also those who hold that if a Jew buys something from a Jewish-owned business on the sabbath, the owners of the business are guilty of violating the sabbath. So, if B&H were open, and I went in and bought something, it would be their "sin" (Judaism doesn't really have a concept of sin like Christianity, but that's the closest English word), so they can't stay open, or even run their website in case a Jew orders something. I suspect this is their main issue, because no other Orthodox Jewish-owned business I know of closes their website. Most Orthodox Jews hold that if I want to go into a store on Saturday, that's between me and God.
It's been explained to me that having the web site close for order-taking on Sabbath is our owner's preference, and not necessarily a rabbinic dictate. He's the owner and if it's his preference, that is that.
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3) The vast majority of B&H employees are hat-and-beard types, and a lot of the rest are Israeli. I'm not entirely sure they have enough non-Jewish employees to run the store or the website on the holidays.
The "vast majority?" nonsense. We have 1500+ employees and quite a few are orthodox or Hasidic Jews, but certainly not all and the "vast majority" is now ancient. Perhaps 10 years ago this was true, but times have changed. I understand that walking into our retail store our Hasidic employees are quite visible due to sartorial and tonsorial distinctions but if you look around you'll see plenty of people wearing green (sales) or blue (supervisor) or burgundy (support) employee vests.
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It does say on their front page that they don't process orders when they are closed. But I don't think it says so on the order page. That, I'm not going to try to explain or defend, because it's stupid and irresponsible :P
The information was peppered throughout the order-taking process and made available to customers placing web orders several times before the final click-here-to-submit page. We make EVERY effort to ensure customers are not disappointed when ordering here during a hiatus.
