These two videos (part 1 and part 2) are as alarming as much as they are intriguing.
I wouldn’t want to be their neighbor because they remind me of my old Afghani one years ago who used to shout at me and my friends for strumming our oh, so very EVIL Devilish guitars at the nearby playground.
“This is haram! You take my blessings! Go away! You take my blessings!”
So the population of ultra-Orthodox Jews is growing huh? That’s not very comforting now is it? Ideally I would like something in the middle but given the two only available options in this short documentary, I’d pick the secular Israelis on any given day. Ultra-Orthodox Jews? No thanks, that’s just too much religiosity for me to handle.
SudaneseThinker
SudaneseThinker
{ 30 comments… read them below or add one }
two jews, three opinions….
with ultra-orthodox i assume you mean haredim, btw. i think there is much of misunderstanding within this community anyway. not only on basic laws (why the fuck let women sit seperately in a bus?), but also e.g. in the way they dress (some of it used to be symbols of force by the eastern european authorities to distinguish jews from non-jews… why would you want to wear an oppressive uniform all the time? why not the way moses was dressed, e.g., if you want to go back to your roots anyhow?).
furthermore those who hate the existence of israel - being anti-zionist -, but don’t mind to live in and en masse immigrate to israel are plain hypocrites.
i know a convert - converted to the haredim community; made aliyah, and became an anti-zionist, disagreeing with the existence of the state of israel.
now,… WHY?
and in those perspectives, it’s frightening they are increasing more than non-haredim; though still they are a minority. i believe the state of israel should be carefull in allowing to much of their silly laws as gender apartheid - which is against the law of israel.
and concerning the anti-zionist approach - they should not be treated different from tibi from the arab party e.g.. it’s plain treason.
“why the fuck let women sit seperately in a bus?”
I know! Glad you’re annoyed by this.
This kind of religiosity is something that seriously bugs me. It’s just way too conservative and when people begin shoving it in my face, I begin to have serious issues with it. The least you could do is to keep it to yourself.
interesting. i don’t find them scary because the behaviour displayed here is no different from the behaviour displayed by fundamentalists in our neck of the woods-if anything they seem more tolerant of those around them.
they fire bomb crematoriums because they think they desecrate the land- at least they’re firebombing dead people whereas in the arab world fundamentalists fire bomb churches with living people in them.
Some like to project saliva at christian community in JErsualem, our fundies prefer sulphuric acid.
the women are segregated on *some* buses- In saudi they are segregated everywhere. At least they give women half the bus, in saudi, men get the whole bus except for the 7/8 seats at the back of the bus which are very generously given to women- despite the fact that buses are the only means of transport for women since they can’t drive and walking in 50C heat clothed from head to toe in black polyester isn’t really an option.
i think i read in a book by this ex ultra orthodox woman, that she had to stay in a separate room with the children all the time while her husband sat in the living room just reciting the torah. sounds like a similar arrangement to what our fundies have.
they have their black uniform, our fundamentalists have their own uniform but but they are a little wiser in that they go for more heat reflecting colours. haredim must get really hot wearing black- someone tell them they’re not in europe anymore. suzanne i think they wear it as a rejection of society and its values and black being the absence of colour so they don’t draw attention to themselves probably although it doesn’t work. what i’d like to know is why do they curl the long bits on the side, not why they have them but why they curl them.
The thing that i always find surprising is that it’s generally reported that haredim don’t pay their way. they are dependent on handouts from the government, probably obtained by evil secular people. Everyone’s supposed to work for a living- God given command is it not? Howcome they don’t find it defiling to receive money earned by secular people? I don’t see why secular people should put up with being told how to live their lives by people who sponge off them, when they’re perfectly capable getting a job.
The above aside, i have quiet admiration for all fundamentalists whoever they may be coz of the insanely high standards of self discipline that they mange to attain to. don’t shoot!
There is nothing special about high standards of self discipline if this is the way you were brought up.
furthermore, i would not want to compare one fundi with the other fundi. They are both doing wrong to human beings; and especially women. As according to judaism there are as many male prophets as female ones and as according to judaism the woman is an important human being (i.e. without her, there’d be no human beings) i doubt that god would want such discrimination to take place.
i think the haredim - though they would carefully deny this - are too much assimilated in 14th / 19th century europe and stuck there.
“furthermore, i would not want to compare one fundi with the other fundi. ”
the comparison was done in response to what drima had written, that what the videos showed was “alarming”. Compared to the attrocities that our fundies commit and their ever increasing hold on the region, I’d say that was relatively tame.
while i don’t know what judaism teaches,i know that there is only a handful of prophetesses in the entire tanakh, miriam, hannah, deborah and huldah- don’t think there’s anymore.
forgot noadiah, although she was working against the people.
I read some of the comments on the Youtube site.
Wow!
One said that Zionists kill everyone who gets in their way.
It’s always interesting when other people define what I have to think so they can hate me.
How often will Israel have to offer peace (and see the offer rejected) before the claim that Zionists kill everyone who gets in their will die?
Anna, there are haters everywhere. Whether they are Jewish or Muslim doesn’t matter. The worst were secular.
The best defence here is the famous “they are only a small minority”. They are indeed.
Anyone who throws rocks at cars on shabbat must follow a different Bible anyway. My copy doesn’t say “and on the seventh day G-d threw rocks at cars.
andrew, you have the wrong idea. i’d explain what i said again but i’ve already said it twice and there’s no other way to say it differently.
There are some inaccuracies in this program. If I remember it’s right it’s not 1/3 of all Israeli schoolchildren, but 1/3 in the first few classes. I think it’s called elementary school or something. There are also signs that Haredi birth rates are coming down. Maybe not as fast as the birth rate in the Israeli Arab sector but there is a clear downward trend.
Now most Israeli Israelis don’t define themselves as secular but as traditional and, according to the statistics and projections I remember reading, it’s the traditional sector that’s growing fastest reflecting the latest fashion of going back to the roots and other Jewish romanticism that hit the country in the last few years.
So it’s not that dramatic as may seem in this documentary. The ultra orthodox themselves have experienced a solid transformation in the last years as they outgrew their ghettos. This reflected for example in the growing workforce participation in this sector and poverty reduction.
And this is happening inside a society that in the last years was steadily growing more nationalist and religious as a whole. So the gap may be actually closing and now widening as a result.
now widening as a result = not widening as a result.
I have several comments on the two videos, and while I’m not surprised that it focused on controversies (violence sells news, after all) I’m still disappointed by it.
I’ve been following some of the events mentioned in the article. One of them was the torched crematorium, which had less ‘clients’ over its two years of operation than most people have fingers on a single hand. I also recall quite well the lack of any bearded, wild-eyed, black-wearing Jew being arrested for the case. I do remember the fact that people living near it in Hibat Zion were quite distressed to discover that the smell of burnt meat that they got at times wasn’t from any local meat factory, and most of them weren’t ultra-Orthodox Jews, quite frankly.
There are many reasons to torch a place. Insurance is one of them, especially when business is slow and protesters are abound. Not paying protection money (and yes, Israel does have organized crime, sadly. Quite a bit of it, even) is yet another reason. Being a hot-headed idiot (ultra-Orthodox or not) is yet another reason, so until I have actual *evidence* and not *initial statements* (which change quite often if someone actually ever bothers with a second interview) - please don’t connect the ultra-Orthodox with firebombing.
The pork shop (which wasn’t in Tel-Aviv, but that’s just mere detail) torching was much the same. Religious reasons was one of the possible leads for the event, but the lack of any further media furor over the case - which would have continued quite actively had any of the ultra-Orthodox had actually been arrested for the case - speaks volumes to me. People often prefer to judge on appearances and on what they *expect* matters to be.
With regards to military service - yes, largely the ultra-Orthodox don’t serve in the Israeli army. Quite frankly, this is the way the Israeli army prefers it, because recruiting ultra-Orthodox in large numbers would be incredibly costly - be it in terms of Glatt Kosher food demands (food that is more strictly supervised is more expensive by default), changes in army cultural norms… from the army’s perspective, the ultra-Orthodox are a population that is too difficult to integrate. The only real attempt so far had been experimental Yeshivat-Hester units, where a specific Yeshiva would study together and then enter the army life together into the same unit, with the unit in question having the religious standards that they had lived by until then. They’re small, few, and may be broken down at the current rate, though I wish they wouldn’t be.
As for Haredi Jews living on government handouts… pardon me before I burst out laughing, please. The only government handout that was ever relevant to Haredim was children welfare subsidies - their height was 600NIS per child, back when 600NIS was real money. You could, with extreme effort live off that and cover the rest of your needs by under-the-table labor, thus not paying taxes while still receiving the welfare payments.
I’d say that about 20% of the Haredi public ever lived by that formula, and even then… only when 600NIS was actually real money, back in the early Nineties. Today children welfare is 100NIS per child, and 100NIS isn’t real money. The Haredi public was always poor on average - there was never a real interest in luxury items, with a focus of just getting enough to go through the month. Poverty and minimum-wage income does mean that few Haredi families ever earned enough to pay a lot of income tax - but if that’s the same as “not being productive”… meh.
The vast majority of the ultra-Orthodox I personally know have at least one working family member. They don’t take kindly to freebooters among the ultra-Orthodox either - though they do have extensive charity foundations to help those who have it tough, and quite a few among the ultra-Orthodox have it tough… On average, it’s the women who work more than the men - the men still entering the workforce on a much later date in life, after the higher Yeshiva studies end.
As for the buses in Jerusalem… My sad guess is that few here realize how the ultra-Orthodox themselves view anyone who goes around shouting at people to stick to their half of the bus. Distaste would be the least of it, but sadly few here (and I mean the Israelis) speak much with Haredim or read their newspapers. I do both, quite often. The most recent article that I remember on the separate-sexes lines in Jerusalem (which, I might add, were added at the request of ultra-Orthodox for buses that mainly travel between ultra-Orthodox communities) described a person who went to a woman and shouted at her to leave the front of the bus as a self-anointed vigilante who probably wasn’t listening at the Yeshiva when they taught manners and mutual respect.
The ultra-Orthodox communities are very complex and their views vary, just as their points of origin around the globe varied at a time. The bucolic stupidity of anyone who deigns himself to be able to go to an ultra-Orthodox married couple and shout at them to sit separately, making himself some kind of firebrandish modesty-guard and a public disgrace, is obvious to the vast majority of ultra-Orthodox. Very, very obvious.
Now, some replies to others.
@Suzanne
i think there is much of misunderstanding within this community anyway. not only on basic laws (why the fuck let women sit seperately in a bus?)
Community norms on modesty. It’s pretty much all to do with the way people on a bus are pushed and shoved around, and the public in question prefers to avoid any male-female physical contact if possible - with the exception of contact between family members. The “back of bus-front of bus” idea was pretty much built on the same lines as gender segregation in synagogues - where the men sit in the lower hall, and the women in the upper balconies. This is further built on the preventing men from watching women too much, in particular during prayer. Perhaps it’s not much required for buses, but I can understand why the ultra-Orthodox - especially those who live in their own closed communities - would like to have such buses.
But essentially, if the ultra-Orthodox can’t police themselves, and stop any violent (or simply boorish) actions in the buses that they got by grace, and not by any law. The special buses are something that can go away just as easily as they came, if they bring more harm than good.
but also e.g. in the way they dress (some of it used to be symbols of force by the eastern european authorities to distinguish jews from non-jews… why would you want to wear an oppressive uniform all the time? why not the way moses was dressed, e.g., if you want to go back to your roots anyhow?).
*shrug* It’s how their parents and grandparents dressed, how their Rabbis dressed… It often started as distinctive clothing forced upon them, sure, but that’s how it *started* - not how it ended. Every community, if you pay close attention, has its own special dress code. The shape of he hat and its cut and folds, the length of the common-day coat or the celebratory coat worn on days of religious importance… The shtreimel (beaver-coat roundhat)… the patterns on the coat, the shoes… the sidelocks…
The old Jewish communities took the clothes forced upon them and made them their own, often without their oppressors even noticing. It’s the kind of grand joke a Jew would appreciate. Tell an ultra-Orthodox Jew that his clothes were forced upon him by some Polish nobleman 300 years ago, and he’d just stare at you - possibly in shock, possibly in amusement. They’re his now, after all, and why should he care about some dead landowner, or about the caprices of the Russian Orthodox Church back in the day?
and in those perspectives, it’s frightening they are increasing more than non-haredim; though still they are a minority.
Mhm. Frankly, there are more people in the Secular Jewish and Muslim Arab sectors of the populace who are more *actively* against the state than I’ll ever see in among the Haredim. I’d also say that they’re more numerous as well.
and concerning the anti-zionist approach - they should not be treated different from tibi from the arab party e.g.. it’s plain treason.
I fail to comprehend your argument. Those among the ultra-Orthodox who view the state as far too secular for them to handle… don’t have political parties. Their participation in the state institutions is minimal at best, and many don’t take anything from the state either - and bash the religious political parties for participating in the state institutions.
Or did you just use a stereotype and mush the entire ultra-Orthodox into a single-opinionated, single-minded group? Bless me, I do believe that you did! Newsflash, the ultra-Orthodox community is *diverse*! Many may view the state as too secular (and secularizing), but very few indeed go as far as to actually disagree with the state’s very existence.
i believe the state of israel should be carefull in allowing to much of their silly laws as gender apartheid - which is against the law of israel.
I think I’ve already said enough about this particular issue, so see above. I will say this though - the word ‘apartheid’ sees quite a lot of misuse, and this is yet another such case.
@anna
suzanne i think they wear it as a rejection of society and its values and black being the absence of colour so they don’t draw attention to themselves probably although it doesn’t work. what i’d like to know is why do they curl the long bits on the side, not why they have them but why they curl them.
The clothes are mostly traditional garb, with “rejecting outside society” playing a fairly small role. As for curling the sidelocks… they don’t. Or rather, only some do. This is all about the particular sub-community’s traditions.
Moroccan Jews curl their sidelocks. Yemenite Jews roll them around the back of the ear, making them nigh unnoticeable. One particular Ashkenazi Hassidic group ties the ends at the top of the head, and places the knot under the yarmulke. Others still grow them to shoulder-length… these are as endless as the various forms of yarmulke. Black yarmulke? White yarmulke? Small yarmulke or a great big one that covers the entire head and does deserve the “skullcap” name? Any writing on the yarmulke, or none? Any *particular* writing?
These are all community traditions, personal marks and variants.
The thing that i always find surprising is that it’s generally reported that haredim don’t pay their way. they are dependent on handouts from the government, probably obtained by evil secular people. Everyone’s supposed to work for a living- God given command is it not? Howcome they don’t find it defiling to receive money earned by secular people? I don’t see why secular people should put up with being told how to live their lives by people who sponge off them, when they’re perfectly capable getting a job.
Mhm. Generally reported is, sadly, another way for “stereotyped”. Haredim work, I assure you. They may be dirt poor, and quite a lot more dependent on public charities than they are on any government handout, but they do indeed work. Especially after the children welfare payments got sliced down to nothing, which is when ultra-Orthodox job-training centers starting popping up like mushrooms after the rain, now that Haredim had to look for jobs that paid more.
@Suzanne
i think the haredim - though they would carefully deny this - are too much assimilated in 14th / 19th century europe and stuck there.
They would - as what they’re assimilated into, first and foremost, is themselves. It’s all about the small town mentality. The *closed* small town mentality. The Haredim often feel that they’re still living in the same reality as in the Europe of old, where people were trying to destroy their way of life and forcibly and violently assimilate them on a regular basis. It’s this shut-in and self-defensive mentality that makes ultra-Orthodox particularly over-protective of culture and children’s education - which, by the way, is why they don’t have TV’s in the house. Too much rubbish on them for their tastes.
Incidentally, thirty years ago television was pretty common in ultra-Orthodox homes, to counter the video’s claim. It’s with the increase of content, particularly content that they didn’t approve of, that the TV’s started leaving the Haredi houses. The trend only really started in the early Nineties. This is first and foremost about information with regards to education - there are things that Haredim don’t want their children to see or hear as they grow up.
Incidentally, over the past five years or so, the TV’s made a comeback - as a video-only feature. This came with the heavy increase in tapes and CD’s for religious consumption, and I have quite a few of those at home, myself, and some of which I’d recommend to anyone.
@Andrew
Anyone who throws rocks at cars on shabbat must follow a different Bible anyway. My copy doesn’t say “and on the seventh day G-d threw rocks at cars.
Neither does mine, man. From the Halachic perspective, there is no way whatsoever to permit this act - it threatens human lives, which is forbidden on *any* day, not just the Seventh, and further… religious Jews are forbidden to lift rocks on Shabbat. They’re defined as Muktze, objects that shouldn’t be touched for fear that they may bring to desecrating the holy day.
Any stupid kid (and it’s pretty much always kids) who throws rocks on Shabbat desecrates the Shabbat merely by *lifting* the rock, and if I will ever encounter such an act that’s exactly what I’ll tell that kid’s parents. If the parents refuse to listen, I’ll look up their synagogue and talk with the Rabbi - and the Rabbi *will* give them a good talking-to, I can assure you of that.
@Nobody
There are some inaccuracies in this program. If I remember it’s right it’s not 1/3 of all Israeli schoolchildren, but 1/3 in the first few classes.
I think the video meant *new* schoolchildren, as in the newest generation to enter the system from the lowest level. In this, I think it was pretty accurate.
@Roman
Thought you’d show up after Passover first ends, man!
I have heard similar things about the Haredim as you tell. I myself was prejudiced against them, but a religious friend of mine in East-Jerusalem put me right on a few things and fellow students in Haifa explained the rest.
It’s the Hol-Ha’Moed of Passover now, and I’m bored. None of those trips my mother is so keen on interest me at the moment - which serves her plans just fine, as I now stand guard here at house, and bring offerings of food to my elderly grandmother. Even the annual gathering of roleplayers planned for the later part of the week doesn’t interest me - I went over the event list, and I must say that I wasn’t impressed. It is a sad day indeed when a virtual d20 interests me more than a real one.
So I sit here, and play Assassin’s Creed, silently killing Crusaders during Richard Lionheart’s crusade. Why, the game’s quite suitable for Middle-Eastern consumption!
@Roman
I am looking forward to StarCraft 2 myself.
I’m more interested in the soon-to-be-released Fallout 3, really. It will either make or break my further respect for Bethesda, because if they turn my precious post-apocalyptic RPG into generic rubbish I *will* rebel.
StarCraft 2 is looking good, from what little information available, but I’d really like them to publish a potential release date… or even a release quarter.
We are continuing the discussion we had in Tel Aviv, aren’t we?
I’m no longer sure, largely because I don’t quite remember what it was that we talked about.
I remember… pizza. And about traditionalist Jews. Oh, and Raccoon’s little computer games. I never did get around to trying out any.
We also discussed which computer games I should play.
We will have to come back to that pizza thing.
Well then… play the two old Fallout games, if you haven’t yet. And Planescape: Torment. Not new games, but few rival them depth and plot-wise.
@roman kalik, please check some old pictures of the western wall where men and women prayed mixed and not seperated as how it is now.
i would love to pray with my husband at the western wall; why can i not do that?
roman kalik said:
“Or did you just use a stereotype and mush the entire ultra-Orthodox into a single-opinionated, single-minded group? Bless me, I do believe that you did! Newsflash, the ultra-Orthodox community is *diverse*! Many may view the state as too secular (and secularizing), but very few indeed go as far as to actually disagree with the state’s very existence.”
of course i know that there are different opinions among ultra-orthodox concerning the israeli state as well. with my example of an anti-israel ultra-orthodox who immigrated to israel i just gave one view.
You also said that i misused the word apartheid. i think not. being forced - because you are a woman (or a man for that matter) - to sit in the back of a bus, e.g., is apartheid. you cannot force people to sit apart, to be apart, and to be treated apart from another group of people. no matter what reasoning there is behind this.
@roman kalik, please check some old pictures of the western wall where men and women prayed mixed and not seperated as how it is now.
Which period do you refer to? The Ottoman era, where the Jews had about as much decision power as yeast? The British era, when even the few rights Jews had to pray at the wall were being disrupted thanks to Haj Amin il-Husayni’s demands?
Or perhaps you refer to that short period following the Six-Day War, before the Rabbinate (and quite a few people besides) started demanding separate areas at the wall, because by traditional Jewish norms mixed prayers aren’t acceptable to many, particularly at what is essentially the single most holy site to Judaism?
i would love to pray with my husband at the western wall; why can i not do that?
Because in what is essentially the single most important site to Judaism, the traditional view can and should be respected.
You also said that i misused the word apartheid. i think not. being forced - because you are a woman (or a man for that matter) - to sit in the back of a bus, e.g., is apartheid. you cannot force people to sit apart, to be apart, and to be treated apart from another group of people. no matter what reasoning there is behind this.
It would seem that you didn’t watch the two videos all the way to the end. If you did, you would realize something - ultra-Orthodox women have their own opinions on the matter of modesty, and many of them would like to have a bus with separate areas for men and women. Your obsession with the word “apartheid” is because you connect “back of the bus” with something completely unrelated to the matter at hand - had there been two-story buses in Israel, the special lines in question would have had a division based on the floors. This isn’t about who should sit at the front (superior) or who should sit at the back (inferior), this is about dividing the bus into two separate rooms, which is pretty obvious to anyone who notices that such buses have a ticket-punching machine at back door - essentially turning it into another entrance.
And furthermore, as to the forcing… anyone who goes around forcing people to sit in this or that part of the bus, regardless of the nature of the bus, is doing so purely of his own private initiative - which is essentially vigilantism. There is no law here, not even some community-accepted hothead, merely the mutually accepted norm of a community - a norm that they would like to preserve whenever possible, if possible.
“Because in what is essentially the single most important site to Judaism, the traditional view can and should be respected.”
I agree.
if there are special buses for haredim in which the sections are seperated and by the will of the people going onto the buses - i am not the one to complain. but if for some reason i need to transfer myself from one to another place and there is only the possibility of such a special bus, then i do not want to be forced to sit seperately from men because i am a woman. I view that as a discriminatory law towards me, myself and i.
concerning the western wall: yes, those were pictures from those times (unfortunately photography is not much older).
anyway, as i see e.g. the synagoge at massada i do not see a balcony for women. where were the women in that synagogue? how was it in the very old times?
i mean the really old times and not since the medieval times when much got fucked up - also in europe.
Look at the models of Solomon’s Temple, Suzanne. You’ll see that they have an Ezrat Nashim, a Women’s Balcony (though the plural, rather than the singular, better fits that particular case - that was a very big balcony). Synagogues sought to emulate just that framework over the centuries, and until the Temple’s destruction local prayer houses enjoyed little status - certainly not the status a synagogue has today.
Furthermore, Massada’s prayer house was essentially that of a military fort, possibly converted to that use from a previous role. I don’t really think the soldiers of that time, being both soldiers on the one hand and fairly unbalanced fanatics on the other, cared about the women’s prayers one way or the other - so it’s not really the best example.
Sorry I’m saying it here, but:
RK, pre-order Warhammer Online. Boredom will cease being a function
On what are the models of Solomon’s temples based? Texts?
Temple, i meant
Yes, texts. Quite a few texts, I might add, as the Temple was a little… important, you see. And before you start raising questions regarding their authenticity or accuracy, allow me to tell you that such a tirade would show just how unfamiliar you are with how Jews viewed important texts over the passing milleniums. Accuracy was more than merely valued - it was an ideal central to Jewish thought. And the widespread communities worldwide usually had the same texts, I might add - so there’s no “copyist’s error” or some kind of deliberate change to supposedly subjugate poor women - unless you’d like to make it a worldwide conspiracy?
Is ultra-orthodox jews people as Naturei Karta? Or are these only “orthodox jews”?
Sorry, but i’m still new in the judaism thing, dont really know about chasedim, orthodox, reformists and so forth…
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