Tis the season, it seems, to exploit the Holocaust. Last week, it was Rep. Allen West of Florida, who invoked Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels in speaking about the Democratic party, and Canadian imam Syed Soharwardy, president of the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada, who said: Muslims are going through that situation right now what the Jews faced before the Holocaust.
Readers are referred to our comments on the congressman and the imam in last week’s editorial. This week, alas, a group of haredi Orthodox Jews in Ramat Bet Shemesh dress up in concentration camp uniforms and dress their children to resemble the hapless Jewish child in Warsaw, with the yellow star, raising his hands in surrender. Read related news article
In Bet Shemesh, we move from the brutal to the bizarre from Jews who harass Jewish children on their way to school to Holocaust imagery.
What exactly did these Israeli Jews think they were conveying that the opening of a school whose ideology is not to their liking is equivalent to, or a step on the way to, Nazism? It is pathetic that they are so self-contained that they apparently have no clue how ridiculous they appear and how deeply they defeat their own cause.
As to the cause itself their claims against secular and modern Orthodox Israeli society and as to the counterclaims of their opponents, it is critical to cool the atmosphere. Even more important, it is critical not to buy into the black-and-white, polarized version of reality that many of the actors in the internal Israeli crisis would foist upon us.
Is it true, as many of the haredi Orthodox claim, that their way of life is under attack by the secular and others? That they are a minority whose rights are not respected and whose way of life is ridiculed?
Yes, it is true to an extent, and to a greatly diminishing extent. While the haredi Orthodox may well elicit derision in many circles, those circles are shrinking for the simple reason that the haredi Orthodox are growing; in fact, growing dramatically. Their self-image is still that of a small minority, battling the pagans at every front; but in fact they are gradually taking over major segments of Israeli society. It is time to wake up and take responsibility for guiding a society with spiritual leadership, rather than carping about slights and minor intrusions on their boundaries.
And minor these intrusions surely are. Even a casual visit to Bet Shemesh will disclose a largely haredi (and idyllic) Orthodox enclave, such that if a modern Orthodox school opens therein, what, exactly, is the big deal, especially given the duly modest clothing of the students?
Modesty this brings us to the heart of the matter, a matter of substantive dispute between Orthodox Jews of all stripes and the rest of Israeli society. Before diving into this minefield, it is well to keep in mind the spiritual imperative, as set down in the Sim Shalom prayer uttered by all praying Jews: Bless us, all of us, as one. The consciousness that we Jews are one people, that we have ample enemies without and cannot afford to become each others enemies within, is the imperative, the precondition, to any discussion of the radical religious differences within Israel.
Yes, a Jewish subcommunity has a right, nay an obligation, to insist on modesty in attire. Those whose personal choices differ have an obligation to respect the modest choices of other Jews. However, the cause of modesty, not to mention religious Judaism in any form, is hardly advanced by the specter of individuals however small their numbers spitting or harassing or calling Jewish women names that we find unprintable. Violence is wrong and unacceptable. The ways of Torah are ways of peace, says the book of Proverbs (another line in another common Jewish prayer). Those who uphold the banner of a higher level of Jewish modesty are doubly obligated to hold up the standards of decency in promoting this banner.
Which is not to ignore and surely not to condone those on the secular side who would provoke, deride or damage Jews whose religious commitments they disagree with or do not understand. The idea, as one secular Jewish leader, Yossi Sarid, maintains, that Jewish law is inherently discriminatory is just the kind of falsehood that stokes the flames no less than Holocaust imagery. As to which side is reacting to whom, that is a juvenile game that adults, especially religious adults, should not play. In the face of provocation from either side, the proper response is silence, fortitude and renewed commitment.
Thus, separate seating on buses may not be a Jewish secularists idea of a liberal democratic society, but as long as the buses are privately operated, leave well enough alone. Similarly, a modern Orthodox or a secular school may not be a haredi Orthodox Jews idea of a religious society, a light unto the nations, but as long as the schools are publicly funded and positioned not to dominate a haredi neighborhood, leave well enough alone.
The truth is, most Jews in Israel do leave well enough alone. That, however, does not excuse any Jew of the responsibility for standing up against the crazies, however small in number they might be, within their own subcommunities.
Copyright © 2012 by the Intermountain Jewish News
