I honestly, honestly don't know what to say about the Haredi uprising against the Supreme Court ruling integrating the Immanuel Bais Yaakov.I want to scream. How low can they go? How disgusting can they be? These people are preaching racism in the name of the Torah. Where the hell do they come off?
And just how Uncle Tommy can Shas be? They were elected to defend the honor of Sephardic Jewry. So they sit there and take obscene abuse from their Ashkenazi handlers, and aid and abet a Hillul HaShem.
And all that is going on while Iran is sending a flotilla to start God knows what...
Yup. Sometimes, all you can do is scream....
14 comments:
I usually agree with much of what you have to say but the one sidedness of this post saddens me deeply.
Please tell me why.
Come on, Jeff, you know why: Da'as Torah said it's OK, so clearly the Supreme Court is in the wrong here.
I'd like to join you in that scream. My one comfort is knowing that the whole Charedi world is so artificial and full of sheker that maybe things like this is what will bring it crashing down. The God of Rachamim *and* Mishpat couldn't do it any other way.
I'm not shimon but I will. Out of all the chassiduyot, Slonim probably has the largest proportion of Sefardi students in their mosdot. Probably at a greater percentage than the percentage of sefardim in the torani mosdot in your neck of the woods (K thru Yeshivot Gevvohot).
The fact that the Sefardic rosh yeshiva of Har Etzion said in a newspaper interview a while back that he can't understand his grandfather's (from Algeria) teshuvot because he was "ashkenaized" in his derech halimud at Har Etzion probably says more about the unofficial (but institutionalized) racism there than the Slonim mosdot not wanting to have kids with TV's at home come to their mosdot.
The court overextended its reach. They found private citizens in contempt of court in a proceeding against organs of the state. Liberals and libertarians should be at the front of the march.
Prof. Woolf,
You cannot complain against an activist Israeli Supreme Court only when they are active in areas that you do not like.
Either an activist Court is bad or good.
Most importantly, I believe that the reasons why the Charedim are rioting is about the implications of this ruling.
If the Israeli Supreme Court wanted, they could order every Chareidi child into the school of the SC's choice and then arrest and imprison the parents who refuse to comply with such an order.
1) From what I understand, the parents, 25% of whom are Sephardi, have kept their children at home. Do the Israeli courts jail people for keeping kids at home? No home schooling in the Jewish state?
2) In my children's school in chul, the government finances a huge proportion of the budget. Nevertheless, the school will not accept kids with TV's, be they ashkenazim or sephardim. Surely parents is Israel have the right to decide on whom their children will be influenced by?
3) If our government forced my kids to go to school with kids who have TV's I would simply keep them home. Our governemtn would never jail a parent on that basis.
Start a discussion about it on one of your private forums
Nachum,
While I too have many reservations about Charedi society, the last thing I want to see is it "crashing down" completely. The (negative) spiritual backlash would be enormous. Most of those who leave the sinking ship will likely go "all the way" out and not become "mizrochnikim".
Better to hope for a (probably very painful) readjustment.
Yonatan, a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. Sometimes the court is right, sometimes it's wrong.
20%-30% of those who went to jail are sefardim. 30% of those girls who were excluded are ashkenaziot. it was and is an issue of religious standards in spite of what the only uncle tom (to use jeferey's bon mot) on the supreme court says.
and he is the one who formulated the issue as the israeli secular court or the rabbis. and that has become issue.
and notice the silence of the mizrachi rabbibic leaders because they see the erosion of religious courts and know that the issue is the same for them. and eventually rav ovadya will come around to that as he has gently critcized his son last nite for going to erchaot.
yes scream jeffery because u'll have to choose one of the sides and then u'll realize how committed u (and we) r to torah however u define it or will u go the way of most of spanish jewry in the years before expulsion - just opting 4 israeli secularism (in lieu of christianity) instead of torah judaism.
shabbat shalom
Nachum,
You would never tolerate something like this by the SCOTUS. Please recognize your own biases.
Aiwac,
The complete collapse of Chareidi society, as it now exists, would only benefit the Judaism of both the Dati L'Umi & the "secular".
Dr, Woolf,
Unfortunately, I also have to agree with some of the earlier comments. I usually like your take on a lot of issues, but here the post does in fact "scream" of one-sidedness. Even the media reports seem to indicate that the issue here is more complex, and does in fact seem to rest more upon religious standards than on ethnicity. And even if you disagreed with that assessment, I would expect more of a presentation of both sides. It is not a simple Brown vs. Board of Ed type of issue. In addition, I also find it unfair to link an accusation to an article that has nothing at all to do with the topic of your post- http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3906300,00.html
While completely deplorable, this incident is not connected to the Immanuel case, which is the topic of your post.
Dear Rav Wolf
I consider myself ultra-modern orthodox but lets be honest, the Supreme Court is just as hypocritical as the charedim. They also have an in-built bias against the charedim. Edmund Levy included.
Charedi society and their "gedolei haTorah" have done much to stultify the religion and their ignoring of the State is loathesome but you simply cannot ignore their ability to get 100,000(probably more)guys onto the street at short notice.
So scream all you like but lets try and find a cadre of our own strong gedolei haTorah who (a)dont crave the media or give piskei halacha via SMS and (b) dont play with other males genetalia
"The fact that the Sefardic rosh yeshiva of Har Etzion said in a newspaper interview a while back that he can't understand his grandfather's (from Algeria) teshuvot because he was "ashkenaized" in his derech halimud at Har Etzion probably says more about the unofficial (but institutionalized) racism"
Was it racist that he chose to go to a yeshiva with a Brisker rather than Algerian-Jewish mesorah? Was it racist that this yeshiva later decided to make him its next RY? Come on. To use this comment as evidence of racism is ridiculous.
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