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By Avi Shafran, on January 24th, 2012 It was over a decade ago, in the wake of a spate of terrible terrorist attacks on Jews in Eretz Yisrael, that the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah called upon Jews to recite chapters of Tehillim (they suggested chapters 83, 130, and 142) in shul after davening, followed by the short prayer “Acheinu,” a supplication to G-d to show mercy to His people. Many shuls, to their great credit, to this day still dutifully seize that special merit at the end of their services. None of us can know what dangers that collective credit may have averted, may be averting still.
It occurred to me, though, that recent events might well inspire us—not only those of us Jews who look to the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah for guidance, but all good-hearted Jews, charedi, “modern Orthodox,” non-Orthodox, “traditional,” and secular-minded alike—to consider reciting the holy words with special concentration, and the short prayer with an additional, somewhat different, intent.
For we have witnessed of late…
Reports of verbal and physical attacks on innocent Jews, even children, by other Jews who were, ostensibly, dissatisfied with their marks’ level of modesty.
The exploitation of media to bring such outrages, and exaggerations of their scope, to the entire world’s attention.
Verbal and physical attacks on religious Jews by secularists fired up over the reports.
Astoundingly tasteless demonstrations appropriating Nazi symbols, even the abuse of children by their inclusion in the sick spectacle.
The indiscriminate lumping together by pundits and self-appointed judgment-pronouncers of the irresponsible acts of would-be “zealots” with valid issues like the propriety of voluntarily sex-segregated buses for communities that want them, or of the refusal by Israeli soldiers who, out of religious conviction, do not wish to listen to women singing .
Editorials and opinion-mongering in the press smearing “the haredim” as a group for the alleged acts of a woefully misguided few; attacking Gedolim for not choosing to chastise people who have no regard for them or their rebukes; derogating the very concept of traditional Jewish modesty.
And so, a thought, about what we might consider having in mind during “Acheinu”:
“Acheinu kol Bais Yisrael”—“Our brethren, the entire Jewish People”
Our brethren—Let all Jews always remember that we are all, in fact, brothers and sisters—
“Hanesunim bitzara u’bishivya”—“who are delivered into confinement and captivity”
Who are confined and imprisoned by personal attitudes, and blind to the feelings and convictions of others…
“Ha’omdim bein bayam u’vein bayabasha”—“whether they be on the sea or dry land”
Whether they are borne afloat in the world of Torah-study and observance or anchored in a world parched of both…
“HaMakom yiracheim aleihem viyotzi’eim mitzara li’rvacha”—“May the Omnipresent have mercy on them and remove them from distress to relief”
May the One Who is present in every Jewish heart release them from their close-mindedness to a state of openness to others and Jewish concern for other Jews
“U’mei’afela li’ora”—“and from darkness to light”
From the darkness of hatred and frustration that yields derision of others (and worse) to the enlightened recognition that fellow Jews, even those one may feel are misguided, deserve respect and care.
“U’mishibud lig’ula”—“and from subjugation to redemption”
From slavery to incivility to the freedom of open minds and hearts—leading to the ultimate redemption
“Hashta b’agala u’viz’man kariv”—“now, speedily, and close at hand”
Not next year, not next month, but today.
And let us say amein.
© 2012 AMI MAGAZINE
[Rabbi Shafran is an editor at large and columnist for Ami Magazine]
The above essay may be reproduced or republished, with the above copyright appended.
Communications: rabbishafran@amimagazine.org
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By Yitzchok Adlerstein, on January 24th, 2012 It has been over thirty years since I met Yaakov Katz, and I’ve regretted ever since that I have not had an opportunity to stay in touch with him. Ketzalah, as everyone calls him, is a larger-than-life figure that one can never forget.
The cane he hobbled on even back then was dwarfed by his warm, engaging, constant smile. It was a reminder of his hip taking a direct hit from an Egyptian RPG in the Yom Kippur War. His elite officers-only unit of twelve men killed all seventy of the enemy in that battle. Hanging on to life by a thread, he pledged to the Ribbono Shel Olam that if He let him live, he would devote the rest of his life to Hashem’s service.
Ketzaleh made good on his pledge. I met him in Beit-El, a community that he helped begin, and would fill with a yeshiva – which was the literal and figurative center of the community – as well as schools for boys and girls.
Meeting him marked, in a sense, the beginning of my reexamining what I had been taught in my yeshiva years. Since Beit-El was a product of the Zionist world, I expected to find a rosh yeshiva sitting in shorts and sandals, and open shirt, addressed by all as “Shuki, and incapable of tackling anything deeper than a Kehati Mishayos.” To my surprise, the Rosh Yeshiva I was introduced to sat with a hat and kapoteh, deeply immersed in the study of a Ketzos, which did not obscure a radiant hadras panim. (It belonged to Rav Zalman Melamed, shlit”a, one of the closest talmidim of Rav Tzvi Yehudah Kook, zt”l.)
Observing the fierce commitment of the residents to Torah, Land and People, the absence of materialism, the natural tzniyus of the women, I wondered whether my camp had gotten it all right. I have continued to wonder in the decades that followed.
The article from Arutz-7 that follows shows that the regard in which Ketzaleh is held is not misplaced:
MK Yaakov Katz (Ketzaleh), Chairman of the National Union, told the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Monday that in 20 or 30 years the country and the army will have a religious majority.
He asked the Head of Personnel Branch, Major General Orna Barbivai, to accept religious soldiers with love and not make it more difficult for them to serve.
He was referring to recent attempts to force religious soldiers to watch women singing in entertainment events – in contravention of halakhic precepts and rabbincal instructions.
“I love the hareidi public with all my soul,” Ketzaleh said. “First of all, because all of our grandfathers and grandmothers until two, three, four generations ago were hareidim and I love my grandfather and love my great grandfather, who had a hat, beard and peot.”
“I also love our sons and grandsons, because I have sons with beards and peot, and they were battalion commanders in the IDF Paratroopers,” he added.
“I say to the hareidi public: first of all, keep on having large numbers of children, it has a contagious effect on everyone. They are taking care of Israeli demography. One needs 12 and 15 children… keep at it.”
“I can promise you, Major General Barbivai, in 10 years – don’t worry – in 20, 30 years, our army will be flooded with guys who have beards and peot. In 10, 15, 20 years the religious and hareidi public will be the majority in the country. You can’t do anything about it, that’s how it is… it’s a reality one needs to be aware of,” Ketzaleh said.
“The intent needs to be – how do we absorb this population and turn it into the main pillar of Israel, the backbone, with all the kindness that it contains, and the love of Torah and the nation and morality,” he added.
By Shira Schmidt, on January 23rd, 2012 When my husband was a flight surgeon on the US Air Force base in Guam, he witnessed a feeding frenzy by sharks. Daily, a huge garbage truck would gingerly back up to the edge of a cliff, and dump the waste into the Pacific. In 40 seconds sharks made mincemeat of the garbage, leaving disposable dishes floating. In another 20 seconds those were also disposed of by sharks. If you can’t go to Guam, you can see a shark feeding frenzy on the Discovery Channel. Or you can follow the current media frenzy against haredim in Israel.
Perhaps this is what Rabbi Chanina had in mind when he stipulated, “Pray for the welfare of the government, for without fear of governmental authorities people would swallow each other alive” (Pirkey Avot 3:2).
Here are examples of the media frenzy.
(a)Yair Lapid showed a video in December on Israeli TV, which featured the most extreme peripheral haredim whose behavior is considered outrageous by almost all haredim and ultra-Orthodox rabbis.
(b)The NYTimes has blown out of proportion issues related to controversies in Beit Shemesh, on buses, and at conferences. On December 28 the weekday NYTimes gave wide coverage on p.4 to religious extremism.
(c)By Jan. 15 the topic had moved up to the Sunday edition, page one, and was headlined, “In Israel, a Seismic Clash Between the Secular and Ultra-Orthodox”. It included a slide show about haredim.
(d)On Jan.20, Rabbi Dov Linzer discussed similar issues in the NYT op ed pages.The Times appended the headline, “Leachery, Immodesty and the Talmud.”
What is highlighted in this media feeding frenzy is not necessarily what is happening on the ground. I will touch on some points of contention, brevatim et seriatim, using quotes from Rabbi Linzer’s NYT oped with which I respectfully disagree.
1) “Is it possible for a religious demand for modesty to be about anything other than men controlling women’s bodies?” The concept of men controlling women appears several times in Rabbi Linzer’s essay. After interviewing hundreds of haredi women, the concept that emerges is rarely men vs. women. The women see themselves as partners with men in keeping the focus of men’s attention on their own families.
2) “Last month an… 8-year-old girl… in Beit Shemesh described being spat on and vilified by religious extremists… who believed that she did not dress modestly enough while walking past them to the religious school she attends.” This is inexcusable behavior of the fringe of a fringe, but the incident described occurred not in December, but in September. A video of the girl was aired by Yair Lapid on Israeli TV Dec. 27, shortly before he threw his hat into the election ring (see Lapid introducing the tendentious video).
In actuality, the real reason for the abominable behavior by the fringe is not the dress code of their national religious neighbors. It is a turf war over a school building, a confrontation that is a spatial expression of a century-old culture clash, as described kli rishon by Dov Krulwich.
3) “…public buses in Israel are enforcing gender segregation imposed by ultra-Orthodox riders.” The buses do not enforce seating arrangements. There are a few bus lines that run between haredi neighborhoods where most men voluntarily sit in the front, and most women voluntarily sit in the back. Although I am not personally in favor of same sex seating, I have ridden thousands of miles on these buses when convenient to do so, and only once, 4 years ago, saw an incident where someone was asked to move. Unfortunately, there are a few such self-appointed sheriffs who are obnoxious, but those are miniscule in number and decreasing to the point of extinction.
Women who do prefer this arrangement do not see it as a zero-sum-game, but as a gain. I have attended the Supreme Court sessions on the issue and read reports and court decisions. The bottom line is that the buses have a sign that people may sit where they want. On the voluntarily gender separated buses I almost always see some women in the front, some men in the back, couples here and there. There are also women and men who are unabashedly provocative and get on these buses to stir up and film trouble. Unfortunately some haredim fall into the trap of responding to provocations.
4) Rabbi Linzer writes that there is a “battle being waged in Israel between the ultra-Orthodox and the rest of Israeli society over women’s place in society, over their very right to have a visible presence and to participate in the public sphere.” No one is battling over the presence of women in most spheres in Israel. The chief justice of the Supreme Court is a women, five women just graduated from pilots’ course, etc. There was an incident which seems inappropriate and may have shown poor judgment by the haredi deputy health minister asking the female recipient of an award to send her husband to the podium to receive the award. Perhaps the deputy minister was being unnecessarily cautious. Mistake. But a much worse mistake was made in a separate incident when the Israel Medical Association boycotted and forbade physicians to attend the annual Puah conference to acquaint rabbis with developments in the field of fertility medicine.
This was a case of the IMA acting like the proverbial bull in a china shop. Rabbi Menachem Burstein described how it took him a decade to quietly gain the confidence of rabbis who heretofore were not used to public discussion of delicate matters. What happened to values of tact and sensitivity? Must everything be done by fiat?
Puah has been going in the direction of greater inclusion of women. Why the sledgehammer approach by the media and IMA?
Here is a counter example — Rabbi Ovadia Yosef often shares the podium with women professors at the graduation of students from the Charedi College and he insists on staying to hear the women speakers. Does that attract the media?
5) The Talmud “places the responsibility for controlling men’s licentious thoughts about women squarely on the men… The Talmud says: It’s your problem, sir; not hers… The Talmud tells the religious man, in effect: If you [men] have a problem, you deal with it.”
Most of the haredi women & girls I interview view themselves as helpmates who would not want to put a stumbling block in front of men. They are cognizant of the choices they have and choose to minimize temptation. In the long run they see themselves as beneficiaries of female modesty. Where you find coercion is in the secular advertising realm. Example: there was 30-foot billboard along a highway with supermodel Bar Rafaeli baring almost all. You could not drive the highway without seeing it. That is visual coercion, and disrespect to women.
Rabbi Linzer is correct that men have role in self-restraint. But recently there was a case where they exercised such self-restraint and were punished for it. Soldiers in an officer’s course were compelled to attend an entertainment program where women sang. There were a few soldiers who who keep stringencies of not listening to women sing. In line with Rabbi Linzer’s emphasis that it is the man’s problem, they did not say a word about asking the women not to sing. They only asked to be excused.
They were forced to attend on penalty of expulsion from the course. Darned if you do, darned if you don’t. This is symbolic of a culture conflict that needs to be negotiated tactfully. It isn’t an isolated case of women singing at one event, but participation in a culture that is redolent with permissiveness. Example: the female soldiers who announce the traffic reports on national army radio are told to read the reports in a throaty, breathless, erotic voice.
6) I agree completely with Rabbi Linzer’s conclusion. “Modesty is about embodying the prophet Micah’s call: learning ‘to walk humbly with your God.’” It is in this spirit that I respectfully submit the above reservations about Rabbi Linzer’s NYT oped.
By Guest Contributor, on January 22nd, 2012 by Dov Krulwich
On September 6 I became an activist.
Parents at the Orot school in Beit Shemesh were complaining about Chareidi zealots demonstrating against the school, and commenting that their kids were afraid. My response was one of disbelief. I knew people living in the buildings near Orot, and I davened and learned often in Batei Midrash in nearby Chareidi neighborhoods. It simply couldn’t be, I said, that the situation warranted schoolkids being afraid for their well-being. We’re talking about religious girls with skirts and elbow-length sleeves! The response was simple: If you don’t believe it, come and see. I went the next day, and was shocked at the kanayus that I saw – cursing, yelling, spitting, shoving, intimidating – all with looks of sheer hatred.
In the months that followed, I spent time virtually every day trying to confront the kanayim, document the kanayus in order to have it dealt with by Rabbonim and by the police, and protect the kids from the 10-15 kanayim that waged a steady war against the school. My videos of kanayim with hatred in their eyes were viewed tens of thousands of times, I became well-known by the kanayim and their neighbors, and I personally once received blows from the fiercer of the kanayim.
I also spent time talking with everyone, including kanayim, quiet supporters of the kanayim’s agenda, and the much bigger numbers of Chassidim in the area that are against the kanayus. I spoke with Rabbonim ranging from a Dayan of the Eida Chareidis, children of well-respected Admorim, Dayanim, and Poskim, and neighborhood Rabbonim who I hoped would join in condemning the kanayus.
From all of these conversations, I’ve developed an understanding of the situation that I think is important to share. I’ve refrained from talking to the media, despite many opportunities to do so, but I think that this is a forum where the discussion might be productive. I hope that this understanding can lead to solutions, but it also points to a bigger problem than is commonly understood.
In a nutshell: The kanayim, along with a significant portion of the Eida Chareidis, has their mindset stuck firmly in the 1930’s. To them, every non-religious Jew is a mumar le’hach’is, every dati le’umi Jew is keeping Torah minimally and prioritizes Zionism over religion, and most Chareidim are selling their souls by cooperating with the State of Israel. In short, they’re stuck fighting the previous generation’s battles instead of handling this generation’s battles.
I want to first elaborate on what I mean, then discuss why I know this to be the case. After that I’ll touch on what this means for the future.
Just imagine if you looked at every non-religious women wearing jeans or short sleeves and knew without a doubt that this woman understood and appreciated hilchos tzniyus, was deciding deliberately to violate the Torah, and moreover was doing so deliberately to offend religious Jews and to try to impose secularism on religious Jews. Imagine if you were as sure of that as you are that the sky is blue. Imagine if you knew, absolutely knew, the same of every Jew driving a car on Shabbos, every man walking without a kippa, and so on. Can you possibly imagine the perpetual sense of anger and hatred that would fill you as you saw such people throughout your day? After all, so many people are deliberately insulting Hashem, and so many people are doing things in order to make you secular!
The vast majority of religious Jews nowadays, of virtually every affiliation, know that this is not true. But in the 1930’s and 1940’s, in the time of Rav Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld, it was in fact the case. The early Zionists saw the return to the Land of Israel as a Messianic fulfillment that obviated the need to keep Torah U’Mitzvos. The Shomer HaTza’ir were busy taking the Yaldei Teiman away from their parents and feeding them on Yom Kippur. Most of the chilonim in Israel then had grown up in Yeshivos and were virulently against religion.
At the risk of political incorrectness, let’s postulate that in such a climate, yelling and screaming in defense of Torah U’Mitzvos was the right thing to do. Even if so, that says absolutely nothing about today. Chilonim today know little about religion and care even less about what religious Jews do – they want only to be able to lead their secular lives without religious coercion. And a significant percentage of Dati Leumi Jews in Israel, including most parents of children in the Orot school and most families in the Sheinfeld neighborhood, are medakdek ba’mitzvos and kove’a itim le’Torah.
Religious Jews today know that our mandate is to embody Ahavas Yisrael and to bring Jews closer to G-d through our own proper and inspiring behavior. Not only does nothing good come of kanayus in our generation, but it’s a clear Chillul Hashem.
The story is told that when the Chazon Ish paskened that Chinuch Atzma’i schools should teach in Hebrew, not in Yiddish, he was attacked. Rav Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld dedicated so much to fighting against the secularization of Loshon HaKodesh, how can Chinuch Atzma’i teach in Hebrew? The Chazon Ish reportedly answered that Rav Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld had to fight the battles of his generation, and that we have to fight the battles of our generation.
Many times in recent months I’ve asked kanayim in Beit Shemesh simple questions: How can you act in a way that drives Jews away from Torah? How can you curse at Jewish children, what happened to the halachos involved in nivul peh? Why can’t you let other Jews follow their own psak halacha, and you follow yours? The answers are always the same – there’s nothing to talk about, we’re demonstrating against people who are evil. Conversations about how to bring Jews closer to G-d were non-starters.
It’s important to understand that the kanayim in Beit Shemesh are hated as much by most Chareidim as they are by non-Chareidim. Chassidim in the area have been attacked. Park benches enjoyed by Chassidic mothers have been uprooted when the kanayim saw that a chiloni woman once sat there. Chassidim who interact peacefully with non-Chareidi neighbors have had fish oil and feces thrown at their apartment doors. But many of these same kanayus-haters still justify the kanayus in discussion. “I hate the kanayim and I hate their violence, but how would you feel if people were deliberately enticing you with immodesty.”
I spoke last week with Rav Kopshitz, the Rav of the Eida Chareidis of Beit Shemesh. I asked him what his personal opinion was of the abuse being directed by the kanayim against residents of my neighborhood. He answered “and what do you think about the abuse being directed against Chareidim?” I answered that I completely opposed it, but that I hadn’t heard of much. His reply was striking: “The police are abusing us when they take down our signs asking women not to walk on some sidewalks, because they’re trying to force us to walk immodestly in our own homes.” Now, I happen to oppose making a big deal of a sign that all women, Chareidi or not, have been peacefully ignoring for ten years. But, that said, not a single policeman is trying to make Chareidim walk mixed. Frankly, not a single policeman cares at all how Chareidim walk down the sidewalk. They took down the sign because the sign was insulting to women. But a respected and brilliant Talmid Chacham is convinced that the police were doing it as an attack against Chareidi shmiras ha’mitzvos. And this is called abuse?
In a newspaper article last week, a Chareidi minister of the government was defending the Chareidi insistence on seperate-gender buses with separate gender seats. He closed his comments by saying that “No one should dare to tell me or my friends that I should transgress Jewish law… tomorrow they will tell me to shake hands [with women].” Even a government Minister didn’t realize that opponents of separate buses don’t care whether Chareidim sit separately, as long as they don’t force this separation on others.
Pashkevilim spread through Beit Shemesh discussing the imprisonment of some kanayim, saying that “the antisemitic attack against religion and its followers is spreading and getting stronger… attacking the houses of the faithful at late hours, brutally imprisoning Jewish activists….” The people arrested were people that I saw myself engaged in violence, that were actually arrested for violence committed in Jerusalem as well. Whether they are guilty is a matter for the courts to decide, but their arrest is in no way a broad attack against religion.
In short, a significant number of Eida Chareidis affiliated Chareidim see the world as if we were still in the 1930’s. Even those that oppose the kanayim’s tactics oppose only the tactics, but not the perspective that all others have evil and anti-religious intentions.
What does this mean for the future? On the one hand, it means that the challenge is bigger than kanayus, it’s a broader attitude of viewing people for how they are, and interacting with them accordingly, instead of projecting onto them a view from 60 years ago. Changing a mindset is much harder than changing actions. On the other hand, I believe that a significant amount of the tensions in Israel in recent months will be solvable if everyone can learn to see each other how they are today, if the kanayim and the Eida Chareidis can understand what the Chazon Ish and almost all gedolim since understood.
When groups within the Orthodox umbrella move in directions or take on philosophies that endanger Yiddishkeit, the Orthodox world responds. A large and significant group being stuck in the 1930’s, viewing and acting towards other Jews in ways that are not consistent with the current reality or with the psak of all modern-day Gedolim, and acting in ways that are a tremendous Chillul Hashem, requires a response from the entire range of the Orthodox world.
For people in Chutz La’Aretz, it’s critical to take this into account when you read and pass on the news. All the major frum news sources have reported that the Chareidi world in Israel is under attack. But is it really? Is there significant talk about cutting Yeshiva funding, or child subsidies, or even army exemptions? No, there is no more talk of these things than there is any month. What’s increased recently is only anger against kefiya datit, policies or signs or other actions that coerce non-Chareidi bus-riders, sidewalk-walkers, advertisers, store owners, or others, to adhere to religious standards against their will. What’s also increased is the police doing their job to stop violent and abusive kanayus. By any objective standard neither of these are abuse of Chareidim, they’re self-defense of Chilonim. The Chilonim are defending their right to freedom of religion, but are not attacking Chareidi religious observance at all.
Yes, there is talk in the media about the effect on the country’s economy of Chareidim not being in the work force. And there is talk about feelings of unfairness in whose children risk their lives to protect the country. These are perpetual issues that are already being quietly addressed, and need to be addressed, particularly as the economy world-wide is getting worse and the security situation is concerning. But these issues are not being raised any more now then they are perpetually.
The point of fact is that the Chareidi world has won the battle for Chareidi continuation. Nearly 80 years to the day after Rav Sonnenfeld’s petira, Torah learning and religious observance in Israel is unparalleled, more than any other place or any other time. But the whole Jewish world, particularly the Chareidi world, now needs to face today’s challenges, and not to continue fighting yesterday’s. Fighting yesterday’s battles is resulting in tremendous Chillul Hashem, along with an atmosphere of attack that doesn’t actually exist.
If, however, the Jewish world can stop fighting yesterday’s battles, can stop feeling attacked where the attacks don’t exist, can stop coercing others and realize that the others are not coercing us, and can stop the Chillul Hashem that comes from violent kanayus, then maybe we can achieve the kind of shevet achim gam yachad that Hashem wants from us.
Dov Krulwich made aliya from Chicago 15 years ago, first to Har Nof and then to Beit Shemesh. He and his family live in the Sheinfeld neighborhood of Beit Shemesh, where he works as a mobile technology analyst.
By Jonathan Rosenblum, on January 20th, 2012 Israeli journalists are among the most mobilized in the Western world: They view their jobs as a soapbox to teach proper thoughts to the hoi polloi. The media’s desire to shape the national agenda also makes it among the most easily manipulated in the world. The EU and individual European states pour millions into left-wing Israeli NGOs annually to peddle their favorite nostrums for peace in large part because they get such a large bang for the buck from the NGOs and media working hand-in-hand.
Blackening Israel’s image abroad is one favorite technique. There is an insatiable thirst for stories on the Talibanization of Israel and front-page headlines like “Seismic rift in Israeli society over the role of women” (Sunday’s New York Times). The negative portrayals from every direction reinforce one another. If women in Israel, for instance, have no higher status than in Teheran, it is easier to believe claims that Israel is an apartheid society. Negative foreign reports about Israel are intended to convince Israelis of the country’s growing international isolation in order to make them more malleable.
One example of how this works. Tanya Rosenblitt, who works for a media mogul, boards a bus in an exclusively chareidi neighborhood of Ashdod. The bus stops only in chareidi neighborhoods of Jerusalem. Getting to Jerusalem is not Tanya’s goal; there are many faster and more direct buses to Jerusalem. Her goal is to be the star of her own reality show.
To that end, according to the other passengers on the bus (who are not interviewed by the mainstream media), she sits directly behind the driver singing, making challenging remarks, and occasionally leaning into the aisle. Seeing that her goal is to provoke a confrontation, the driver stops the bus and summons the police.
Rosenblitt is not asserting her legitimate right not to be dictated to by chareidim as to where to sit on a bus. Rather she is insisting that chareidim not be able to sit as they choose on a bus designed to serve only chareidi passengers. The distinction is crucial. (Egged deliberately creates all-haredi lines as part of a concerted effort to prevent chareidim from setting up their own bus services.)
Incidentally, Rosenblitt is also associated with the One Voice organization. The Palestinian media described the One Voice’s September 2011 Campaign as designed to build an international consensus on Israeli apartheid.
Another example of media manipulation. Yair Lapid jumpstarted his entry into national politics, where he hopes to inherit his father’s mantle as leader of the anti-chareidi camp, with the Channel Two documentary on Naama Margolese. Introducing the segment, Lapid asked rhetorically whether Beit Shemesh represents the future of the entire country unless the chareidim are brought to heel.
I wonder how many viewers realized that the ugly events at the national religious Beit Orot school described in the film took place at the beginning of the school year, and that since then the situation has improved substantially. Dr. Agmon-Snir, director of the Jerusalem Intercultural Center, who is non-observant, described in a recent Mishpacha Magazine interview efforts to broker an understanding between different communal factions. According to Dr. Agmon-Snir, the Sikrikim, or zealots, who represent a “minority within a minority” of the chareidi community, have been spit out by the Eidah Hachareidis, and have largely disappeared from the site of the Beit Orot school. For its part, the Eidah has reconciled itself to the school remaining in its current location.
Agmon-Snir lamented that the Israeli public was roused to fury by a documentary that did not reflect current realities, and expressed his fear that the delicate fabric of trust built-up over months would unravel in the wake of the anti-chareidi demonstration in Beit Shemesh, which piggy-backed on the Channel Two report. One local charidi activist told Mishpacha that when he turned to Channel Two to discuss the compromises worked out, he was told, “Don’t interfere with the chagiga.“
ISRAEL HAS PAID A HEAVY PRICE in the past for media campaigns designed to dictate the national agenda. The cost of the Four Mothers campaign to withdraw from southern Lebanon, for instance, was Hizbullah control of Lebanon, and nearly a hundred thousand missiles aimed at every inch of Israel. Had the government caved to every demand of last summer’s Social Justice protestors, Israel would be well on the way to European-style bankruptcy and unemployment to match. The current frenzy over the “hadarat nashim – the so-called exclusion of women from the public sphere” threatens to take a heavy toll as well.
Last week, Kolech and other NIF-funded groups waged an intense campaign to pressure male doctors scheduled to speak at the Puah Institute’s annual medicine and halacha conference to withdraw unless some women were added to the list of speakers. The Israel Medical Association joined the call. Some protestors urged a cut-off of all government funding of Puah as well.
The national religious heads of the Puah Institute do not have a problem with women speaking, and indeed women doctors participate and speak at numerous Puah events throughout the year. But the decision was made by the organization’s then posek, Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu, zt”l, twelve years ago, prior to the first Medicine and Halacha Conference, to have only male speakers in order to ensure the widest possible rabbinic participation.
That participation of the rabbis was for the benefit of women, particularly with respect to their reproductive health. The purpose of much of the medical information made available is to provide poskim with new information of potential halachic application. The sessions with doctors and rabbis sensitize all involved to the needs of couples experiencing fertility problems, and increase the awareness among leading doctors in the fertility field of the concerns of Torah observant Jews.
Seven of the nine doctors scheduled to speak – many of them on topics of immediate practical concern to the hundreds of women in attendance – dropped out in the face of the pressure. Others doctors replaced them, and the conference was attended by about 1300 people, about the level of previous years. But we can be sure that Kolech will redouble its efforts to damage an organization that has created the protocols used in almost every Israeli hospital and clinic, and in approximately fifty clinics in North America, to ensure that the sperm and eggs used in IVF and IUI is that of the husband and mother. (Interestingly, scientific studies show that the rate of success from IVF and IUI increases when such hashgacha is in place.)
Even on feminist grounds, I wonder whether endangering the entire conference and the Puah Institute, which make major contributions to women’s health, was justified in order that one or two women doctors speak at the conference.
The current media hysteria about “the exclusion of women” began with the IDF and it is in the IDF that it has had the greatest impact. Four national religious cadets were expelled from an officers training course for refusing orders to attend a women’s singing performance.
Since then, the IDF has acted as if its top priority is making sure no woman ever feel dissed. (This at a time when five women just earned their pilots’ wings.) It is comforting to know that there are no military threats on the horizon.
The IDF has taken a hard-line position refusing to accommodate the needs of religious soldiers. Maj. Gen. Orna Barbivai, Chief of IDF Manpower Division, overruled the conclusions of a committee she herself had appointed, and insisted that officers retain the power to compel attendance even at performances that are only for entertainment. By forcing religious soldiers to bow to the diktat of the IDF and refusing to make allowances for their religious beliefs, the IDF has greatly alienated the national religious community, from which it draws an disproportionate share of its combat soldiers and junior officers. And by turning IDF chaplains into the enforcement arm for its orders, the IDF has deprived them any credibility that they might have had in the eyes of religious soldiers. The actions of the IDF top brass suggest a desire to ensure that the national religious do not come to dominate the upper echelons of the IDF.
In contrast to its refusal to show any flexibility towards national religious soldiers, the IDF has always been very accommodating concerning the religious needs of the growing cohort of chareidim in the IDF – a tenfold increase over the last six years. No more. Again, avoiding the “exclusion of women” trumps any other societal interest, including national defense and integration of chareidim into the IDF.
The Chief Rabbi of the Air Force, Moshe Raavad, asked to be relieved of his post last week in light of the IDF’s decision not to adhere to its previous commitments to maintain a single-sex environment for the nearly thousand chareidim enlisted through the air force’s Shachar Kachol program. The IDF decision will not only deal a major blow to the existing program, but also to IDF Intelligence’s plan to enlist 1,000 chareidi soldiers in the coming years. (A pre-induction program to prepare haredi young men looking for an alternative to full-time yeshiva studies for IDF Intelligence called MoFeT is already up and running.)
Coupled with the general media campaign against charedim (ably abetted by elements of the chareidi community), which has resulted in numerous physical attacks on chareidim, the IDF decisions have reinforced the most conservative elements in the chareidi community, and given credence to those within the community who argue that “these sorrows have come upon us because we sought to integrate more into the general population by joining the army, acquiring vocational and academic training, and entering the workforce.” Those elements in the chareidi community and Yair Lapid need each other and feed off of each other.
Meanwhile, Israel is once again paying a heavy price for media generated hysteria.
Since this article went up on the Jerusalem Post website, I have received a barrage of comments from members of the national religious community in Beit Shemesh, who felt that I was trying to minimize the seriousness of the harassment of students at the Beit Orot school. In the original article. I quoted Dr. Agmon-Snir, who has been involved in mediation efforts and is non-observant, to the effect that to the best of his knowledge there have been only two incidents at the school since Tishrei. And I had heard from a member of the national religious community that the situation had improved considerably, which he attributed to more active police protection. If I presented the situation concerning the Beit Orot school inaccurately, I am sorry.
It was not my intention to minimize the harassment to which the national religious community in Beit Shemesh has been subjected and continues to be subject, or to defend that harassment in any way. That should be clear to anyone who has read my many pieces on Beit Shemesh from last September. The rioting this past week after the arrest on charges of money laundering of six men connected to the Eidah Hachareidis’s major tzedakah organization,which included the stoning of buses and vandalism of police vehicles, which adversely affected the entire community — chareidi and national religious alike — provides yet new evidence of how serious the problem is.
By Yitzchok Adlerstein, on January 20th, 2012 Many people, myself included, believe that the fallout from Beit Shemesh and Kikar Shabbos will have a longer half-life than others suppose. One item to keep an eye on is the fault line that has surfaced, much as those that sometimes appear on the earth’s surface after an earthquake.
This fault line separates Israeli charedim from many of their American counterparts. Two different narratives developed. Americans could not accept the Israeli one, while Israelis were deaf to the arguments of Americans.
Americans by and large rejected the suggestion that protest was unnecessary, because there is no reason the rest of us should be responsible for the actions of a relatively small number of extremists. Witness the wall-to-wall condemnations of the activities in Beit Shemesh and Yerushalayim. Americans understood what was at stake: if you don’t distance yourself from ugliness, you are considered complicit in it. It didn’t matter to us whether lumping us all together was just or not. The honor of Torah, our relationships with non-Jews and non-religious Jews, our ability to attract baalei teshuvah in the future – all these would be imperiled by our remaining silent. So we spoke up, and couldn’t understand that in … Read More >>
By Guest Contributor, on January 18th, 2012 by Etana Hecht
[Editor’s Note: Contributing to this blog, I know full well that editors must sometimes – often – pull the plug on discussion after fruitful exchange gets to the point of diminishing returns. From the feedback I get from irate readers, I also know of the frustration they feel when some points of view never see the light of day because discussion has been cut off. I can understand and accept the decision of my friends the Frankfurters of ending Ami’s coverage of the Beit Shemesh debacle and moving on. Blogs have a bit more flexibility; we can provide an outlet where print media cannot. I know Etana and her family, and think it worthwhile for the public to read her contribution.]
As most of you have probably seen in the media, Bet Shemesh has been having problems with a group of thugs who call themselves Chareidi who have been causing much trouble and pain to many of the citizens of Bet Shemesh. In a series of articles on this issue, Ami Magazine interviewed Mayor Moshe Abutbol to answer some questions about the situation. In his responses, there were a few false statements, as well as some … Read More >>
By Avi Shafran, on January 17th, 2012 Reb Lazer Elya Der Melamed (“the cheder teacher”) was born in the late 1850s, lived in Ostrolenka, Poland, and died shortly before the Germans invaded in 1939. I arrived in this world about a century after he did and on a continent he never saw, so I never met him. But I was introduced to him all the same, by my father, may he be well. Reb Lazer Elya was his grandfather.
My father lived for a time with his grandparents while attending a branch of the Novardhok yeshiva in Ostrolenka. He recalls his bar mitzvah there. His parents, living in a town called Ruzhan, had no money for the trip. My father read the Torah and his impoverished grandfather brought some kichel and a small bottle of schnapps to the shul to mark the occasion.
Recently, a Shabbos Sheva Brachos for my niece took place at Yeshivas Ner Yisrael in Baltimore, where the father of the bride, Reb Lazer Elya’s great-grandson—my dear brother—is a rebbe. Our great-grandfather was present in a way, through a letter he had written, read by my father at one of the meals.
My father is the administrator of the Baltimore Bais … Read More >>
By Emanuel Feldman, on January 16th, 2012 What could be the connection between intensified Israeli media incitement against haredim and the appearance of a new Yom-tov prayerbook designed exclusively for Israeli Jews? On the surface, none. But let’s glance beneath the surface.
Media incitement against haredim is old hat, an automatic Pavlovian reaction against their favorite bête noir. Were there no haredim, they would have to be invented for the benefit of the secular elites and their servile media. Whipping boys are hard to find.
Recently, however, the incitement has become unusually shrill. Granted, haredi society is far from perfect, and the behavior of some of its adherents far from exemplary. But even though one expects higher standards from those who defend Torah values, the fact is that whenever a haredi commits a wrong that would normally be reported on the page 15, the anti-religious media, religiously faithful to the tradition of yellow journalism, pounce on it and create a media circus: screaming headlines, attack columns, admonishing editorials.
Certainly the ugly behavior of some haredi hooligans, such as those in Beit Shemesh, are abhorrent. They bring shame to the name of Gd, Torah, and Orthodox Jewry, trampling upon the pleasant dracheha darchei noam face of Torah. … Read More >>
By Yitzchok Adlerstein, on January 12th, 2012 When R Aaron Lopiansky shared a moving story with his fellow advisory board members at Klal Perspectives (unvarnished plug!), I asked him for permission to publish on Cross-Currents. I am happy that he granted it. It comes in the form of a letter he received from a talmid:
I thought Rebbe would appreciate this. It just happened on January 1st at the Yeshiva in Teaneck….
After the passing of the Mir Rosh Yeshiva, Rav Nosson Tzvi Finkel z”l, R’ Mordechai Grunwald, the executive director of Yeshivas Mir and close talmid of R’ Nosson Tzvi, was asked to deliver a hesped at the Yeshiva Gedolah of Teaneck. Amongst many stories that he told about R’ Nosson Tzvi, he related the following:
Approximately 15 years ago there was a family from New York who lost their father, a distinguished Talmid Chochom, and talmid of the Mir. Rav Nosson Tzvi had a particularly fond relationship with the deceased father and took it upon himself to ensure that his orphans will have a fatherly figure to turn to and that they will receive proper chinuch. He told the children to correspond with him through letters and that they can ask him any question … Read More >>
By Yitzchok Adlerstein, on January 12th, 2012 Call it nepotism, if you wish. I am partial to my very extended family, which includes the people who frequented our Shabbos table for years.
Even though he takes issue with some of what I wrote in my Charedi Spring piece, it was a delight to hear from Dr. Michael Schein. In the old days, he as an undergraduate at Caltech; today he is on the mathematics faculty at Bar-Ilan. His letter breaks some new ground, and is worthwhile sharing with our readers.
How are you? Yasher koach on your recent Cross-Currents article on the Beit Shemesh situation. It is not at all clear to most people who aren’t closely familiar with the situation why the thugs in RBS, despite their stripey bekeshes, should not be seen as the “authentic” charedi Jews. I was told many years ago that the way to distinguish a true gadol from someone who is only pretending to be one is by his derech eretz. This was confirmed to me during my first year in Israel, when I was living in Mea Shearim while doing a postdoc at the Hebrew University. An aside, in case the reader should ask what a mathematician … Read More >>
By Guest Contributor, on January 11th, 2012 by Michael Freund
This past Sunday I got a first-hand glimpse of one of the hottest phenomena in American pop culture and sports.
The venue was Metlife Stadium in New Jersey, the occasion was the first round of the National Football League playoffs.
Just prior to the start of the game between the New York Giants and the Atlanta Falcons, after the Giants had come onto the field, eight of their players headed toward the end zone, where they did something entirely unexpected.
These hulking and intimidating behemoths, who make their living by strapping on layers of protective body gear and pummelling their opponents, each knelt down on one knee, bowed their heads, and offered a silent prayer.
This act has come to be known as “Tebowing,” after Tim Tebow, the quarterback of the Denver Broncos, whose signature prayerful genuflections have become a popular and internet sensation.
Tebow, who has led his team to some stunning comeback victories, including this past weekend when he tossed an 80-yard touchdown pass in overtime to defeat the vaunted Pittsburgh Steelers, is an unabashed fan of his Christian faith. He talks about it in interviews and does not shy away from publicly thanking … Read More >>
By Jonathan Rosenblum, on January 10th, 2012 I came to full Jewish observance relatively late in life. I was nearly thirty and married when I first walked through the doors of Ohr Somayach. I don’t fully remember the entire process of becoming religious. But certainly the most important element of our decision was exposure to people of a refinement and depth that we had never before encountered.
For the last twenty years, I have been writing biographies of modern Jewish leaders. If one bright thread unites the lives of all the disparate figures whose lives I have researched it is their commitment to the Torah imperative that “the Name of Heaven should be become beloved through you.”
In the 1930s, Rabbi Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler, today renowned as one of the premier Jewish thinkers of the century, supported himself in London tutoring young public school students. He instructed one of those young students to drop a coin in the cup of all the numerous beggars along the way. To another, he suggested that he should always go to the upper-deck of the London bus he rode to the lessons. Since he only travelled one stop, perhaps the conductor would not reach him to collect his fare, and … Read More >>
By Avi Shafran, on January 10th, 2012 A recent essay by an award-winning scientist presents a remarkable, and remarkably revealing, picture of current scientific thought about the nature of the universe.
The delightfully named Alan P. Lightman, an MIT professor a major contributor to the understanding of astrophysical processes, titled his piece in last month’s Harper’s Magazine “The Accidental Universe: Science’s crisis of faith.” Reviewing the history of theoretical physics, he notes how, “until the past few years, physicists agreed that the entire universe… is generated from a few mathematical truths and principles of symmetry… [W]e were closing in on a vision of our universe in which everything could be calculated, predicted, and understood.”
In the words of Professor Lightman’s MIT colleague Alan Guth: “Back in the 1970s and 1980s, the feeling was that we were so smart, we almost had everything figured out,” referring to the fundamental forces of nature. Professor Guth punctuated that recollection, Professor Lightman recounts, with “a bitter laugh.”
The laugh is bitter because of something that “has unsettled some scientists for years”— careful calculations showing that if the values of some of the fundamental parameters of our universe diverged even a smidgen from what they are, life could not exist. If … Read More >>
By Yitzchok Adlerstein, on January 5th, 2012 Here are two ways in which people are addressing the horrible images of recent events that we are still haunted by. One is an opportunity to speak out; the other deals with one of the painful core problems that creates the environment which nurtures the extremism that we recoil from when we see it on YouTube.
Rabbi Yakov Horowitz, known to our readers for both thinking out of the box and for speaking out courageously, has teamed up with a Brooklyn attorney to craft an online petition. The wording is plain vanilla. It stays clear of all politics and all divisions. It simply condemns violence and intimidation as thoroughly out of character with the ways of Torah. It deplores the misappropriation of Holocaust imagery. It makes no demands, points no fingers, and offers no solutions. Instead, it accepts that silence can be construed as acquiescence, and notes that the signatories are breaking that silence. While many in Israel do not accept the need to speak out, very few in the West doubt it for a moment.
The petition is just getting started; already important names in the public domain are among the early signatures. You can add yours … Read More >>
By Eytan Kobre, on January 5th, 2012 I’ve been trying to gather information, from 6,000 miles away, in order to form some opinions on what appears to be a complex situation in Beit Shemesh. I’m still in the midst of absorbing what I’ve read and heard, so for the most part, I’ll let some others doing the talking for now. To gain a broader perspective, I’ve been reading widely, giving equal time, you might say, to Hamodia and Ha’aretz, the newspaper of Israel’s liberal, secular elites. Gideon Levy, an Ha’aretz columnist who sits on its editorial board, writes:
As expected, the campaign against the ultra-Orthodox, all of them, went beyond all proportion. But we can relax: The scandal of the week will quickly die down. The trendy word “exclusion” will return to its obscurity…. It was an artificial fuss: The signs had been there for years until the television cameras captured them. The spitting incident was shameful, but the scandal was overdone.… The fury that erupted on Monday in Beit Shemesh, with one policeman injured and two ultra-Orthodox men arrested, broke out only because the media showed up. This incident too will be forgotten. I was there. Eggs splattered around me, and the ultra-Orthodox shouted “Nazi, … Read More >>
By Jonathan Rosenblum, on January 5th, 2012 Kana’us is not a subject to which I thought to return so soon after Mishpacha’s symposium on the subject. Unfortunately, the Channel Two video about a eight-year-old girl in Ramat Beit Shemesh, Naama Margolese, who was spit at on her way to school, and the resultant worldwide publicity given to attacks on students of the national religious Beit Orot school by zealots living nearby leave me little choice.
The Channel Two TV documentary, introduced by Yair Lapid (yes, Tommy’s son) quickly went viral. The 13-minute film opens with Naama relating how she was spit at because her elbow-length school shirt was not deemed modest enough. We then see her mother walking her to school, and Naama whimpering piteously when her mother suggests she try walking part way alone. Next the TV interviewer asks a man with long peyos whether it is permitted to spit at girls whose dress is insufficiently modest in his eyes. He answers that it is, adding, as an odd justification, “We are healthy people.”
Let’s forget for a moment about the terrible damage done to the image of Torah and Torah Jews, and focus on nothing but the self-interest of the chareidi community in Israel. … Read More >>
By Yitzchok Adlerstein, on January 4th, 2012 Just when I thought I was going to have to spend time taking issue with what others have written on these pages, Rabbi Ron Yitzchok Eisenman, Rav of Cong. Ahavas Israel in Passaic NJ captured the mood perfectly enough, that I no longer feel compelled to distance myself from the content. (This “Short Vort” appears today on his website, ahavasisrael.org )
Hey Yankel- how are you doing?
Thanks a lot for the pics you sent me. You and your son really look well fed and robust.
However, since you asked me how I am doing, I have no choice but to be honest.
Jake, oh sorry, I meant Yankel- I have known you all of my life; after all, you are my older brother.
I have always worshipped the ground you walked on and attempted to emulate all of your ways and movements.
After all, why not? While I went off to live in ‘treif America’ you settled in the land of our fathers’: Eretz Yisroel.
While I chose to use English as my spoken language, you kept to the ‘mama loshon’ and insisted on exclusively speaking Yiddish.
While I dressed in more ‘Western … Read More >>
By Guest Contributor, on January 3rd, 2012 by Dovid Kornreich
There is a recurrent theme that I’ve read on Jblogs and newspapers, and it has two parts:
1) Chareidi society somehow engenders extremism and these incidents in Beit Shemesh are its bitter fruit.
2) Neglect by the rest of Chareidi leadership to publicly condemn the extreme acts is a form of acquiescence by silence.
The response to the first charge is that your average chareidi individual living in, let’s say Bayit Vegan or Har Nof, shares very little of the *cultural* values and norms of Mea She’arim Chareidim. The sad reality is that Chareidim are an extremely factionalized and subdivided group, and the divisions are deep and operate on many different levels of which outsiders simply have no appreciation.
True, on religious and political issues vis-a-vis non-Chareidim and especially the non-religious, most Chareidim seem to rally together as a unified group to oppose a common threat. But socially, there is very little meaningful contact between Mea Shea’rim Charedim (and their RBS offshoots) and the rest of the Chareidi population.
So one can’t credibly say that “Chareidi society” engenders violence, extremism, intolerance etc. There is very little *culturally* that unites all Chareidim. And it is the uniquely … Read More >>
By Avi Shafran, on January 3rd, 2012 One of the many downsides of a world that moves as quickly as ours is that many of us feel we must react to events in “real time” rather than after some research and thought. Leon Wieseltier once wisely remarked that the concept of such immediate reaction (he was speaking of blogs) is predicated on the ridiculous idea that our first thoughts are our best thoughts. Reactions, in other words, are one animal; thoughtful judgments, an entirely different genus.
Enough time has passed—I hope—for a measured, non-knee-jerk, objective look at events of several weeks ago that were very quickly reacted to by many in the Jewish world. The events comprised a trifecta of sorts of alleged anti-Israel sentiment: a speech by the U.S. Secretary of State; remarks by an American ambassador; and the U.S. Secretary of Defense’s response to a question.
It didn’t help, of course, that a presidential election is looming. Republican candidates led the charge, claiming that the trio of (as they portrayed them) dastardly comments were just proof to their charge that the current administration hates Israel.
The remarks Hillary Clinton reportedly made at a private gathering in Washington were indeed offensive. Ms. Clinton seemed to … Read More >>
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