Ramat Bet Shemesh just hit the big time. An article in the New York Times has a very interesting feature which details much of the lifestyle of that community. Based on my own observations about this… my home in Israel… the article is pretty accurate. It focuses on the new economic power of Charedim and how the market place has adjusted to their needs. But the 'story within the story' is the very real problems that still plague Israel Charedi society.
Many of the things mentioned in this article have been discussed here in the past. In fact those mentioned in the article only represent a fraction of those I know about which probably only represents a fraction of what’s actually there.
While the article was not directly critical, it does not present a positive picture. It does make a distinction between the two sections of Ramat bet Shemesh A and B. The residents of A are certainly presented as more civilized. That’s probably because so many residents there are American Charedim. But B is a horse of another color. B is presented in all its ‘radiant glory’ as an extremist and backward society of barbarians whose lives are governed by a type of religious behavior found in the most primitive of Islamist cultures.
Before anyone says, ‘How dare I compare Judaism to Islam?!’… I’m not. Of course Judaism is nothing like Islam. We do not behead. We do not cut off limbs. We do not have honor killings of our wayward children. And we do not blow ourselves up.
But in the case of the village of RBS B, though not taken to that extreme, the religious mindset of zealotry is virtually the same. And some of the things that have happened there are not dissimilar to the kinds of things one would expect to see in a country ruled by the Taliban.
An entire community of over 15,000 people sees Judaism in those terms. I’m sure that the vast majority of them do not act on those feelings. But there are some who do while the rest are sympathetic to their motives if not entirely to their actions. And when the violence begins, the focus is not on those who commit it, but on the reasons they do so. They in effect ‘blame the victim’. Every time.
How far they go are has been demonstrated time and again… every time one of their extreme standards is violated. It has all been well covered by the media. Just recently an all too familiar event occurred there that was mentioned earlier on this blog. Here is the New York Times description:
On Oct. 21, five ultra-Orthodox Jews assaulted a woman and an Israeli soldier on a bus bound for Beit Shemesh. The men demanded that the woman sit in the back of the bus; when she refused and asked the soldier to sit next to her, they beat them both. When the police came, dozens of ultra-Orthodox men attacked them while the assailants escaped.
There are many more such events that occur there. But the following takes the cake.
Is there anyone reading this post that does not enjoy going out with their family to a Kosher Pizza Restaurant? That thinking was behind the opening of a Kosher L’Mehadrin (strictly supervised) Pizza restaurant on Ramat Bet Shemesh B. It was owned and operated by an American Charedi Oleh (newly immigrated). That it serves the strictest of kosher food was not even a question on anyone's radar screen. That was a given. Here is the rest of the story:
After six months, he said, “the problems started — they began to throw things at us: tomatoes from the market, hot oil, gasoline.” Some ultra-Orthodox from B were customers, but “the Hasidim, who were a bit nuts,” started demonstrations, which became violent. His sin was to sit men and women in the same restaurant. “I went to their rabbi and I said, ‘Look, it’s like the war of Gog and Magog,(Armageddon)’” Mr. Shmueli said. “And he said, ‘You might end up dead.’”
So, that is the mindset. Something happens to upset an extremist religious value? ...Destroy it by any means necessary! And the response of ‘the rabbi’? ‘You might end up dead.’
Not… stay your ground, …or Halacha is on your side, …or I’ll see what I can do to stop it, …or even maybe we’ll change a few things to accommodate… Nope. Just a warning that he might end up DEAD!
That is quite a revelation. I’m not sure whether to consider that a tacit endorsement of the barbaric tactics of those ‘Chasidim’ , or a concession to the helplessness of rabbinic leadership in that town to do anything about it. Probably both.
I sit here and just scratch my head… wondering where all this will lead. There are over 15, 000 people and most ….at the very least... do not protest and perhaps even condone violence on a level so great that can result in death!
Thankfully RBS A is not like that, they welcomed this restaurant with open arms when it re-opened there.
While the comparison isn’t exact, I think this represents in microcosm the divide between American Charedim and Israeli Charedim. I do not mean to say that all Israeli Charedim are this barbaric and primitive in their behavior with respect to their religious beliefs. But I do think that the behavior does indicate in general the way Israeli Charedim think about religious observance and they way American Charedim think.
And now, not only does the Jewish world know about it… it is in a newspaper read by many millions of people all over the world. Is there any wonder why so many people think religious fervor is responsible for all the ills in the world?
