Authorities must put a stop to anti-female Haredi vandals
But under somebody like Naftali Bennett, something tells me it won't be done effectively by people like him. Here's a report about a case of a Holocaust survivor's pictures that were defaced with grafitti at Jerusalem's city hall:
I hope, as the article notes, the city authorities deal with this and make arrests. But I don't expect Bennett and Yair Lapid to make any convincing effort on this.
The joyful glint in Peggy Parnass' eyes is so sharp it can be seen from the walls of Jerusalem's bustling Old City. Posted across the street at the gateway to City Hall, twin images of the Holocaust survivor and activist gaze out at the ancient warren of holy monuments of Christianity, Judaism and Islam.Actually, it is antisemitic, considering what she went through in Europe during WW2. And the more precise description besides that would be anti-female gender bigotry.
But just outside this center of spirituality, someone saw her image as a problem. Five times since the photos of Parnass were posted as part of an exhibition that began in April, vandals – widely believed to be ultra-Orthodox extremists – spray-painted over her eyes and mouth.
The graffiti was cleaned each time, leaving Parnass smiling again. For many Israelis, however, the short-term fix highlighted a familiar pattern that's all the more painful because the destruction is coming not from enemies across Israel's borders but from within.
"It's not antisemitic," said Jim Hollander, the curator of The Lonka Project art installation at Safra Square. "This is anti-feminist."
For all of its modernity, military firepower and high-tech know-how, Israel has for decades been unable to keep images of women from being defaced in some public spaces. Billboards showing women – including soccer players, musicians and young girls – have been repeatedly defaced and torn down by religious extremists in Jerusalem and other cities with large ultra-Orthodox populations over the past 20 years.In some ways, the ultra-Orthodox extremists who did this obscene act - against the pictures of a Holocaust survivor, no less - are just as terrible as LGBT activists committing similar anti-female bigotry overseas. Why, the Haredi extremists who're doing this preceded them in a way, and what really offends me here is that transsexuality advocates are possibly much more aware than we think of these actions, and could be using them to justify their own loathsome anti-female acts. Indeed, for some in the west experiencing the sad staple that's come about of LGBT propaganda, this might seem familiar.
Even German Chancellor Angela Merkel was erased from a 2015 photograph of world leaders in Paris published by an ultra-Orthodox newspaper.
The pattern is especially uncomfortable now.
"This is not Kabul, this is Jerusalem," said Fleur Hassan-Nahoum, a Jerusalem deputy mayor. "This is a concerted campaign by radicals to erase women from the public space, which belongs to all of us."
I hope, as the article notes, the city authorities deal with this and make arrests. But I don't expect Bennett and Yair Lapid to make any convincing effort on this.
Labels: anti-semitism, germany, haredi corruption, Israel, Jerusalem, misogyny, Moonbattery
