Today he writes:
Full-time learning is seen by some as a necessary strategy for keeping one's head religiously above water in a predominantly non-religious environment. Even though the common Eastern-European Orthodox Jew was not studying in kollel, he was surrounded with religious life. He would pray three times a day and often say Tehillim or attend an Ein Yaakov or Chayei Adam shiur. Home life followed tradition, Torah and mitzvot. There was a not uncommon custom for a baalabus who worked all week to stay awake all Shabbat night and learn. There were cobblers who knew Shas. The modern Jewish environment is so much more secular. Many basic Jewish values and mores are just ignored by many. Kollel might be a necessity even for many Jews, even if they are not necessarily the most gifted in order to retain a strong religious life."Gil's guilty here of forgetting the realities of life in eastern Europe. After the Enlightnement and Emancipation, there were Jews everywhere, who (even in the heliga Eastern Europe) ignored "basic Jewish values and mores." The haskalah, remember, flourished in Russia. Though it's true, the smallest of the small shtetls would not have had a community of secular Jews, most Jews, in the 19th century, lived in cities (list below), where irreligious Jews were every bit as easy to find as they are today.
The rest of Gil's claims are no better. Most Orthodox Jew, in 2005, live in Orthodox Jewish enclaves where they are "surrounded with religious life" just like their European forefathers. The Orhtodox Jew in 2005 may not learn Ein Yaakov or Chayei Adam, but he probably attends a daf yomi, or some other shiur; also, he "pray[s] three times a day and often say[s] Tehillim." and he enjoys a "Home life [that] follow[s] tradition, Torah and mitzvot."
So why does Gil think that the average orthodox Jew of 1905 was more surrounded by religion than the average orthodox Jew of 2005? Bizarre.
Some Eastern (and Central) European cities with large Jewish populations
Breslau (Poland)
Brest, or Brisk (Belarus)
Budapest (Hungary)
Cluj-Napoca (Romania)
Czernowitz (Chernivtsi, Ukraine)
Danzig (Gdańsk, Poland)
Glogau (Głogów, Poland)
Kiev, Ukraine
Kovno (Kaunas, Lithuania)
Kraków (Poland)
Lemberg (L'viv, Ukraine)
Odessa (Ukraine)
Pinsk (Belarus)
Posen (Poznań, Poland)
Prague (Czech Republic)
Riga (Latvia)
Vienna (Austria)
Vilna (Vilnius, Lithuania)
Warsaw (Poland)