On Monday, just two weeks after a big demonstration sparked by an incident in which an ultra-Orthodox man spat at a local 8-year-old girl dressed "immodestly," another student at Beit Shemesh's Orot state religious school was targeted by Haredi teens on the short walk home from school.
The victim this time was a third-grader, whose parents asked to identify him only as A. He was surrounded by a group of boys who shouted and spit at him and then threw a large rock in his direction that hit him in the back.[,,,,]
At any other point in Jewish history this people would be put in cherem...
ReplyDelete"targeted by Haredi teens on the short walk home from school...a group of boys who shouted and spit at him and then threw a large rock in his direction that hit him in the back"
ReplyDeleteWhere are their parents and grandparents? Also out throwing rocks and spitting? Oh, yes, they are maybe in kollel all day and don't have time to control their kids and grandkids. Maybe they are too busy schnoring from Americans and the koisel, who knows? Where are the mothers, sisters even wives of these rock throwers, do they pack them off each day with snacks and blessings to 'have a good day throwing rocks and spitting at your fellow Jews, and don't forget to curse, oh, and here, here's a dirty diaper with smelly feces in it to throw as well, and by the way, smash a window or two of some stores you don't like'? Can God be smiling and be happy with all this?
Spitting, rock throwing, hitting, cursing...is this what they have been taught in their homes and yeshivos??? Is that the kind of behavior that's inculcated by the chinuch in the serious Torah school system they attended??? Are they no better than crazed fanatical Arabs and Muslims who have attended fundamentalist madrasas, chas vesholom? Or no better than zombies brainwashed to commit acts of violence with zero ability to be flexible or total inability to act human and humane to other Jews? Have they no shame, no self-respect, no sechel, no middos???
Is this not fascistic and hateful behavior of the worst order? And then they will "complain" and shout "Nazis" when the Israeli police will inevitably be called in to restore order.
Charedim are about to learn some very tough lessons in life. They are not the only ones that can play hardball.
The only thing that will put a stop to this spiral of violence is when the leaders, meaning the top rabbis, poskim, dayanim, rebbes and roshei yeshiva will SPEAK UP WITH ONE VOICE and do at least two things: a: CONDEMN any and all forms of violent acts by ANY Charedi child, teen or adult and b: call for a STOP and BAN any Charedi child, teen or adult who performs any such anti-social, violent, degrading acts to others.
If Charedi society cannot police itself, and in fact deludes itself into thinking that it can get its way with acts of aggression and confrontation, they lose. They win themselves NO "allies" of any kind (perhaps maybe only in Iran) and they will find themselves arrested, charged, put on trial and jailed in greater numbers until such time they learn to behave civilly.
Netanyahu has already put forward the proposal that there be a proposal to SEPARATE the Charedi community in Beit Shemesh from everyone else. This is like the policy that was adopted to build the separation fence and separate the Palestinians from the Israelis, and the way things are going downhill, the Charedim will find themselves separated by literal walls and barriers from the rest of Israeli society, unless they can take themselves in hand, the leadership wakes up that it cannot foment violence and turn a blind eye to the consequences, and lead their followers with strength in the ways of darkei Shalom and ahavas Yisrael towards EVERYONE!
And then stories come out about how people don't want to rent to Chareidim or how when new neighbourhoods are being planned they are designated "Chareidi-free". And who can blame them?
ReplyDeleteIt's not the fanatics that are causing all the damage. We always hear declarations like "The heavens trembled!" and "The foundations of the Earth moved!" when it comes to something like "And they opened a parking lot on Shabbos!" but when it comes to this? Cue the sound of crickets chirping.
Until rank and file Chareidim start to complain in public, until the PR machine like the Shafrans of the world stop justifying or ignoring this behaviour, until we get a statement from the Agudah stronger than "Well yeah, they shouldn't act like that, we guess, but tznius is so important!" then hatred of Judaism and religious Jews will spread and we will have no one to blame but ourselves.
While this article is important as a commentary on how every minor incident in Israel is currently being politicized, I am not sure that actual incidents described have any significance at all. The article describes two incidents:
ReplyDelete1. A single chareidi man threatened to "kill" a dog. (Having grown up myself with a pet dog, I can testify that irrational fear of dogs is extremely common among all Jews, not just chareidim.)
2. A group of "boys" (or "teens") bullied a younger boy.
Note that, for both these incidents, we only have second hand descriptions from a third-grader. I don't think the boy is lying, but, again, as the father of two current third-graders, I can attest that they are not always reliable in their descriptions of events, especially if they are upset.
I agree that there should be no tolerance of the anti-Torah and anti-halachic pseudo-chareidim in our midst. (See my recent post on this topic: http://shesileizeisim.blogspot.com/2012/01/cultural-jews-in-our-midst-pseudo.html ) I believe that the real problem is that we refuse to recognize that many apparently frum Jews are wolves in sheep's clothing, who do not really hold Torah values. This current crisis is only the most recent example of many such problems in our community.
At the same time, the secular Israeli media is currently engaged in an open campaign against the chareidi communities, and is knowingly obscuring critical distinctions and blowing incidents out of proportion. We don't need to accept their interpretation of events to recognize that we have a problem that must be dealt with.
The problem is not the failure of rabbis to condemn violence. That is simply silly. The people who would accept the message don't need it and the people that need it wouldn't even hear it. What is needed is to openly recognize that the people involved in this behavior are not to be considered religious Jews, with all the halachic implications thereof.
Unfortunately, as in other situations of this sort, no one is going to do this, because, contrary to the popular view, the problem with the genuine chareidi community is that we are too tolerant, and we refuse to ostracize groups that have veered off the proper path.
LazerA: Umm, let me guess,, The 'proper path' just happens to the one you're one on, right?
ReplyDeleteDovy, are you saying that the pseudo-chareidi radicals are on the right path?
ReplyDeleteIf not, then, by definition, you recognize that there is some kind of objective standard within Judaism that that enables us to assess if a group is, or is not, on the right path.
In which case, I don't know what is bothering you.