As I Was Saying...

Full time Torah study - Not for everyone

Well... I guess they were not from the extremist settler groups ala the Price Taggers. But the Jewish terrorists who murdered 16 year old Muhammed Abu Khdeir by setting him on fire -  are apparently brothers and cousins from the same extended Sephardi Charedi  family. From the Jerusalem Post and VIN: 

According to information gleaned by The Jerusalem Post, the suspects are from haredi neighborhoods in Jerusalem, Beit Shemesh and the settlement of Adam some 20km northwest of Jerusalem. 

And as if to corroborate what I said yesterday: 

Speaking to the Post, Dr. Haim Zicherman, a researcher at the Israel Democracy Institute for its Project on Religion and State, said that the phenomenon of the “marginal” or “delinquent youth” from the haredi sector has been growing for many years.

“Young teenagers who don’t fit in to this framework are often left without options and they lose the haredi lifestyle and values they started out with, and can quickly deteriorate socially speaking,” Zicherman said.

He noted that the phenomenon was prominent, although not confined, to the Sepahrdi community, possible due to the wave of Sephardim who became Orthodox during the Spehardi revial of the 1980s and 1990s.

The children of such families often found it hard to be accepted into the mainstream which contributed to the increasing levels of youth delinquency in the community. 

Unfortunately, the Charedi world is having a hard time coming to terms with this: 

Beit Shemesh Mayor Moshe Abutbul was quoted by Arutz Sheva as saying that he knows the family of the suspects and that they are a “pleasant” and “quality” family and that he hoped that the charges would be proven false. 

Mayor Abutbul is Charedi and of Sephardic heritage.

Nonetheless this has brought about some very loud condemnations from the Charedi world: 

Rabbi Shalom Cohen, the spiritual leader of the haredi Shas movement, also condemned the murder in severe terms and referred to the murderers in the context of the rodef concept.

“A person whose hands are stained with the blood of innocents is liable to the law of rodef ,” Ynet quoted Shalom as saying on Monday. 

Wow. That makes them almost as bad as the knit Kipa wearing Religious Zionists. They are the biblical Amalek deserving of genocide. (Rabbi Cohen made a statement like that a year ago. But I digress.)

If anyone thought that the OTD children of the Charedi world are not something that should be taken seriously, this should be the biggest wake up call in the history of Charedism. The isolationist attitudes must end.  And integration into the real world must replace it. That is the goal of the government. And there is no better time to do it than right now.

Integration does not mean becoming secular. It means having a sense of citizenship and camaraderie with fellow Israelis. It means allowing a bit of the outside world in - in ways that will not undermine Charedi values. That will open up avenues for those who are not prone to the narrow lifestyle choices they are currently given.

If they want to end this terrible OTD plague - they have to allow a little more freedom for their children and a lot more latitude in their educational system. Because what they were doing until now was not exactly working for everyone. And in one very specific case it has created terrorists no better than the Nazis who burned Jews alive during the Holocaust.

Update
According to a JTA report, 3 of the six Charedim that were arrested for the brutal crime of murdering Muhammed Abu Khdeir were released. Police now believe they were not involved. The 3 still in custody have already admitted to the crime.