May 13, 2012

Yaron London Responds To Tsofar's Response To Yaron London's Vile Comment

Last week Yaron London wrote a vile editorial in which he expressed the need to "shrink" the haredi population of Israel. London wrote the  real issue is not how to draft the haredim into the army, or how to draw them out into joining the workforce. Rather, London wrote, "the discussion should focus on what needs to be done to minimize the number of haredim in Israeli society".

Yaron London
London did not offer any suggestions as to what should be done, but left it as what the discussion should be focused on.

There were a lot of responses to London's editorial, especially in the frum media. They, for the most part, took the position of being critical of London's opinion as being similar to Hitler and the Nazis.

The sharpest response was probably from a piece written on the Tsofar website in which, after criticizing London, the author suggests that "just like Hitler should have been killed before he wiped out the Jews, so too should be done to anybody who prepares society to destroy the Haredim using the same lingo as Hitler. The existence of Yaron London should be shrunk before he and his friends destroy us."

Funnily enough, Yaron London responded to this idiotic editorial with some wit. He said he considers it incitement but is not planning to file a complaint with the police as he has no energy for that. London says that he assumes there might be some crazy people but not enough brave people to actually act on it. As to the comment itself, London said that "lack of understanding and being overly emotional is common in the haredi world, being unable to accept any criticism. This is proof that learning gemara does not train one to understand a text written in simple Hebrew. It could be that it was necessary to translate the editorial in Yediot Acharonot to Yiddish.."

It is a nice witty comment from London, but he really should have responded, if at all, with an explanation of what he meant when he said to discuss shrinking the haredi community, rather than deflect by criticizing the criticism against him.


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2 comments:

  1. Commenter AbbiMay 13, 2012 5:18 PM

    I was listening to the interview on the radio at the time it happened and he did explain his comments. He said his desire was to shrink the charedi mindset that has multiplied thanks to welfare and high birthrates. He said he thought that shrinking welfare payments, enforcing the draft and getting charedim to work would shrink this mindset (by naturally shrinking the population) . I'm sure if you go to the Galatz website, you can find the interview and hear for yourself. The charedi guy was out of control and not willing to listen and basically London had no desire to engage in a debate with him. I completely agreed.

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  2. AnonymousMay 13, 2012 7:20 PM

    It's true that the Haredi birthrate was not nearly as high in the post-WWII as it became in the generations after child subsidies, etc. That generation was aware of this-worldly reasons for family planning, and they did not have less of a love for children or for life.

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