The Ultra-Orthodox on the Warpath
Anxiety is driving religious conflict between secular Israelis and haredimBy Mati Wagner
T
HE SHORT WALK from hometo school had become a gauntletof fear for eight-year-old Naama Margolese, a cherub-faced second-grader at a modern Orthodox el-ementary school located in BeitShemesh, about 20 minutes westof Jerusalem. One December morning, she was spatupon and epithets such as shiksa and
prutza
(theHebrew word for prostitute) were hurled at her by grown men belonging to a particularly fanatic streamof ultra-Orthodoxy.The nation was shocked by images broadcast onprimetime television, showing Naama sobbing as hermother attempted to convince her to go back to school. A Facebook campaign with about 10,000 followersrallied around the motto “protecting little Naama.” A demonstration attended by several thousands washeld in her honor. Prime Minister Benjamin Netan- yahu and President Shimon Peres weighed in. Comingas it did after a series of incidents involving genderand very religious Jews—several in which the segrega-tion by sex on public buses was violently enforced by haredim and one in which a group of religious ZionistIDF soldiers walked out in protest during a ceremony when female soldiers began to sing—the Naama inci-dent suggested that perhaps a fault line in Israeli so-ciety present from the nation’s founding had finally cracked open.The town of Beit Shemesh is an idiosyncrat-ic place, one that has generated a disproportionatenumber of violent incidents involving haredim. Still,the treatment of Naama Margolese can serve as aninstructive, albeit extreme, example of the sorts of demographic processes that have increased tensions between haredi and non-haredi populations in Israel.Once, not long ago, Beit Shemesh was a small,quiet development town, a community summonedinto being by the government. In his 1993 nonfic-tion book
In the Land of Israel
, for instance, Amos Oz
Mati Wagner
is editorial page editor of the
Jeru-salem Post
. His article, “The Israeli Left: A Political Obituary,” appeared in the October 2011 issue.
Commentary
33
34
The Ultra-Orthodox on the Warpath : February 2012
described the people he met in Beit Shemesh’s com-mercial center as members of the Sephardi massesthat brought Menachem Begin’s Likud to power.But beginning in the late 1990s, the demography of the town began to change dramatically, when youngcouples belonging to some of the most religiously ex-treme groups faced a severe housing shortage in theovercrowded and expensive Jerusalem neighborhoodsof Mea She’arim, Beit Israel, and Ge’ula.These followers of the Satmar, Toldot Aharon,Breslav, Dushinsky, and Shomrei Hachomot sects—allof which believe the state of Israel is a blasphemy initself because there should be no such state until thecoming of the Messiah—have been among the most ra- bidly anti-Zionist forces in the world even before there was a state. But their unprecedented natural growth was supported by the economic expansion, gener-ous welfare benefits, and military forces of the Zioniststate they despise. And in the late 1990s, guided andfinanced by rabbis and community leaders, they orga-nized themselves into groups and moved en masse totheir own housing projects in Beit Shemesh.The move to Beit Shemesh entailed frequent busrides on public transportation to and from Jerusalemto work or to study Torah, to visit family and spiritualleaders. Haredim who had been accustomed to impos-ing on themselves an extremely cloistered way of life tofend off ever pervasive secular influences were forcedfor the first time to come into direct contact with a di- verse mix of Israelis. At the doctor’s office, in the postoffice, or in the municipality, these haredim had tocontend with the town’s veteran residents and mem- bers of a new modern Orthodox community—to whichthe Margolese family belongs—as well with as a moremoderate haredi community, composed to a great ex-tent of immigrants from the United States. All they wanted was to be left alone, but thesezealots were confronted by alternative lifestyles thatthreatened their own worldview. In response, they setabout putting in place in Beit Shemesh the sorts of social and cultural barriers they had become used toin their Jerusalem enclaves. Ignoring city ordinanc-es, they posted signs denying “immodestly dressed” women entrance to their neighborhoods. When policecame to tear down the signs, pale-complected, skinny young yeshiva men, exhibiting ferocity incongruent with their sedentary appearance, clashed with burly police officers. Bus lines that did not enforce sex seg-regation were stoned; separate sidewalks for men and women were established in the immediate vicinity of a Beit Shemesh synagogue; local grocery stores enforcedseparate hours for men and women. And a no-holds-barred battle was launchedagainst the opening of the Orot Girls elementary school,the one to which Naama Margolese was walking whenshe was spat upon. The extremists, seemingly informed by a warped prurience, claimed that the girls, betweenthe ages of 6 and 13, caused men who could see themplaying during recess “to stumble.” The girls are obligat-ed by school rules to wear skirts well below their kneesand sleeves that completely cover their elbows. Still, the battle was not only about sexual temptation. It was alsoabout the allocation of limited municipal resources.The zealots had demanded that a school of their own be built on the same spot, and they had lost.Beit Shemesh’s story is unique in its degree of vio-lence, but a similar dynamic is at work in other townsacross Israel. The growth of the haredi population hasforced younger haredim to establish communities in cit-ies far from their traditional centers. In Ashdod and Re-hovot, for instance, haredi neighborhoods have sprungup amid non-haredi majorities. In other cases, such as inModi’in Ilit, located between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, andElad, about 15 miles east of Tel Aviv, self-sustained com-munities have been formed.Beit Shemesh-style battles are being waged inthese places as well. The demandfor gender-segregated buses hasreceived the most attention sincemore and more Israelis are be-ing exposed to them as haredimspread out geographically andare forced to use intra-city lines.The case of Doron Matalon was a particularly startling ex-ample. Matalon, a young female soldier in uniform, was verbally attacked by Shlomo Fuchs, 45, a father of 12 withno paying job who devotes his time to the study of Torah,according to local media reports. When she refused hisrequest to move to the back of the bus, arguing that asa soldier who helped protect him from Israel’s many en-emies she deserved his respect, Fuchs and other haredimen on the Jerusalem bus allegedly hurled insults at her,calling her a prostitute. Matalon filed sexual harassmentcharges, and Fuchs was placed under house arrest.The media’s coverage of such incidents has beenextensive and intense; witnessing a fast-growing and
The demand for sex-segregated buses has received greater attention sincemore and more Israelis are being exposed to haredim.
increasingly confident haredi population force its pu-ritanical sensibilities on the wider public can be un-nerving. Haredim make up about 10 percent of Isra-el’s population of 7.8 million. But with haredi naturalgrowth three times higher than that of the secular pop-ulation—the average haredi woman has about sevenchildren—by 2059 the haredim could make up 40 per-cent of the population, according to recently releasedprojections by the Central Bureau of Statistics. Withsectarian tensions so extreme now, when the haredicommunity is just a small minority, what will happen when Israel becomes dominated by a huge, ever moredemanding haredi population? Added to these worries isthe fact that the haredi popula-tion has become a growing liabil-ity to the Israeli economy. Over 70percent of haredi men are neitheremployed nor looking for work,according to a 2007 Bank of Is-rael study. And the haredi educa-tion system is producing a steadily growing number of male Torah scholars who might be able to learn a page of Talmud but do not have the tools to integrate into an in-creasingly knowledge-based labor market. What’s more,these same young men are skirting military service inlarge numbers. Every year the IDF loses 13 percent of itsdraft potential because the vast majority of haredim optto defer army service indefinitely. The IDF estimates that60,000 haredi young men of draft age receive deferrals.More than any other single group, it is the haredim whothreaten to undermine the Israeli ethos of “the people’sarmy,” which calls for Israelis from all segments of society except Arabs to serve in the IDF.Many Israelis are terrified of the consequences of all these developments. This is especially true as Israelisociety becomes more pluralistic. David Ben-Gurion’s willingness to make concessions to the haredim in thefirst decades after the establishment of the state of Israel was the direct result of his conviction that his version of secular Zionism would soon become thedominant force in all aspects of Israeli society, while Judaism as a religion, especially in its most extreme ex-pressions, would disappear. Respecting religious sen-sibilities and avoiding conflicts would best facilitatethe gradual indoctrination of the haredim.Today, however, the haredim seem to be on theascendency while no other single group within Israelisociety, including secular Ashkenazim, can fully andconfidently claim to represent a self-confident “main-stream.” As a result, many secular Israelis perceive theharedim as a threat and tend to react in an extreme,anti-pluralistic fashion to haredi behavior. At the peak of the controversy over gender-segregated buses, Cul-ture and Sport Minister Limor Livnat essentially reit-erated a Supreme Court ruling from January 2011 thatforbade public bus companies to advertise bus lines as
mehadrin
(segregated) or to enforce segregation—butallowed for a one-year experiment in
voluntary
seg-regation. Livnat said that she was not bothered by thefact that haredi males and females travelling in harediareas chose of their own free will to sit separately since“that is their way of life.” Numerous members of Knes-set from the centrist Kadima and leftist Meretz parties were quick to attack Livnat, claiming she was encour-aging extremism and the social exclusion of women.But if secular Israelis are terrified of a haredi take-over, haredim feel no less beleaguered, in part becauseLivnat’s willingness to respect the haredi community’sunique social and moral codes is so controversial. Vari-ous initiatives such as the Freedom Rider Project orga-nized by the Israeli Reform movement—in which wom-en purposely and provocatively sit at the front of busesthat travel between haredi towns to ensure that the Su-preme Court decision is being upheld—are seen, with justice, by the haredi community as an intrusive attack on their religiously inspired social norms.The threat to their social norms is real and grow-ing, and it comes not from provocations like the Free-dom Rider Project but from the end of haredi culturalsegregation. Haredim, spread out as they are in far-flung communities, are increasingly coming into con-tact with non-haredi Jewish populations. Access to theInternet is impossible to prevent. Exposure to alterna-tive Jewish lifestyles has become unavoidable.The haredim are also in the grips of an econom-ic crisis. Deep welfare cuts, begun in 2003—during a rare period when a government coalition was formed without haredi political parties—struck a serious blow to haredim families. And the economic downturn in America has drastically reduced donations to haredieducational institutions in Israel. Pressure is buildingfor haredi men and women to find gainful employ-ment. The process is happening fast, and haredi lead-ership rightly feels it is losing control. A self-defeating dynamic is playing out withinharedi society: To counter the increased risk of defection
Commentary
35
Haredi education is producing maleTorah scholars who are able to learnTalmud but do not know how to integrateinto a knowledge-based labor market.
Search History:
Result 00 of 00
00 results for result for
p.
Recommended
More From This User
Notes
Load more
