The first thing to remember is that it’s not a Sefer. Spending time disproving it is pointless, because Oz Ve’Hadar Levusha is not a Sefer. It’s an etiquette guide disguised as a Sefer.
Look the thing I always find about Frummies is how in denial they are about how assimilated they are. Modern Orthodox Jews are fairly open about it, Haredim really spend a lot of time pretending that they’re not American or Israeli, even when they share the attitudes and mores and culture of their native country.
An American Haredi is American as much as he is a frummie. Same goes for an Israeli. Same goes for a Brit.
Now Haredim will naturally disguise their adaptations by making them frum.
Women in the workplace? Sure, put the women to work to keep the Kollels going.
A generation that expects its parents to support it through College, Graduate School and all of high education? Call it Kollel instead.
A generation that can’t manage its own finances or use credit cards and has a sense of entitlement? Get the In Laws to pay for it and call it Kollel too.
You didn’t really think that all the Frummie things you complain about were all the product of Eastern Europe? No they’re the Shtetl and America remixed.
What does this have to do with Oz Ve’Hadar Levusha? Can you think of a country whose headmasters would be so obsessive as to write an entire book detailing how their private school students should dress, down to the most minute details? If you guessed England, you are correct!
Who but a British headmaster would write a detailed book like Oz Ve’Hadar Levusha in the first place, a book of etiquette probably inspired by the very secular British tomes written for students. There’s nothing frum about Oz Ve’Hadar Levusha. Headmasters have been setting out insanely detailed OCD guidelines for students long ago. Oz Ve’Hadar Levusha just did it with a Frum covering.
Oz Ve’Hadar Levusha isn’t about Tznius, but about the notoriously detail oriented obsession of Private School Headmasters with regulating every aspect of their charges behavior in the name of propriety.
And now you know the rest of the story.
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