Jews face off against Jews in Jerusalem
Haredi dominance of Beit Shemesh 'is only matter of time'

By Yair Ettinger, Haaretz Correspondent
Tue., December 04, 2007 Kislev 24, 5768
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/930995.html

"Hitler and the messiah. The two dominate the walls and souls here," Amos Oz wrote in his book "In the Land of Israel" after visiting the Jerusalem neighborhoods of Geula and Mea Shearim in the fall of 1982. "The battle has been won. Zionism has been pushed away from here, as though it had never existed."

In the next chapter, Oz stops at Beit Shemesh, where he meets a group of young men, "their faces distorted with rage" at Mapai (the precursor of today's Labor party), Shimon Peres and the elites.

Twenty-five years later it seems that the chapter on Mea Shearim could be transposed to a few neighborhoods in Beit Shemesh, a city whose population now reaches 73,000. "Taking part in the profane elections is prohibited," and "Israeli women must dress modestly," declare posters around the city.

Local resident Nati Shauli did not even consider filing a police complaint two weeks ago after his car was vandalized. He and his wife came out of the grocery store in Ramat Beit Shemesh A, a mostly religious neighborhood, to find that their tires had been slashed. Shauli is convinced that whoever is responsible wanted to keep bare-headed women like his wife away from the ultra-Orthodox shopping center.

"Life has become insufferable here," he said in desperation.

A month ago, the neighborhood's national-religious residents held a demonstration vowing not to give in to the "hooligans." But a tour of Beit Shemesh shows that the fanatic element here also has complex and tense relations with the ultra-Orthodox community, which is identified mostly with Agudat Yisrael, Shas and Degel Hatorah.

The resemblance between Mea Shearim of days gone by and Ramat Beit Shemesh, one of the ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods, is not accidental. Some 15 years ago the housing shortage in Jerusalem drove the extreme, anti-Zionist Eda Haredit sect of Jerusalem's Haredi community to seek housing for young couples outside the capital. They chose Ramat Beit Shemesh B. Today these people are even more fanatic than those in Mea Shearim.

These extremists comprise an estimated 2 percent, no more than 15,000 of the Israeli ultra-Orthodox community. They are a minority in Beit Shemesh as well, but wield considerable power and influence.

The fanatics are mostly followers of Rabbi Shaya Rosenberger, a right-wing Satmar Hasid. Another group, a separatist group of Breslav Hasidim led by Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak Marmelstein, is even more extreme. In recent years these groups have conducted a series of campaigns - posting billboards calling for "modest behavior," introducing sexually segregated bus lines and recently protesting plans to open a state religious school near their neighborhood and opposing the sale of apartments in the neighborhood to people who are not ultra-Orthodox.

Two and a half weeks ago, police officers headed by Jerusalem police chief Aharon Franco and Beit Shemesh chief Oz Eliasi secretly met the leaders of the town's Eda Haredit sect. On their way to Rabbi Rosenberger's house the officers passed graffiti blasting Eliasi and branding him "the Nazi" and "evil."

People in the neighborhood described the meeting a "surrender," saying the police were now officially afraid of entering the neighborhood. They said the police had promised the rabbis to refrain from any activity in the neighborhood without the rabbis' prior authorization.

District police spokesman Shmuel Ben-Ruby said the meeting was intended to "open channels of communication with the rabbis to restore peace to the neighborhood. Nothing was promised and no prior coordination was agreed on before any police activity."

However the fanatics' energy is mainly directed at the silent ultra-Orthodox majority. People in Ramat Beit Shemesh A say that men harass ultra-Orthodox women merely for walking in the supermarket with wigs, as women from the Gerer Hasidic group do. They hurl insults at other women because they refuse to send their small sons to the part of the bus earmarked for men.

"We operate our own bus lines to preserve our way of life," a Ramat Beit Shemesh B resident said.

Relations between the different ultra-Orthodox groups will be tested next year in the municipal elections. More than a year and a half ago in the Knesset elections, despite the fanatics' attempts to sabotage voting, the political strength of the ultra-Orthodox prevailed. United Torah Judaism received most of the votes, 22.2 percent, in a town that had been a Likud bastion in 1982. Shas came in second with 19.9 percent of the votes, while the Likud, Labor and Kadima lagged far behind.

Agudat Yisrael, Degel Hatorah and Shas are convinced they will obtain a solid majority on the town council, but may not field a mayoral candidate just yet. "It may take another term," a Degel activist said. "But it's clear that the ultra-Orthodox dominance of Beit Shemesh is only a matter of time."

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Simshalom's response:

So? Why can`t Charedim move anywhere they want...since for two thousand years Jews kept the Torah in the galut dreaming of returning to Jerusalem and Zion, and now that Torah Jews (such as Charedim) have made it to the finish line and are finally living and thriving in Zion and Jerusalem, they should be praised for upholding, validating and sanctifying the blood sweat and tears that the Jewish people went through in order to come and live in peace and harmony in the Jewish homeland.

It`s a disgrace that secular chiloni Jews think that there`s something wrong here, they are not thinking "Jewish" if they think that having Charedi Jews move into Jewish neighborhoods, in the Jewish homeland, is problematic.

Let the Charedi march go forth, they`ll win, and a word of advice to the Charedi-bashers and haters, if you can`t beat `em, join `em, the Charedim have many Kiruv Jewish Torah outreach programs designed to meet your needs which is bound to bridge the gaps and will help you feel better and more accepting. Remember: Ahavat Yisrael

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Irene's response:

Dear Sim, since you do not live in Israel, I assume you prefer the good life in the USA and therefore do not really know the true situation here. Be that as it may, why can people not live and let live? Maybe if the Charedim would use a gentler and calmer way of bringing the non-frum jews back to frumkeit. By the way, chiloni is a very derogatory word and as a Jew you should know not to insult people.

I was on a bus that was attacked by this mob and a yound girl sitting next to me said to me if this is how the frum Jews behave, why should I continue my studies to become frum?

If they want Ramat Beit Shemesh Bet to be chareidi, I have no problem with that, but then they must sort out their own bus service, electricity, water, garbage collection etc (which by the way is subsidised by the WORKING people in Beit Shemesh).

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Simshalom responds to Irene:

Irene...it`s not just Israel.

Hi Irene, thanks for responding. So you think I`m having an easy life in the US? Think again! You`re mixing up all sorts of information. You`re looking at hooliganism by a small minority of Charedim and their lack of paying taxes. So I agree with you about that. But that still doesn`t justify blanket hatred of Charedim by Chilonim (what else to call secular Jews in Hebrew? "Chachamim?)

It`s not just in Israel that Charedi population growth causes counter-attacks from non-religious Jews and in the US they have support from millions of non-Jews. So this isn`t a matter of geography or where one chooses to live (so far Jews live in all sorts of places, same reason Israelis leave Israel, but that`s a tangent.)

Chiloni Israelis do not study Torah and keep the mitzvot. Until they do, they`ll have nothing to stand on against the growth of Charedi families and communities, that for all their faults, and they have many, are based on Torah and Mitzvot with successful Kiruv Rechokim.

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Kipa Sruga in Beit Shemesh responds:

Until a couple of years ago all the different groups of people lived together peacefully in Beit Shemesh. Beit Shemesh is a traditional kind of place where even the religiously non-observant are religious. Then these zealot hooligans came and started telling us what to do in our town. I didn`t ask them to come here. If they don`t like it they should go somewhere else.

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Simshalom responds to Kipa Sruga:

Kipa Sruga: market forces will win in the end.

Jews have had to move many times from neighborhoods in the USA. Not only when it`s Blacks or others moving in, but also when groups of Jews, like the Charedim of Boro Park moved in & the Modern Orthodox didn`t feel comfortable and moved out. These are things that happen all the time. There is only one way to stop such things: the communities you belong to have more children & will automatically create a counter societal push. In the end, the media is miscasting this whole phenomenon, they like to scream "Charedim, Charedim" like "fire, fire" but that is just hysteria.

The truth is that all neighborhoods undergo socio-economic changes, & in this case even religious and cultural changes, & no amount of screaming or grandstanding will change it. The only advice is, if you don`t like it, & you see what`s going to happen down the line, find a neighborhood that you will be happy in. It`s not easy, but that is the only solution. The Charedim are just as wild & pushy as any group of Israelis.

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Where the ultra-Orthodox are the moderates

By Yair Ettinger
Wed., December 05, 2007 Kislev 25, 5768
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/930796.html

"Hitler and the messiah. The two dominate the walls and souls here," Amos Oz wrote in his book "In the Land of Israel" after visiting the Jerusalem neighborhoods of Geula and Mea Shearim in the fall of 1982. "The battle has been won. Zionism has been pushed away from here, as though it had never existed."

In the next chapter, Oz stops at Beit Shemesh, where he meets a group of young men, "their faces distorted with rage" at Mapai (the precursor of today's Labor party), Shimon Peres and the elites.

Twenty-five years later it seems that the chapter on Mea Shearim could be transposed to a few neighborhoods in Beit Shemesh, a city whose population now reaches 73,000. "Taking part in the profane elections is prohibited," and "Israeli women must dress modestly," declare posters around the city.

Local resident Nati Shauli did not even consider filing a police complaint two weeks ago after his car was vandalized. He and his wife came out of the grocery store in Ramat Beit Shemesh A, a mostly religious neighborhood, to find that their tires had been slashed. Shauli is convinced that whoever is responsible wanted to keep bare-headed women like his wife away from the ultra-Orthodox shopping center.

"Life has become insufferable here," he said in desperation.

A month ago, the neighborhood's national-religious residents held a demonstration vowing not to give in to the "hooligans." But a tour of Beit Shemesh shows that the fanatic element here also has complex and tense relations with the ultra-Orthodox community, which is identified mostly with Agudat Yisrael, Shas and Degel Hatorah.

The resemblance between Mea Shearim of days gone by and Ramat Beit Shemesh, one of the ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods, is not accidental. Some 15 years ago the housing shortage in Jerusalem drove the extreme, anti-Zionist Eda Haredit sect of Jerusalem's Haredi community to seek housing for young couples outside the capital. They chose Ramat Beit Shemesh B. Today these people are even more fanatic than those in Mea Shearim.

These extremists comprise an estimated 2 percent, no more than 15,000 of the Israeli ultra-Orthodox community. They are a minority in Beit Shemesh as well, but wield considerable power and influence.

The fanatics are mostly followers of Rabbi Shaya Rosenberger, a right-wing Satmar Hasid. Another group, a separatist group of Breslav Hasidim led by Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak Marmelstein, is even more extreme. In recent years these groups have conducted a series of campaigns - posting billboards calling for "modest behavior," introducing sexually segregated bus lines and recently protesting plans to open a state religious school near their neighborhood and opposing the sale of apartments in the neighborhood to people who are not ultra-Orthodox.

Two and a half weeks ago, police officers headed by Jerusalem police chief Aharon Franco and Beit Shemesh chief Oz Eliasi secretly met the leaders of the town's Eda Haredit sect. On their way to Rabbi Rosenberger's house the officers passed graffiti blasting Eliasi and branding him "the Nazi" and "evil."

People in the neighborhood described the meeting a "surrender," saying the police were now officially afraid of entering the neighborhood. They said the police had promised the rabbis to refrain from any activity in the neighborhood without the rabbis' prior authorization.

District police spokesman Shmuel Ben-Ruby said the meeting was intended to "open channels of communication with the rabbis to restore peace to the neighborhood. Nothing was promised and no prior coordination was agreed on before any police activity."

However the fanatics' energy is mainly directed at the silent ultra-Orthodox majority. People in Ramat Beit Shemesh A say that men harass ultra-Orthodox women merely for walking in the supermarket with wigs, as women from the Gerer Hasidic group do. They hurl insults at other women because they refuse to send their small sons to the part of the bus earmarked for men.

"We operate our own bus lines to preserve our way of life," a Ramat Beit Shemesh B resident said.

Relations between the different ultra-Orthodox groups will be tested next year in the municipal elections. More than a year and a half ago in the Knesset elections, despite the fanatics' attempts to sabotage voting, the political strength of the ultra-Orthodox prevailed. United Torah Judaism received most of the votes, 22.2 percent, in a town that had been a Likud bastion in 1982. Shas came in second with 19.9 percent of the votes, while the Likud, Labor and Kadima lagged far behind.

Agudat Yisrael, Degel Hatorah and Shas are convinced they will obtain a solid majority on the town council, but may not field a mayoral candidate just yet. "It may take another term," a Degel activist said. "But it's clear that the ultra-Orthodox dominance of Beit Shemesh is only a matter of time."

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Simshalom:

Why are Charedi victims portrayed as "aggressors" ?

It`s odd how a minority of Jews in Israel (Charedim) who are in real terms powerless (all the levers of power in the State of Israel are in hands of Chilonim) are constantly portrayed as if they were an invading force of "aggressors" when the opposite is true.

A Charedi Jew is limited where he can live whereas the Chilonim can live anywhere. Religious Zionists, while not Chilonim, also have more options than your average Charedi Jew who cannot separate from key institutions needed to survive, like yeshivas, chedorim, Bais Yaakovs for their children and communal organizations of religious life. Dress and lifestyle limit them.

Neighborhoods change all the time all over the world, as one group moves in and another moves out, based on essentially natural factors and forces, so the hysteria and crankiness generated against Charedim in situations like this are irrational reactions, when the real and Jewish thing to do would be to rejoice and celebrate that the Jewish people are expanding.

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Joe Sittizen responds:

Charedim aren`t victims, they`re the agressors

I don`t know how Sim defines "victim", but when a bunch of charedim go out and beat people up on buses (which has happened many times, not just on the Beit Shemesh line last month), they`re on the offensive.

Slashing tires, threatening people, attacking people, insulting people, throwing bleach on women - the rational reaction is to label these charedim as aggressors.
The only irrationality appears to be the small subset of charedim who think they are beyond the laws of the Torah, let alone the laws of the land.

The best place for the violent charedi aggressors is the same place as any other violent whacko be they religious or secular - behind bars to cool off for a few months.

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Simshalom responds:

Joe: Focusing on lunatic fringe does not tell the truth

Joe, I agree that ANYONE who commits crimes of violence against anyone, other than for self-defense, must be arrested, tried and punished. In any normal society if anyone attacks another passenger on a bus they must be arrested. Why are the bus companies allowing hooligans to get on the buses? and if Charedim don`t like the bus system, let them walk or start a Charedi bus company. But this is not what this article is about as it`s trying to paint ALL Charedim as the bad guys, which is just plain wrong.

Charedim are not monsters, and secular and religious Zionists are not all Tzadikim. If they`d stop the constant belittling, denigration, and dehumanization of Charedim, then the climate would change. These are your Jewish brothers and sisters drawing close to you and you should all be welcoming each other and not going for each other`s jugulars.

If the Charedim are all bad so how come so many Israelis of all ages are becoming Chozrei B`tshuva in so many places? Charedim must be good, no?

Labels: Haredi Jews, Israeli society, Jerusalem

- posted by Izak @ 1:55 AM