So I don’t blame Agudah for embarking on public relations campaign to clear the name of the Orthodox Jewish community. They want the public to see the other - more positive side of Orthodox Jewry. A laudable goal which I support. As noted by JNS:
Agudath Israel of America, which represents Haredi Jews, has launched a media campaign, with the introduction of the KnowUs.org website and the purchase of high-visibility billboards. The organization says it needs to get the truth out about its communities and the damage it says the Times is doing through its series of articles about New York’s Hasidic yeshivas, in the wake of rising hate crimes against visibly-practicing Jews in the region.
Agreed. But the truth requires more than simply painting the rosiest of pictures about that community, By doing that they are just as guilty as the Times who ignored the positive side.
First they need to make clear that Orthodoxy is not the monolith the Times has made it out to be. The spectrum between one end of Orthodoxy and the other end is huge. And the differences between them could not be more stark. By omitting that, the Agudah is basically doing what the Times did. Putting us all in the same box. Only the Agudah is doing it in a positive way while the Times did it in a negative way. Both the Times and Agudah are wrong.
I do not mean to say that there is nothing positive about the segment of Orthodoxy that the Times has been focusing on. As I've said (many times) there is a lot of good in that community that the public needs to be made aware of. But the problems I have been continually pointing out still exist and need to be corrected. They should not be ignored. If the Agudah were to be honest they would acknowledge that - even while criticizing the Times for their 13 purely negative articles. Problems that do not exist in other segments of Orthodoxy. Those problems are why the Times got involved in the first place. (Although those other segments may have problems of their own, they are beyond the scope of this post.)
The Times does not make clear that their findings in the Chasidic community are not found in the greater Orthodox community (which includes Modern Orthodoxy, Centrism, and the Lithuanian style Yeshiva world). They should have made clear that none of these other segments subscribe to the isolationist, anti Limudei Chol philosophy of Satmar type Chasidus. They all do in fact value Limudei Chol to one level or another and are mostly not isolationist.
The Times does little in the way of making that clear. It is that omission in addition to presenting the positive side of Chasidus that Agudah should be focusing on. Not just the on positive as the Times did on the negative.
Even though in all cases we share the common characteristics of being believing Jews that are observant, the differences are there and they are important. The observations made by the Times about the Chasidic community do not apply to the rest of us.
Please understand, I am not trying to divide the observant community. I am simply trying to tell the truth. True, what unites us - mainly our belief system and our observance of the Mitzvos - is greater than what divides us. But the divisions are there. They are real. and need to be made public. And to the extent that any of those differences are negative, they\ need to be addressed and repaired. Not ignored.
Not that Agudah is ever going to do that. They want to present only the positive side. But then they are guilty of the sin of omission. Same as the Times. A positive PR campaign must include the truth. Warts and all.
