Enough: Israel Crushes Extremism. Others Promote It.
The myth must be dispelled. Religious extremism is not taking hold in Israel. It is being squelched. In a world where fanaticism and fundamentalism are so rampant, the citizens of Israel are putting on a clinic regarding the only way to stem the tide of the ever-spreading reach of such ideologies: staring it in the eye and calling it what it is: bad, evil, unspiritual, ungodly, and intolerable.
I live in Bet Shemesh, a small suburb of Jerusalem, which has been thrust into the international limelight because of an eight-year-old girl named Na’ama — a friend of my daughter. For years, elements of intolerance from a radical, fanatic minority of the population have been slowly bubbling to the surface. I and others in our community have organized protests and general community activism to slow the spread of this radical element. But even I could not have imagined the turn of events over the last few months that finally galvanized the hearts and minds of the Israeli public towards putting a stop to this menace, once and for all.
For the first month-and-a-half of this school year, radical, religious fanatics verbally assaulted young girls like my neighbor Na’ama on their way home from school for not being dressed according to their standards of modesty. I, together with other concerned adults, took it upon ourselves to be near the school on a daily basis to protect the girls on their way home.
In doing so, we were subjected to attacks from the extremists, including verbal insults, spitting, as well as physical abuse. We did not stand down.
While protecting the girls, we lobbied the police and governmental authorities, demanding that they intervene. The police did react with more force as time went on, but continued to allow these fanatics to scream at the girls because of “freedom of speech and expression” — including two recent instances where the extremists returned to the school. Yes, Western values at their best.
That is, until Na’ama told her story, primarily through tears, to a national television audience.
Seeing firsthand how a sweet, innocent little girl was living in constant terror because of the religious demands of fanatics mobilized the entire country. Within hours, thousands of Israelis across all religious and political affiliations were planning a march on Bet Shemesh to “protect little Naama.”
The resulting rally created a unified platform that included the participation of top national politicians, who publically denounced violence and religious extremism. Secular and ultra-Orthodox, right-wing and left-wing, men and women, adults and children including immigrants from all over the world stood on the same street where the extremists launch their assaults on the little schoolgirls. Their message: “Enough! This behavior is forbidden — according to Judaism — and will not be tolerated!”
The result of this unprecedented demonstration of national unity and revulsion: the police have become more aggressive, arresting numerous extremists within the past few days for verbal assaults. National leaders are now talking about zero tolerance towards any religious extremism. We are not in the clear yet, but the tide has turned.
The overwhelming majority of Israelis — including most ultra-Orthodox — know that core values of Judaism include “love they neighbor as thyself” and “its ways (the Bible) are ways of pleasantness,” and as a result other extremist instances are now being addressed on a national level as well.
Fanatics want women to sit in the back of certain public buses? Now, women ignore those demands and sit in the front of those buses.
Fundamentalists hang signs demanding that women only walk in certain places or dress in certain ways? Municipal authorities are now taking the signs down.
Women dressed in burkas and the like? The rabbis issue warnings that this is not the Jewish way, which has always been to respect women.
Powerful stuff. I found this video on the Rabbi as well http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gbnqZGpa9A
Rabbi Lipman seems very well-intentioned, and I whole-heartedly endorse his effort to build a broad coalition for civil co-existence in Israel, but there is one critical thing he says in this video that I think is highly debatable. He says that the police cracking down will bring positive change because “…the police are more powerful than any group of religious extremists.” I think that entirely depends on the degree of success in building the broad coalition that is the other part of his program. As it stands now the zealots are in a stronger tactical position in certain areas than the police. The police avoid entering these areas, and when they do, they go in force and leave quickly due to the danger of triggering larger-scale, violent resistance. I was once in Ramat Beit Shemesh Beit when a police van entered the neighborhood. The windshield of the van was smashed in, and an officer fired in the air before withdrawing from the area. There are virtual “no-go” zones.
Of course people involved in abhorrent violent actions need to be arrested. However this is a band-aid, not a solution. If this situation were solvable by increased police enforcement, it would certainly have been solved years ago. Fact is that assertion of greater police authority in these areas is viewed by many residents as a *foreign incursion* which draws greater opposition, much like many Arab towns, setting up a negative feedback loop that increases, not decreases, conflict. In a scenario of uncontrolled feedback, the zealots win, because a broader, sustained increase in police “incursions” will draw an ever-increasing number of charedim into the fray, and the police have no will nor mandate to set up huge internment camps for charedim.
I think the police have made this calculation, and that’s why they keep things on as low a flame as possible. I surmise that they will turn up the heat temporarily, and back off again as soon as the spotlight fades. If the Rabbi and allies–and count me among them–succeed in building a broader societal consensus, so that could change things, maybe, eventually.
Without police enforcement of the law, a broad coalition against extremism can’t take hold as the extremists will just fortify themselves in ghettos like you describe and continue to spread their ways from there.
Just see what happened when Israel allowed Hamas and the PLO to do just that in Gaza and the West Bank (though for now the extremist Jewish groups aren’t resorting to the level of violence the PLO and Hamas have typically employed, once cornered they might).
So yes, strong police action (with help from the IDF is needed) to “crack open” those strongholds and enforce the law there may well be required and should be a part of any coordinated campaign.
It’s the only way to show the extremists in no uncertain ways that they’re not welcome even in their own homes.
I do not think that the govt could succeed in giving such orders and having them followed. I believe that a very large number of “national religious” and traditionally-oriented Sephardim (which is the preponderance of Sephardim) would quickly come to side with the charedim in such a scenario. It is a nightmare to contemplate, you are talking about civil war.
No that’s not the way. The way is persuasion, continued encouragement of charedi involvement in the workforce, army and broader society in general, which will lead to a gradual moderation of views with increased inter-sector contact, and the eventual isolation of the hard core of extremists.
The anti-religious, secularist faction in the media and courts will also need to be brought to heel in this process. There is extremeness there as well. Remember, this is a country founded by Marxists, where young devout Yemenite children were separated from their parents, had their side curls shorn, and were forced to eat non-kosher food on kibbutzim. This is a painful two-sided family feud here. There is no precedent nor template here. The situation is very fluid and dynamic, and of course there is always the threat of external attack as well, with its own impact on the internal affairs. We do a lot of praying over here.
I don’t think the Ultras are in much of a position to be giving out fashion tips.
I saw a video of the police arresting some of them. Serves ‘em right, if they’re bothering little girls.
I lived for 9 years in the Ramat Beit Shemesh Beit, the area where the most extreme groups in Beit Shemesh are primarily based, as part of a small Chabad community which co-existed with these groups while taking great exception to much of their behavior. I used to daven (pray) at the Ram”a synagogue where many of the radicals are to be found, and got to know some of them fairly well despite my limited Yiddish. Some points:
1) There is a small minority, maybe 20-30 people, in that area that seems to thrive on the conflict, and likes it rough. This is the hard core that one has to assume cannot be negotiated with.
2) There is a much larger group that wants primarily to be left alone and not be exposed to anything–including less stringent Orthodox Jews–from “outside”. This group is not feeding on physical confrontation as its raison d’etre and could, in theory at least, be negotiated with.
3) Both the larger group (basically the Eida haCharedis and allies), and the smaller group (basically Neturei Karta and allies) believe that they were lied to in the course of the planning of the neighborhoods they now occupy. They believe, rightly or wrongly, that they made some kind of an agreement by which the neighborhoods were supposed to be isolated. The fact that a main traffic artery passes through the neighborhood (HaYarden Street), for example, bringing traffic to the heart of the neighborhood on Shabbat, is taken as an open wound and a deliberate betrayal.
4) Any approach to these communities which does not take account of the fact that their existence pre-dates Zionism and the state, and that they reject both, is doomed to failure. You cannot throw a few hundred thousand people in jail, nationally, especially when the attempt to do so will draw a half a million to their side. The article creates a false impression, I am sure unintentionally, that the people making trouble have representatives in the Kenneset. Neither the larger nor the smaller faction participate in any elections at any level, municipal or otherwise, as a matter of core religious principle. The more “moderate” (Agudah-affiliated) groups that do participate in elections at times try to manage their own conflict with the rejectionists by taking more stringent stands in the political arena, but they do not represent them.
5) The religious leadership of these groups openly states that they do not have control of the radicals in the streets. I went and met with one of them when my wife was threatened as she erased graffiti from the side of a building. I would say that these Rabbis are scared of the hard core.
6) The police unfortunately are not always professional in how they deal with these groups. The lack of appropriate personality screening of police in Israel is a problem for many people, including settlers, hippies, club-goers and others.
7) The periodic presence of extreme secularist groups from nearby kibbutzim, who I have witnessed driving en masse with music and horns blaring through this neighborhood on Shabbat as a deliberate provocation, does nothing to calm the situation.
As far as a solution, I’m pessimistic on the near term. I think it will only come as part of a more general sorting out of the relationship of Judaism and the state on a national level. I stand firmly with the families being victimized by the abhorrent behavior of the some of the radicals. If the American olim are going to stay and fight they need to be mentally and physically prepared for a real turf war. I do not think that many of them really understand what they are up against, and if they did, most of them would leave now.
Neturey Karta are one of the most extremist groups in Judaism. Israelis in general don’t see them as anything but crazy twisted fanatics. They hate Israel as much as our enemies do, they hate secularists, they hate Orthodox Jews, they hate everyone. To them we’re all heretics and therefore evil. On Memorial Day, when the nation is grieving the loss of life in wars and terror, some of them dance in the streets to express just how much they hate us. Some years ago several Neturey Karta had a very friendly meeting with Ahmedinejad to express how much they hate us. Of course, Ahmedinejad exploited the useful idiots for his own propaganda purposes. Some time later one of them gave it some more thought and regretted this show of support for a man who advocates genocide. It was nice to see someone so blinded by hatred could still find his heart somewhere inside this dark insanity, but that’s just one person.
“The periodic presence of extreme secularist groups from nearby kibbutzim, who I have witnessed driving en masse with music and horns blaring through this neighborhood on Shabbat as a deliberate provocation, does nothing to calm the situation.”
That’s actually good, IMO. Of course, you’ll disagree with me as a religious Jew. And many others will disagree with me because the natural tendency is to avoid conflict. But I think it’s better to have it now since the more we postpone it the worse it’ll get. The secularists would leave them alone if there were not crazy extremists throwing stones at cars that just happen to drive next to Haredic neighborhoods on the Sabbath.
We’ve tolerated such behaviors for far too long in the name of avoiding conflict and respecting people’s feelings, but of course, this respect isn’t mutual. People who see me as an evil heretic and hate people like me to the point of dancing on our blood can’t even live and let live, let alone respect anyone else. Israel in general tolerates too many radical behaviors from different groups – whether it’s Haredic fanatics, the Tag-Price movement, the Islamist movement, the ultranational Arab movement. This tolerance just emboldens them and they feel they can do anything without ever paying a price. Things don’t get better because we avoid conflict, they get worse. We have to set some boundaries and some red lines that we won’t tolerate crossing. We should make clear that there are some things we are willing to fight for.
In the end we are the people the Haredim have to live with. I understand that they want to live in their own enclaves where they’ll never have to see a woman in jeans and t-shirt, but I just don’t accept it anymore. It’s the fact that we’ve allowed such enclaves to exist out of tolerance that made them feel they can get away with thuggish behavior. I have a right to enter any place in Israel whenever I want to and wearing whatever I want to. Whether it’s a Haredic neighborhood or a Muslim town or an Arab town. And if anyone assaults me they should stand trial and go to prison. The State should assert its authority everywhere in Israel. Yes, in the beginning it will result in conflict, but in the end all the various minorities that today won’t stand my presence will get used to having to stand my presence.
What we need is more of them modern-Haredim who understand and embrace democratic values also when they’re the ones having to do the tolerating.
Yes the Neturei Karta’s views and actions are bizarre and extreme. They represent taking a certain ideology to its logical extreme. However, when you use terms like “crazy twisted fanatics”, “insanity”, “blinded by hatred” and list all the people that they “hate”, you are dehumanizing them, and have not begun to try to understand them.
On another point: If you believe that a cop has the right to stop someone in Tel Aviv for walking naked in the street, you should probably accept that tank tops and tight jeans are unacceptable in charedi areas. You say that you are ready to “fight” to force charedim to accept your standards of public dress and decorum, and yet you criticize them for not reciprocating your “respect” for them. What respect? I think that your position is problematic, even as I empathize with your basic goals.
Lesson one in debate: never compare something that doesn’t happen to something that does. One is academic, the other reality and never the twain shall meet.
Except in your head.
There’s toplessness on the beaches here. It’s often tolerated, I suspect sometimes not. Tel Aviv sets its standards, but it also wants to set the standards in Mea Shearim (charedi neighborhood in Jerusalem), and there it runs into trouble. The underlying point or issue is that there are communities here that pre-date the state and its laws, and do not accept the state’s right to impose its standards upon them. They view themselves as outside the “social contract.” And the state does not seem to be able to muster the moral authority amongst the general population–even the “secular” population IMO–to forcibly impose its will on these communities. On some level or another, many Jews here, and that will include many of the police called upon to enforce the laws, are sympathetic to the charedi claims. Look, the Supreme Court here is viewed with outright disdain not just by charedim, but in fact by a large segment of the population, including most of the political right wing. The issues raised with respect to “charedim” are in fact very fundamental ones about the state, for exmaple: Does it have the right to forcibly “transfer” Jewish communities to Arab hands? The charedim say in a similar vein that the state has no right to establish communal standards of behavior in their areas.
“If you believe that a cop has the right to stop someone in Tel Aviv for walking naked in the street, you should probably accept that tank tops and tight jeans are unacceptable in charedi areas”
If there’s a law, enacted by the Knesset and signed by the president, banning public nudity, I’m all for enforcing that (not that I agree with such laws, IMO any laws requiring or banning specific modes of dress are a violation of the basic human right of freedom of expression). That’s quite different from some Rabbi or group of elders in a neighbourhood deciding that in the blocks surrounding their homes jeans and T-shirts aren’t allowed, with no ground in democratically agreed upon laws.
Not for them. They disagree that the Israeli govt decisions and laws supersede the authority of the Rabbis, except when the Rabbis agree. Traffic laws, for example, are conventions that are regarded as halachically (Judeao-legally) binding, even by the most extreme anti-Zionist rejectionists. No one says that you can decide to drive on the left side of the road as in the UK. Beyond that, there are factions.
There is a serious, ongoing, core issue of “consent of the governed” in Israel. When the Supreme Court has tried to coerce the charedi world on a core issue, the latter have mounted huge demonstrations. I recall when I was a yeshiva student in the 1990s in Jerusalem that there was a demonstration that all the rabbis of all the groups called to attend. That is very rare, for them to call for suspending Torah study for a day for such a thing. I don’t even remember what the issue was! But I do remember that the Supreme Court was surrounded by a peaceful protest of upwards of 400,000 people. There is a special blessing in Jewish law that is recited only in the assembled presence of 600,000 Jews–the number that left Egyptian slavery. I recall that some were estimating that that number had been reached and to recite the blessing!
Consent of the governed will be needed here.
An Israeli cop has no right to stop someone walking naked unless there is a complaint. There is no law against nudity, gay soldiers, or even religious laws, there are laws for total freedom of expression. We have Jews and Arabs in our parliament who don’t accept our existence and don’t stand to attention on our memorial day of our fallen.
The Ultra orthodox refuse to serve in the Army. The Ultras study only religion and have no possibility of getting a proper education, and we are, through unhealthy coalitions forced to pay for it all!
The super- super Orthodox ( who broke from Nuterie Carter , who are more or less pro Hamas – they believe that the Jews can only have a state after the messiah comes!)are the ones who were demanding that little 3 year old dress properly ( making them, in my opinion, pedophiles)are violent.
Many people here regard them as a greater danger to our existence than the Arabs as they tend to multiply like rabbits. (BTW the Ultra Orthodox don’t give a damn about the West Bank this way or that, as they don’t believe in the State anyway.
The biggest Chutzpah is that we (Zionists) saved them from the Nazis in the Holocaust!
Your rhetoric is pretty ugly, dude. Reminds me a lot of some of the neighbors back in Ramat Beit Shemesh, with the high tones and all. Do you have that thing with spittle spraying out just a bit when you really get going? How about the neck veins, they pumping along nice and thick?
You’re bordering on what could be called “eliminationist rhetoric.” But I expect that that sort of thinking and mode of expression is acceptable in the circles in which you move, much as it is in parts of Beit Shemesh.
Pardon me, I’m going to go and crank out a few rabbits. Lehisraos!
Any approach to these communities which does not take account of the fact that their existence pre-dates Zionism and the state, and that they reject both, is doomed to failure.
Gee, where else can your statement be applied?. Throw a concrete wall around them, hassle them at the gate every time they need to go somewhere, regulate their every move, require a permit for their every action and maybe things will work out.
…or insist that their side has lost the ideological war. Truthfully, anyone with a modicum of common sense knows that they stand to benefit far moreso by putting down their fists and other implements of destruction rather than continuing to obsess over obsolete ideologies that have long since been proven wrong.
The State is a reality and no amount of religious fantasy/psychopathic denial will change that.
Lol…some people just don’t get it.
Whatevs…
How bizarre to claim a border fence amounts to a “concrete wall around them”. After that extreme characterization the rest of your post is worthless
Thank you for your worthless response. Two statements prior to yours shows the shows the entire problem in a nutshell, the first being the one I responded to and this one:Truthfully, anyone with a modicum of common sense knows that they stand to benefit far moreso by putting down their fists and other implements of destruction rather than continuing to obsess over obsolete ideologies that have long since been proven wrong.
Is hypocrisy something that comes from nurture or nature?
You create and live by a class system and them wonder why you have problems when some people don’t agree with you. Good luck with the inmates. I imagine the whole thing will collapse on itself.
In every activity there is one or a group who will take the charter and intent way too far. There are weekend hikers and then there are “extreme” hikers who consider it their religion. The same happens in religion itself and takes the goodness out of it. It’s not a new phenomenon and it really comes down to the need for some people to get recognition and notoriety and…control over others.
The good news is that when all the fun is being sucked out of an activity, it turns other people off. The bad news is that it can be so pervasive that you end up with Iran.
This has been going on throughout human history. But to Israel’s refreshing attitude toward these extremists I say, “Hear, hear!”
Rabbi Lipman – Nice article. I hope you end up being more correct than Yaacov Lefcoe. Just two corrections: It’s not ‘Arab Spring,’ it’s ‘Arab Winter,’ and it’s not ‘Israel Autumn’ it’s ‘Israel Summer.’
Well, maybe the Rabbi can change the reality I describe. He appears to have the ambition; I basically just voted with my feet. I wish him every success, believe me.
As seculars writing to a secular audience it is easy to label your opposition ‘extremists’ and to tell all kinds of stories about their dress code and personal habits.
But there is one fact which seculars (of whom I am one) usually leave out of discussions about conflicts between Orthodox vs secular Jews.
An overwhelming percentage of the children and grandchildren of secular Jews cease being Jews. A majority of the children and grandchildren of Orthodox Jews remain Jews (while a percentage of these children fall away from Orthodoxy and join the stew of those who will eventually fall away from Judaism).
Secular Jews live in the ‘now.’ They often ignore the effects of their actions on the future. Orthodox Jews attempt to grasp the eternal.
All in all, I think I made a mistake being secular.
It depends how you define a Jew. For millennia Jews were considered also a nation and not just a religion. The Hebrews were a nation before there was a Hebrew religion. It’s only with the rise of the more extremist types of nationalism in Europe that some Jews (most notably the progressive German Jews) decided Jews are no longer a nation, but just a religious community, because this crude and extreme form of nationalism didn’t recognize ethnic minorities and defined them as a nation within a nation and therefore natural traitors.
Secular Jews in the US might lose their Jewish identity. But in Israel I speak my ancestral language as my everyday language, I read Hebrew books, listen to Hebrew songs and watch Hebrew TV. The Hebrew culture here draws from both Western and Jewish sources. Jewish holidays are celebrated across the country. I just happen right now to try and translate the lyrics of some popular songs to English, so I just realized how difficult it is when some of these lyrics have references, images, metaphores and word plays rooted in Jewish experience – the bible, Jewish history, Jewish literatures, Jewish proverbs, the Hebrew language – things a stranger won’t understand unless you explain to them, which you can’t do within the translation. They’re all secular songs. I have a strong and unconflicted Jewish identity. Religion is not a matter of identity, but of faith – you either believe that god exists, and that he gave the Torah to the Hebrews on Mount Sinai, or you don’t, or you don’t know, which is also a possibility. You can’t force yourself to believe just because you’re Jewish – faith can’t be forced from outside.
A hundred years from now Israel, if it survives, will be the center of Jewish existence since indeed in the US it’ll be mostly the Orthodox that will survive as Jews.
As for the secular culture in general – indeed there’s no eternity in the sense of the afterlife, but secularists can think of the next generations, the future of the nation and the future of mankind. I think that in recent decades we, all over the West, have created a culture that is less than worthy, but it’s not the only secular alternative. The current culture has an excessive focus on sex, money and glamor, and on immediate satisfaction. A better culture should have more focus of sciense, knowledge, technologies that improve life, art in the more classical sense, and other pursuits that feed the mind and heart, and not only the libido. Secular culture didn’t always worship the libido. Once upon a time we used to appreciate some other things, and we also used to care about the next generations, our cultures and our countries, even on prime time TV.
Pnina your stated that: “The Hebrews were a nation before there was a Hebrew religion.” Well, in the Jewish tradition, that is not the case. Abraham came out of the Chaldeans to become the first “Hebrew”, “Ivri” in Hebrew, as in “Avraham haIvri.” He was also the first “Jew”, the founding patriarch of the Jewish religion. The Jewish tradition views the Hebrew nation as a nation by virtue of its Covenant with God. In the 1700s and 1800s the haskala movement, Zionism etc began to propound the view you put forth, but all believing Jews–and with respect to this matter that would be a clear majority in Israel–hold to the former perspective.
Wouldn’t the first Jew be Judah?
Subsequent to the defeat and exile of the ten tribes of the northern kingdom of Israel, leaving only the southern kingdom of Judah, the term “Jew” became accepted for a member of the nation of Israel. The northern kingdom had borne the name “Israel”, even though all of the 12 tribes were descended from Israel/Jacob. “Jew” began to be applied even to Israelites of other tribes who lived in Jerusalem and escaped the exile of the 10 tribes. My wife’s family for example traces it’s lineage to Joseph, not Judah, but she is still a “Jew” in the way we use the term. In this usage Abraham was the first Jew by virtue of his Covenant with God, especially with respect to circumcision.
Sure! Thats why we and our children fight years after year for a Jewish state while they follow out of date rituals and think that their god will save us. (or them)
I agree with your assessment that America has something to learn from using plain common sense and values in this regard rather than treating everything like it’s a Supreme Court case setting a precedent.
The presence of just a couple million Muslims has already had a chilling effect in the U.S. A couple of years ago, for the first time in television history, an American program self-censored itself due to threats of violence from within the American Muslim community.
Rather than shouting down this behavior on the part of our latest neighbors, Time and the moronic Soledad O’Brien have cried about “Islamophobia” in America. Every time some minority opens their mouth we question our own values rather than theirs and so the Tower of Babel approaches.
Perhaps around the same time Palestinian Arab protesters in front of the Israeli embassy in Los Angeles had to be restrained by police from attacking a lone Jewish young man draped in the flag of Israel. This is the type of thing I would expect in Tahrir Square and not America.
Since there has been no outcry from CAIR or any of the other Muslim advocacy groups over such incidents, it can be assumed that even moderate Muslims within America care nothing for the greater good and only about what benefits them and their agenda.
I do not want our new neighbors here and it is as simple as that. The United States is not an airport for the rest of the world to express their particular agenda but a country that was built by and is a success because of a very specific group of Judeo-Christians.
I can say this success story was not in fact built by Buddhists, Hindus, Muslim or Sikhs without at the same time saying I don’t like them – for whatever reason their value systems don’t cut the modern social mustard and one has only to go to Bangkok, Amritsar, Cairo and Mumbai to see so – it’s not a moral judgement call but simply observation of what systems work and which don’t.
It’s really just that I like success and above all peace. End all immigration – end it now.
The differences between Israelis and Jews are irreconcilable. It is impossible for the Charedim and Chilonim to get along. There is the Hollywood lifestyle vs. the Torah view. How do you possibly expect there to be peace between the two camps? It is impossible.
Hamevin Yavin.
Israel is disintegrating. Demographic changes will destroy the State of Israel from within. Never mind Iran’s nukes, the Palestinians, Hamas, Hezbollah, terrorism… The Arabs just have to be patient and let Israel tear itself into pieces and destroy itself. It won’t be much longer.
Nearly half (48 percent) of primary school pupils in 2008 were ultra-Orthodox or Israeli Arabs.
In 2040, 78% of Israel’s primary school students will be Haredi or Arabs, and only 14% will be in the non-religious State school system – if current trends continue.
A demographic look ahead at Israel
http://taubcenter.org.il/index.php/e-bulletin/a-demographic-look-ahead-at-israel/lang/en/
Layla Tov, Israel.
From Europe to Israel may have just been from the frying pan into the fire.
I agree, a country the size of a large city cannot keep that much surrounding hostility at bay forever as the current status quo is as favorable and “friendly” as it may ever be. Add to that the issues you mention and the hatred of Israel simply existing in the Islamic world on its own momentum separated from facts like an urban myth that builds on its own myth and you have a problem.
John, nope, Europe was our fire. In our very worst war 3000 soldiers were killed, 2 easy days in Auschwitz.
My family were decimated there. Here my kids swagger in their uniforms!!!
What is going to happen IMO will be a new synthesis of Judaism and post-modernism. In the coming years you are going to see an acceleration of trends that have seen more and more charedim entering the work force, doing military service, and entering a deeper dialogue with many aspects of secular culture. There is no doubt, however, that the secular Zionist vision of Israel as “…just like all other nations” is demographically doomed.
I don’t want to be rude – but you aren’t very intelligent, are you?
Hey Devil,
25% of Haredim are dropping out. There is now virtually a revolution taking place especially among the women. I have great hope that things will change quicker than we all imagine. They have a secret org helping them back into real society and tyere is even a place for gays to get help.
My Great grandfather was, after all like them.
An excellent and informative post. Despite the admonitions of Barry Goldwater regarding the extremity in the pursuit of virtue, this incident clearly illustrates the perils of extremism, in any form.
Sounds good but my friend’s son was still abused earlier this week by a gang of Haredi boys on his way home from school. Atmospherics are good but shouldn’t they be accompanied by law enforcement and re-education?
‘The overwhelming majority of Israelis — including most ultra-Orthodox — know that core values of Judaism include “love they neighbor as thyself”’
That’s a lovely sentiment, Rabbi, but what where I live the core value is: “Those that spit on little girls get the living crap beat out of them”.
And, you know, it’s a funny thing, but we never have any problems with grown men spitting on or cursing at little girls around here. Maybe there’s a connection?
You’d need about 30-40 guys, not cops (they will never back down to cops), with hockey helmets and baseball bats willing to crack skulls. It will be very unpleasant, very caveman, but it could work. I doubt it will ever happen.
Well you’re there (or were) and I’m in California, so you might have a better picture than me, but from where I’m sitting, the fractious Ultras don’t look like warriors and they don’t look like ruthless killers, they look like little spoiled brats and bullies, who would fold the minute somebody really unleashed some physical violence on them (instead of engaging in the usual intra-Jewish arguing fest, which is what’s going on now).
I’d think it was a worth a try anyway. Better than having little girls afraid to walk to school because of these punks.
I saw the video of that poor little girl, and that crap needs to be stopped right now (not next week). At least I wouldn’t tolerate if I was there.
Anyway, that’s my unsolicited advice from halfway around the world, for what it’s worth (which probably ain’t much). I probably should just butt out, and mind my own business, but looking at the sweet little girl so afraid really made me mad.
Your instincts are dead on of course. With respect to the bullies folding quickly with resistance: unfortunately they seem pretty robust. Some have had they heads cracked pretty good by cops, and sat in prison, and they head right back out after. The Jews are a “stiff-necked people,” which is great if you can get people pointed in the right direction. Some of these guys would be great soldiers. Trust me the victimizing kids and spitting thing is not representative, even for the really extreme groups. Misguided fools, yes, but most keep their humanity intact.
Indeed, this is why God finds their Sabbaths offensive (Isaiah 1:13). It’s not because they are not keeping the Sabbath, but because they are keeping the Sabbath while neglecting the rest of the Torah and the Prophets. Of all the sins the prophets condemn, self-righteousness is the one God finds most loathsome. In 2000 years, the Pharisees [Orthodox Jews] have not changed in the slightest- they are still whitewashed tombs, giving pretense to righteousness while persisting in obstinacy. The Sadducees (who do not believe in the afterlife, whose number was once full of priests, but now consists of secularized Jews) are even worse! What profit is Wisdom if the righteous perish with the unrighteous, never again to rise and never to see God? O Rabbi, when will You take away their hearts of stone and give them hearts of flesh with Your Law written on them?
what i don’t understand about the charedim is why don’t they work like other human beings? aren’t other israelis sick of footing the bill for them? they should get off their duff or at least stop having so many welfare babies.
In a nutshell: They stopped working because they refused to go to the army, and if they left yeshiva to go to work they’d be drafted. Because the law from the founding of the state exempts from the draft anyone engaged in full-time Torah study (“torato umanuta” “his craft is his Torah”), which was seen as a national service in itself, so they stayed in yeshiva rather than enter the workforce and be immediately drafted. Charedim in other countries work. They avoided the army
either because of what they saw as the sexual promiscuity and weak kosher standards that prevailed there, or, in the case of certain factions, because of ideological opposition to the state. As the charedi population grew in Israel, this accommodation has become unworkable, so the Tal Law (from sometime in the 1990s as I recall) sought to find new accommodations, and it seems to be working fairly well. My 19 year old son studied his whole life in charedi settings, and now serves in an IDF charedi combat unit called Netzach Yehuda, where young women are not involved with the daily lives of the troops, prayer times observed more strictly, and stricter kashrut standards are observed. This is merely one of a number of IDF frameworks that have been established in the Tal Law era. Here is a current link about other trends and efforts to increase charedi workforce involvement http://www.jpost.com/VideoArticles/Video/Article.aspx?id=254039 Things are improving.
We Christians likewise have religious who take vows of poverty in order to devote themselves entirely to prayer, Bible study, devotion and charity, but those who do also take vows of celibacy, so that they will not have divided devotions, nor require us to support their children.
my roommate’s sister-in-law makes $80/hr on the computer. She has been unemployed for 9 months but last month her paycheck was $9064 just working on the computer for a few hours. Here’s the site to read more… LazyCash10.com