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Jan 4, 2012
Judaism Is The Victim Of the Hatred
The worst victim of all the animosity between communities right now is Judaism.
With the haredi community getting such bad press, with the backlash of hatred against them (as reported mostly in the haredi press) and violent incidents increasing, the unintended victim is Judaism. This is one reason it is so important for the haredi community - the askanim, the rabbonim, the gedolim, the people - to speak up, to reject the violence and to specifically reject the perpetrators of the violence and attempts of coercion. Because as the hatred increases, as the sentiments of "haredim are bad" increase, so do the calls for rejection of various aspects of Judaism.
The most recent examples:
With the haredi community getting such bad press, with the backlash of hatred against them (as reported mostly in the haredi press) and violent incidents increasing, the unintended victim is Judaism. This is one reason it is so important for the haredi community - the askanim, the rabbonim, the gedolim, the people - to speak up, to reject the violence and to specifically reject the perpetrators of the violence and attempts of coercion. Because as the hatred increases, as the sentiments of "haredim are bad" increase, so do the calls for rejection of various aspects of Judaism.
The most recent examples:
- MK Anastasia Michaeli of Yisrael Beiteinu recently submitted a proposed law that would make certain noise levels illegal. The law is targeted at silencing the blaring muezzins from the mosques that broadcast very loudly and disturb even neighborhoods a great distance away, at all hours of the day and night. Michaeli has been approached by a Tel Aviv councilman and asked to work to silence the Shabbos sirens from a small haredi community nearby the Ramat HaChayal neighborhood.
Ladianski wrote his request to Michaeli saying "for a long time the residents of Ramat Hachayal have been suffering, every Friday, from the noise blaring out of the speakers that are installed seemingly on top of a building in the neighborhood of Gur Hassidim in the Neve Sharet neighborhood... a few minutes before Shabbos, the haredi residents of that nearby neighborhood play music and call out "Shabbes" with great force.Unfortunately, previous complaints by the residents to the haredi leaders of the community of Neve Sharet to stop the noisy music have fallen on deaf ears... Because of you awareness of the problems of noise harassment, which I assume is what caused you to advance the law that has been dubbed"the mosque law", I request that you advance a law prohibiting the Shabbos announcements via speakers and broadcast systems that effect noise harassment and cause suffering to many people.
(source: Mynet) - Haredi soldiers of the Shahar unit have announced that they will refuse orders rather than listen to a female soldier sing, if they will be so forced to.
This announcement came on the heels of an announcement by the IDF that soldiers are not allowed to leave formal ceremonies even if a woman is singing.
With the haredi units having special arrangements so as to be able to avoid women in the army, it is strange that they are now being forced to hear women sing. If the army, and if society, wants to integrate the haredim into the army, they have to do it with sensitivity. Creating special units was a good step, but it is pointless if they then ignore the idea behind it and force them to do things against their beliefs. In the future, haredim will reconsider before signing up for such programs - they will say that even though it sounds good, at the end of the day they will be forced to listen to women sing, or eat non-kosher (or non-mehadrin) food (as such an incident recently happened).
(source: Ladaat)
- there were recently reports (I dont have the source anymore) of various Arachim seminars and speeches by other people being canceled because of the secular audience unwilling to go to hear haredi presenters.
You can write it all off and say it is simply the hatred of the secular for the haredim, but 2 weeks ago none of this was happening. The haredim were accepted legitimately and listened to, albeit with caution. Suddenly there is increased opposition and unwillingness to allow their culture in at all.
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I think we should do the same in RBS too. I don't mind too much the songs, although it depends always of course on the choice of the person who controls them, but what really annoys me is the screeching nosie, supposed to be a siren, but is very unpleasant. Far nicer would be a simple message of two words, Shabbat Shalom. Something like that I once heard on areligious kibbutz. Why do I need to hear a siren, that makes me think that the Iranians are attacking us, every Shabbat?
ReplyDeleteBTW, the official sirens put up by the Iriya are very weak, from what I have heard during exercises, and on Yom Hashoah/Zikaron.
Rafi,
ReplyDeleteYou are correct. The hatred against charedim is of recent vintage.
I believe that people are beginning to wake up and realize that there is a drive (on the part of many charedim) to take over this country.
When public buses and schools are being taken over the masses become alarmed.
There is another angle here. Presently the charedim are a minority here and yet wield disproportionate influence.
What will be as their numbers increase? Before long they will have the word in all aspects of society.
I take issue with you on one point. The statements from Rabbonim will mean nothing until they "tidy up" their attitudes and policies in their own neighborhoods.
How could they preach acceptance and tolerance when they themselves do not.
Charedim in meah Shear