Tel-Chai Nation

It's been a while, but, possibly influenced by recent events, some Haredi thugs in Beit Shemesh threatened lady mayor Aliza Bloch:

Beit Shemesh Mayor Aliza Bloch was extracted from a building in the Ramat Beit Shemesh B neighborhood on Tuesday night, where she had arrived to monitor a new school of the Vizhnitz Hasidic movement.

Extremist haredim who arrived at the scene smashed Bloch's car and punctured its tires. They then gathered outside the building and burned trash cans.

After about an hour, police forces arrived at the scene and rescued the mayor.

Interior Minister Moshe Arbel said following the incident, "I spoke tonight with Beit Shemesh Mayor Dr. Aliza Bloch after the violent attack she experienced. Violence is a sick evil that must be uprooted, [whether it happens] towards any person and towards elected officials."

Arbel also said, "I expect the enforcement agencies to act immediately to protect the elected officials in the local government against anyone who raises their hands on elected officials and public servants."

This definitely isn't going to alleviate public concerns about Haredis wanting to impose horrific rules upon the public, both secular and religious. And it will have the effect of alienating people from religion, whether rightly or wrongly. Reportedly, no arrests were made. The police are going to have to start proving they're willing to track and imprison the offenders. Vandalism and arson are very serious offenses that can endanger lives.

In a semi-related subject, a former AP Wire contributor penned an op-ed where he says:

It is breathtaking, this high-wire act by the haredi parties and their enablers in the Benjamin Netanyahu government. And no one knows what to expect in a few months, when the time comes for the planned legislation formalizing the sweeping military exemption for haredi youth.

This bill would make official that which has been happening ad hoc for many years, and has been accepted by other Israelis even if through gritted teeth. But the formality and fear of irreversibility is driving the non-haredi public to distraction.

In a taste of what’s to come, secular parents’ groups are threatening mass non-compliance with mobilization orders if the bill should pass, driven by outrage at the very proposition that only non-haredi youngsters should risk their lives in defense of the realm. I feel quite confident in predicting that passage of the exemptions would set off an earthquake whose outcome could be dire.

Undeterred, elements in the coalition are planning more measures that seem calculated to cause significant unrest. Yeshiva students are to be declared equivalent to soldiers and offered the same pay from state coffers, placing them in the rarefied ranks of students around the world who are well-paid for their trouble. And there is a proposed bill to criminalize insulting the haredim (for example, suggesting they might be “draft-dodging freeloaders”), on the illogical grounds of “racism.”

Other measures among the 225 laws that have entered the legislation pipeline, or are planned, include transferring powers from the regular courts to the rabbinical courts, that are bound only by Jewish law. This would give supremacy to men over women more widely, and ease the path for gender segregation in public, which is something a number of haredim in Israel have somehow decided now is the time to get more serious about.

IT IS as if the coalition has decided to do everything it can to blow up the extremely delicate arrangement that has enabled the secular public to tolerate things and go about their business with a modicum of national solidarity.

Some of these law proposals are indeed ludicrous and petty, and should by all means be scrapped to avoid causing division. Why, these proposals are practically what lead some Israelis to distrust judicial reform. No doubt, they're worried it'll lead to the Haredi parties getting judges elected who'll uphold laws favorable to the ultra-Orthodox, and even get women pushed out of the kind of role biblical Deborah worked in, for example. And if they do indeed have a problem with that, then it only compounds the impression the Haredis don't really honor the Torah and history.

The haredi community not only overwhelmingly refuses to serve in the military, but sticks like glue to other positions that stand out and cause damage.

First, the refusal to widely implement a core curriculum (for high school boys especially), ensuring the perpetuation of a barely-employable underclass dependent on handouts. Second, the insistence on state stipends for seminary students well into their adult years, coupled with the sanctification of “Olam Hatora” that projects to the community that there is no higher pursuit that filling these institutions with masses of haredi males.

The result is that haredi men’s participation in the labor force hovers around a lowly 50% – and even that is only thanks to the existence of make-work positions in a massive and wholly inefficient religious bureaucracy paid for by the Israeli taxpayer.

And that taxpayer is mostly non-haredi. A Finance Ministry study last year showed the haredi sector as accounting for the lowest tax revenue per capita and by far the most negative net calculation of taxes paid to benefits received. These benefits come from all directions in a complex web containing child subsidies, municipal tax discounts, and other discounts of every kind.

All of this – the refusal to serve in the army, the economic dependency – might somehow be sustainable if the demographic equation is reasonably static, as it is, within reason, in most situations around the world.

But it is not sustainable, economically or politically, because of the haredi birthrate of almost seven children per family. Couple that with the insularity of the community – obsessively keeping the youth away from secular society and the internet – that for now is keeping the attrition rate very low, and you get a population explosion that cannot enable the arrangement to continue.

The demographic dynamic means the haredi proportion of the population doubles every generation. Haredim are perhaps a seventh of the population now, but account for a quarter of the babies. In one generation, if this continues, it will be half. [...]

I may not be the Jewish scholar that a yeshiva education would have made of me, but I do know the following:

Proverbs 10:4 says “lazy hands make for poverty, but diligent hands bring wealth.”

In Pirkei Avot 3:17 it is written, “If there is no flour, there is no Torah,” underscoring the interconnectedness of material sustenance and spiritual growth.

And in the Talmud, Kiddushin 29a, it states that “one who does not teach his son a trade, teaches him to steal.”

Indeed, Maimonides addressed the importance of gainful employment and labor consistently:

In Mishna Torah, Laws of Gifts to the Poor 10:7, he emphasizes that the highest form of generosity is helping someone become self-sufficient, such as providing a person with the means to start a business or find employment.

In The Guide for the Perplexed, Book III, Chapter 27: In this chapter, Maimonides emphasizes that a person should not neglect their physical well-being and material needs, as these are essential for fulfilling one’s spiritual and intellectual pursuits.

Well I admit, the above has what to consider when it comes to all that's Torah/Bible related. And which the Haredis, in all their socialist-influenced mindset, seem quite talented at obscuring, as they sadly must do in their yeshivas. All that aside, what's actually offensive about their conduct is that they don't make any proper distinctions and follow a hysteria-laced mindset regarding women, in example. And if they don't abandon that and follow a judge-by-character position instead, they'll never get anywhere.

In another related topic, a Haredi organization took issue with one of UTJ's politicians over his leniency towards a convicted sex offender:

The haredi Magen Israel organization published a letter of protest against Minister Porush and demanded an apology from the Minister of Jerusalem Affairs and Jewish Heritage (United Torah Judaism) who tried to cancel Eliezer Berland's entry ban to Ukraine, before the Tishrei High Holidays, so that he could travel to Uman for Rosh Hashanah [the Jewish New Year].

"We were shocked to read that by virtue of your position as a minister in the government of Israel, representing all the citizens of Israel, you chose to invest resources and efforts in submitting official requests on behalf of the State of Israel, to help the convicted sex offender, Eliezer Berland, enter Ukraine for Rosh Hashanah," the letter reads.

It's good that here, an ultra-Orthodox movement is advocating responsibility and taking issue with this disgrace of a politician for acting like nothing ever happened regarding Berland. More here:

Dozens of haredim will protest on Thursday outside the home of Minister of Jerusalem Affairs and Jewish Heritage Meir Porush (UTJ-Agudat Yisrael) after he intervened to help the leader of the Shuvu Banim cult and convicted sex offender Eliezer Berland enter Ukraine ahead of the Rosh Hashana pilgrimage to Uman.

The demonstration is being organized by haredi activists, together with help centers, which will arrive at 8:00 PM at Allenby Square near Porush's home in Jerusalem to protest what they call the "desecration of G-d's name" and the trampling of Berland's victims. [...]

Sherry Krozer, the chairperson of Hineni, an organization that supports victims of sexual assault, stated: "Minister Porush, who represents haredi Judaism in the state of Israel, uses his position to help a convicted felon who severely harmed many. This was in total violation of the directive set by the great rabbis and the special court which dealt with his case. We call on everyone to stand with us this Thursday at 8:00 PM at Allenby Square and to cry together out loud that our blood isn't worthless. A cry that will be heard from one end of the world to the other. It can't be that the public representative, Minister Porush, supports a criminal, at the haredi public is silent."

Gal Rosayov, a haredi social activist and one of the protest's initiators, stated: "Minister Porush continues to follow in (former minister Yaakov) Litzman's path (who obstructed the extradition of convicted pedophile Malka Leifer), and his assisting a convicted sex offender. How is a young haredi girl who was a victim of sexual assault supposed to feel when she sees, for the third time, that a haredi representative from Agudat Yisrael, whom she voted for, is helping sex offenders, rapists, or pedophiles from her community? How is a haredi victim whose life was ruined and who gets no support supposed to feel in the face of a minister who enlists to help a sex offender? Where are the haredi public representatives from the other factions? Why are they silent?"

She adds: "Time and again, the haredi public has to swallow this embarrassment; from now on, we will not be silent. We will not let our elected officials trample the haredi victims."

This reaction is a hopeful sign of Haredis taking responsibility when it comes to serious issues like sexual assault. Porush should resign along with Litzman, but most vital is for the Haredis to stop voting for UTJ at the Knesset. Let us be clear. A party like theirs is clearly so corrupted, it's not worth voting for, period.

Labels: Europe, haredi corruption, Israel, Knesset, military, misogyny, Moonbattery, sexual violence, terrorism