Disclaimer: My post below is about the Haredi radio stations, not against Bet Shemesh or Mayor Moshe Abutbol.

If you have not seen the video yet, last week one day a regular protest by the construction site of Goloventzitz turned into an anti-soldier protest. A Haredi soldier walked by and the protesters turned their attention to him, verbally abusing him (and some reports say there was some physical violence as well).


This has happened so many times already that as detestable as it is, I do not want to write about it every time it happens. It becomes pointless. This alone would not have warranted a post right now. Maybe at a different time my feeling would be different, my mood would be different, my form and level of revulsion would be different, but right now I did not feel like writing about it again.

What changed?

This morning I heard an interview about the incident on Radio Kol Hai.

I will preface it by saying I really enjoy some of the programs on both Radio Kol Hai and Radio Kol BeRama - especially the morning programs. They have interesting interviews with politicians and community leaders, you can sometimes hear a politician say something really crazy, and they generally tackle the current topics of interest.

My complaint with them is that whenever they interview a Haredi politician or askan, they serve him softballs - they give him easy questions letting him make his point and they don't really attack or get to the heart of any issue. They never really put haredi politicians on the spot like they do with the non-haredi politicians.

Regarding the incident described and depicted above, they intervewed the mayor of Bet Shemesh, Moshe Abutbol. They asked him questions about how he lets it happen, why Bet Shemesh while in other places they don't have these problems, about how it can be resolved, about how in Jerusalem they were pressured to leave by effecting communal pressure on the kannoim by using a form of collective punishment, and the like.

The questions were mostly good, but they never took it to the next step after Abutbol answered.

Moshe Abutbol kept repeating that they are a minority and that 95% of the Haredi community is mad eup of wonderful people. He said he did not bring them to Bet Shemesh, but he cannot do anything that will be collective punishment (such as withhold city services in the areas these goons live - such as garbage collection, etc), because they live amongst other people, other communities, and why should they all suffer because of these few people. Abutbol said the way it will be resolved or minimized is only if their rabbonim put out a letter saying to stop this behavior. He also repeatedly pointed out that punishing them is not up to him but the police,

They never asked him the follow-up questions - questions like so as mayor managing this complicated city, what solutions do you have? Are you approaching the relevant rabbonim to get them to put a stop to it? Who says that will work - when Rav Shternbuch and other Eida rabbonim came out with statements telling them to stop or not to protest the graves at this specific site, they attacked the rabbonim - so maybe that is not the solution. As great as the other 95% (Abutbol's number, not mine) of the Haredi community is, why are these 5% given the power to disrupt an entire city and blacken the name of the other 95% Haredim in the city and throughout the country? As mayor, even though he did not bring them, what is he doing to stop them?

Some of their talk show programs are great, but listening to interviews with Haredi politicians can sometimes be very frustrating.