Turkish YouTuber Ruhi Çenet, known for documentaries about unusual ways of life and closed-off communities in different parts of the world, has turned his attention this time to the lives of Hasidic Jewish communities in New York City.
Çenet’s approximately 40-minute video, published on August 26 under the title “America’s Most Secretive Jewish Community: Hasidic Jews (I Spent 48 Hours Inside)”, reached tens of millions of views in a short time.
However, viewing figures were not the only reason the video became controversial in the United States. Sections of the documentary about large families, working life, religious education and some families’ use of American social assistance programs generated wide discussion on social media.
“Are American taxpayers financing this way of life?”
One of the most debated sections of the video concerned some low-income Hasidic families with many children receiving public benefits such as Medicaid and SNAP.
As excerpts from Çenet’s documentary spread in the United States, the focus of the debate shifted from the Hasidic way of life to the American social assistance system.
The issue reached a broader American audience after U.S. streamer Asmongold discussed the video during a broadcast. One question came to the forefront of the social media debate:
To what extent are American taxpayers covering the cost of large, low-income families receiving substantial public assistance?
The figures draw attention: About 70 percent have Medicaid coverage
The debate surrounding Çenet’s video is also linked to notable statistics.
According to a 2025 study by YAFFED analyzing 2018–2022 data from the American Community Survey, approximately 63 percent of New York’s Hasidic population lives in poverty or near-poverty conditions.
Among the compared non-Hasidic population of New York, the rate is approximately 27 percent.
The difference in public assistance is even more striking. The study found that more than 40 percent of the Hasidic population receives SNAP, the federal food assistance program, while approximately 70 percent is covered by Medicaid.
The study found that Hasidic people receive SNAP at approximately three times the rate of the other New Yorkers in the comparison group, and Medicaid at a rate of more than twice as high.
The study also identified significant differences in the economic indicators of Hasidic men. It stated that approximately 30 percent of employed Hasidic men work fewer than 35 hours per week, while the median income of men is approximately 30 percent lower than that of the comparison group.
Debate over more than $100,000 in assistance for a 10-person family
One of the most widely shared sections of Çenet’s documentary on American social media was a calculation based on an example family of 10.
The calculation presented in the video suggested that such a household could receive approximately $26,160 in SNAP food assistance, a $13,600 child tax credit and approximately $75,000 worth of Medicaid health coverage.
Under this calculation, the total economic value of various public benefits and health coverage could theoretically exceed $100,000 per year.
There is, however, an important distinction.
Not all of this amount is money paid to the family in cash. The approximately $75,000 figure given for Medicaid represents the estimated economic value of health coverage.
Medicaid, SNAP and tax benefits related to children are not special programs provided to Hasidic Jews because of their religious identity. Eligibility requires applicants to meet income, household-size and other requirements of the relevant program.
Large families affect social assistance rates
The traditional prevalence of large families in Hasidic communities is also an important part of the economic picture.
According to research by UJA-Federation on New York’s Jewish community, the average Haredi household consists of 4.7 people. The average household size among non-Haredi Jewish households is 2.4 people.
The same study states that approximately 53 percent of Haredi households are living in poverty or near poverty.
This picture is cited as one reason that large households are more frequently eligible for income-based programs such as Medicaid and SNAP.
“They do not work and the state supports them” does not fully reflect the picture
At the same time, the data also presents the other side of the debate.
According to the UJA-Federation study, approximately 80 percent of adults living in poor or near-poor Haredi households work.
Therefore, the available data does not support characterizing the entire Hasidic community as “not working and being supported by the state.”
The central debate arises from the combination of low incomes, very large families, time devoted to religious education and the structure of the American social assistance system, which is based on income and household size.
Public funding for yeshivas had been debated before
The issue of Hasidic communities and public funds is not a new debate in the United States that emerged with Ruhi Çenet’s video.
In 2022, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that Brooklyn’s Central United Talmudic Academy had pleaded guilty to charges related to schemes involving various public programs.
According to federal authorities, the institution agreed to pay a $5 million fine and had previously made more than $3 million in restitution.
The case’s total financial impact therefore exceeded $8 million.
Although this incident cannot be generalized to all Hasidic schools or the broader community, it became an important example of a debate that has continued for years in the United States over New York’s religious schools receiving public funds.
Other investigations by the American press have also raised the issue of hundreds of millions of dollars in public funds being directed to companies serving Hasidic and Orthodox schools through special education services.
Ruhi Çenet brought an old American debate back into focus
This is perhaps where the most notable aspect of the impact of Çenet’s video emerges.
The approximately 40-minute documentary filmed in New York by a Turkish YouTuber once again brought issues debated in the United States for years—including social assistance, religious communities, education funding and the use of taxpayers’ money—before millions of people.
On one side are those who argue that American citizens who meet income requirements have a legal right to receive the same social programs as other citizens.
On the other are those who argue that the cost of a lifestyle built around very large families and low incomes, with intensive use of Medicaid, SNAP and other public programs, is ultimately imposed on the rest of society and taxpayers.
Çenet’s documentary does not provide a definitive answer to this debate. However, the images it presented and the figures brought back into focus after the video have reopened a highly sensitive question in the United States:
To what extent are Hasidic communities themselves, and to what extent are American taxpayers, paying the economic cost of the communities’ traditional way of life?
