Yet another disturbing article about the community of Satmar in Kiryas Joel has appeared in the pages of the New York Times leading once again to a Chilul HaShem.
This time it is about harassment of one of their own Chasidim, one Mrs. Toby Greenberg. The Times reports that:
According to the police, Mrs. Greenberg said she was singled out because she chose to wear denim skirts, long, natural-looking wigs made of human hair, and stockings without a visible seam.
I understand the right of any community to have their own standards of modesty, even if those standards are beyond those of mainstream of Orthodoxy. But harassing an individual for that type of deviation goes too far. In fact harassment is never a legitimate option. How was she harassed? From the Times:
In September, the tires of their Chevrolet Impala were slashed and the warning “Get out, defiled person” was slathered in Yiddish in white paint on a window of their Mazda CX-7.
I remember when this story was first reported. I was appalled at the time. And I still feel that way. The latest development is that the investigation has been closed. The community refuses to co-operate with the police making it difficult to investigate. And so it goes as we keep seeing this kind of activity continue from time to time.
As has been noted many times, the kind of hooliganism that occurred to Mrs. Greeneberg is not condoned by the leadership of Satmar, nor is it condoned by most of its members. So why does it happen?
Many people would answer that every community has its thugs and that one should not judge a community by their behavior. True enough. But that doesn’t explain why both here and in Israel we occasionally find this behavior coming out almost excusively from these kinds of people. Why is that? I think the answer can be found in the following which is probably typical of the way that community feels:
On a recent day, villagers on the main commercial street here condemned the vigilantes and the harassment, although they also voiced disapproval of Mrs. Greenberg’s actions.
“People are hot-blooded. They see her on the street and have asked her nicely to stop wearing tight-fitted clothing, but she wouldn’t listen,” said a woman working at Kiryas Joel Shoes, who identified herself only as Sarah. “If she had behaved as she does inside the four walls of her house, it would have been fine, but on the street is different. She turned it into a dirty public thing.”
In other words, of course it’s wrong, but she asked for it!
It isn’t too difficult to see a connection between other communities that have had similar incidents. The common cause always seems to be matters of very extreme standards of Tznius combined with an insularity from the rest of the Orthodox world that borders on imdifference to it. It is in those communities where on can find violent responses to infractions of those standards. Recent events in Ramat Bet Shemesh reflect the same attitude and the same results. Incidents I’ve written about here testify to that fact. It has recently been the subject of an yet another article in Ha’aretz. From that article:
Local resident Nati Shauli did not even consider filing a police complaint two weeks ago after his car was vandalized. He and his wife came out of the grocery store in Ramat Beit Shemesh A, a mostly religious neighborhood, to find that their tires had been slashed. Shauli is convinced that whoever is responsible wanted to keep bare-headed women like his wife away from the ultra-Orthodox shopping center.
One can of course say that Ha’aretz is a biased source and indeed the victims of this vandalism have no proof that it was these Charedi hooligans that actually did it. But there are too many incidents similar to this where there was no mistake about who perpetrated exactly these kinds of acts or why. It is highly unlikely for it to be a coincidence.
There can be no doubt about the Tznius concerns these hooligans use as their excuse for their violence and vandalaism. The pattern is clear. The victims have in common the desire to have a bit more freedom within Halacha than the the community demands of them.
There are sanctions for violating community standards that are built in to a place like Kiryas Joel. That should be enough. If as was reported in the Times article an individual does not live up to the standards of that community, that community has a right to implement those sanctions.
So if, for example an elementary school says that mothers of students must cover their wigs with a hat or the child will not be admitted, that is their right. Even if mainstream Orthodoxy thinks they are wrong for having such a policy. But to slash tires and paint abhorrent messages on a car?! That is unacceptable and the only reason it happens is because the perpetrators can get away with it. The Police?! No one will cooperate with them. Case closed!
These types of communities are insular to the extreme. They are unwilling to be members of greater Klal Yisroel unless it is on their own terms.
As I’ve said before, Satmar does some good things, like their legendary Bikur Cholim Society which does not discriminate at all based on one’s Hashkafos. If someone is sick or in the hospital Satmar goes the extra mile for them showering the sick with kindness. But as wonderful as that is, it is only within the context of their own terms.
If one wants to be a part of their community but does not conform 100% with their extreme Tznius standards, the care and kindness shown to the sick by their Bikur Cholim society evaporates. And the individual is shunned …even if the behavior is well within the limits of mainstream Orthodox practice as was the case with Mrs. Greenberg. And that gives rise to thuggish behavior by certain elements within it.
Until public pressure is asserted on this community to change their attitude, this kind of behavior will continue to rear its ugly head. Many people will say that public pressure won’t work …that if ‘Gedolim’ from outside Satmar say anything, they won’t listen ..that they don’t even listen to their own leaders who do certainly condemn them. But the truth is their condemnations are in words only. Words that have no teeth. The police are shunned. So in the end there is nothing to curb future vigilantism. The vandals get away with it.
A statement made by a body like the Moetzes that condemns not only the behavior of the thugs but that community’s leadership for failing to apply proper sanctions can make a difference. I can’t help but believe that this will work.
But it must be without any equivocation. There can be no statement like “even though we do not condone the Tznius violations’ preceding any condemnation’. It has to be clear and focused only on the vandals and the lack of the leadership in that community doing anything about it. If Charedi rabbinic leaders show that level of disapproval, I don’t think Satmar and other communities like them can ignore it. There just has to be enough of a rabbinic will to do it.
