Extremist Jews spit on "immodest" girl, stone another

[MamaJunebug]

I heard about the 8-year-old on the news tonight and thought I was having a nightmare.

http://eideard.com/2011/12/25/orthodox- ... -old-girl/

This woman was hit with a piece of cinderblock and collapsed weeping. No mention that she died of the "stoning" so I'm presuming she's injured but alive.

http://failedmessiah.typepad.com/failed ... s-345.html

The world's going madder than I thought possible.

[Crackedeggs]

sometimes I wonder how long it will take before this starts here.

[Free2BeMe]

Another scary thought is those Pearl-lovers may be the first TO try it.

I worry for the children.

[Crackedeggs]

Another scary thought is those Pearl-lovers may be the first TO try it.

I worry for the children.

Yep. They will go from a world of "Bratz", Katie Perry's cupcake titties and Gaga to the crap outlined above... if they manage to not get the shit kicked out of them for wearing a cami in public, they will be so warped from going to one extreme to the other that they will mentally implode. It really sucks Why can't they just be people, not sex toys or objects of hate?

[evenstar210]

Here is the link to the documentary discussed, with English subtitles.

http://www.amotherinisraelDOTcom/channe ... ol-battle/

This is causing a huge upset in the Jewish world--people are finally beginning to notice what's been happening the last few years.

It's even more disconcerting because these girls ARE dressing modestly--long sleeves, skirts, etc. But they're not wearing burkas, so of course it's completely justified to spit on them. :angry-screaming:

[MamaJunebug]

Here's evenstar's link for us FJites afflicted with smartphones ;) Thanks, evenstar!

http://www.amotherinisrael.com/channel- ... ol-battle/

ETA: The docu is well worth watching. For people who believe "it can't happen here," take a look. Several men declare that someday, the entire State of Israel will be like this, with women segregated and basically voiceless. One woman likens it to having Teheran in Israel.

The secular and moderately observant people of the town welcomed the uber fundamentalists and now the ubers are close to taking over.

It's pretty heartbreaking. I've always thought of Israel as a flawed but progressive place where freedom is pursued (I have lots of problems with the treatment of Palestinians that I won't go into here) and to think of this minority taking over by intimidation and being louder than the others .... frustrates.

One other thing: An uber-fundie takes photos of the film crew with two cameras, attempting to intimidate them, IMHO, and that's a page out of the Scientology handbooks. Very sad, very heartbreaking, very infuriating.

[gardenvarietycitizen]

Wow. Thanks for posting that, I'd followed the issue some but hadn't seen that latest video (and I definitely need the subtitles!).

The part toward the end is common - there's a feeling of complaint by the hyper-religious that they are discriminated against, because they do feel a resistance when trying to move to new neighborhoods, that the secular people (or regular religious zionist people for that matter!) don't want them moving in. But so frequently when they do move in, as soon as they get a majority, well, out come the rules, hey, you can't walk here, you can't do this, you have to wear this, you can't drive here, you can't have a TV... "because OUR kids will see it," and so yeah, after a few times, people get wary and there's strife.

It's the whole "you have to tolerate my intolerance" thing played out large on city streets.

[gardenvarietycitizen]

Interestingly enough, this story has hit the BBC, they're doing a segment on it right now on the radio.

[MamaJunebug]

gardenvarietycitizen wrote:

It's the whole "you have to tolerate my intolerance" thing played out large on city streets.

Oh my! Just this morning - even before I saw the story on TV - I was wishing there were a bumpersticker that reads,

The only thing I won't tolerate is intolerance.

[RR88]

I just blogged about this. I am incensed. I only know a little Yiddish, but here's a phrase that these disgusting clowns need to hear: Gai in drerd.

[Soldier of the One]

I've been very, very, very upset about these incidents and you're right: the Jewish world is ablaze with these reports. There are demonstrations in Israel to protest this 'Talibanization' of Israeli society.

My God, what a 'chillul Hashem' (desecration of God's Name). I am more than embarrassed that these acts are perpetrated in the name of our holy Torah.

[gardenvarietycitizen]

Oh my! Just this morning - even before I saw the story on TV - I was wishing there were a bumpersticker that reads,

The only thing I won't tolerate is intolerance.

Yeah. It's an issue that comes up in arguments all the time - there's a sense (among the attackers in the argument) that hypocrisy is the worst sin (so kicking puppies is fine as long as you didn't say you WOULDN'T) and so therefore the ultimate "bad guys" in the situation is the self-labelled "tolerant" group, because so often they will explicitly not allow intolerant people into their tent or group. "How dare you not tolerate my intolerance." "I'm a bigot, but I'm principled in that stance, you say you're tolerant but won't let me into your club, so therefore YOU are the one with the moral problem." Certainly I got into countless fights (yeah, maybe it says something of my character! but that's another thread) on USENET that would boil down to this. And it seemed a no-brainer to me, of course even the most tolerant can't let in someone whose entire view is to be intolerant, or they will take over.

Much later reading a book "The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins (a great book I can recommend - get the latest edition with all the footnotes) I came across the idea of an "evolutionarily stable strategy," and it made my feelings about those arguments clear, because yes, certain "strategies" (to use game terms) are destined to take over, so if your goal is pluralism and "live and let live," you have to keep those out. It's not the other religious beliefs part of the strategy here that's the problem, it's the "we can't let our kids be exposed to seeing other people living different lifestyles in the street" PART of this group's beliefs that's the problem (which is what makes people resist their coming into new neighborhoods).

If people say, hey, we're going to impose crazy strict dress codes on ourselves and forbid our kids reading secular books, well, I might find that insane, but party on. But if they say, part of sheltering my kids means I don't want them seeing YOU on the street wearing colored clothing that shows your waist, well, that's something else.

And so the arguments that "secular people can live wherever they want but we religious people face discrimination everywhere" are disingenuous, IMHO. Also note that the victim girl in this video is plenty religious herself, her family is DL, it's not like they're secular even.

(Also yay for bilingual kids, though that's off topic :))

[Kishiria]

Here is the link to the documentary discussed, with English subtitles.

http://www.amotherinisraelDOTcom/channe ... ol-battle/

This is causing a huge upset in the Jewish world--people are finally beginning to notice what's been happening the last few years.

It's even more disconcerting because these girls ARE dressing modestly--long sleeves, skirts, etc. But they're not wearing burkas, so of course it's completely justified to spit on them. :angry-screaming:

You're missing the real point--they are going to school and men can SEE them. These guys need an all-male planet for themselves with uterine replicators, like "Ethan of Athos" by Lois McMaster Bujold.

[celestial]

Here is the NY Times article on this, which I don't think anyone has posted here yet: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/28/world ... c_ev=click

Disgusting. Sad.

[Terrie]

Further proof of the dangers of extremism. Doesn't matter which religion, if it's taken to extremes, it all starts to look very similar.

[Beeks]

Here is the NY Times article on this, which I don't think anyone has posted here yet: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/28/world ... c_ev=click

Disgusting. Sad.

Good article. I really like this quote: "For many Israelis, this is not a fight over one little girl’s walk to school. It is a struggle that could shape the future character and soul of the country, against ultra-Orthodox zealots who have been increasingly encroaching on the public sphere with their strict interpretation of modesty rules, enforcing gender segregation and the exclusion of women."

Unfortunately I don't think enough secular Israelis take the threat of Jewish religious extremism seriously. My brother lives in Israel with his family and we were discussing this situation and he just sort of shrugs and says "Meh, it's the charedi." As if this is just to be expected of them. It's not good to be complacent about these things....It's hard to know what can really be done if the less-extreme folks don't take more of a stand more often.

[evenstar210]

I AM Israeli and this attitude of "Meh, what can we do" is something you see here a lot. Towards just about everything. But once something makes the news like this is doing, people start to wake up and make noise for a while, and then they move on to the next big "issue". Like the social protests this past summer. People lived in tents for weeks, it made the news, the government made speeches about how things were going to change, cottage cheese went on sale for a few weeks....and now? Nothing.

And of course everything is forgotten if there's a war...

[Dinorah]

That interesting. I have some secular Israeli friends who seem to loathe the ultra-Orthodox, and see them as a potentialy higher risk to the country than Palestinian terrorism.

I guess the main problem is the politicians who pander to the ultra-Orthodox in order to get votes.

[FaustianSlip]

This whole thing is really disgusting. It's absolutely a chillul Hashem, and in an article about it on Gawker, some people (who claimed to be ultra-Orthodox and, in one case, living in Beit Shemesh) were trying to defend the ultra-Orthodox community. It was mostly the usual, "Oh, it's a few bad eggs, no one agrees with them," stuff, but you know, I'm pretty much over that. If the rabbinic leadership in the Orthodox community doesn't agree with these people, there are steps that can be taken- put them in cherem, deny them entry into your synagogues, decline to give them synagogue honors, don't count them in your minyanim. If any of their groups are involved with certifying the kashrus of restaurants or food, stop accepting their hechshers. If you really find them so deplorable and their behavior to be so completely against Torah, these are the kinds of things you do to draw a line between them and yourselves. But I don't see any of the ultra-Orthodox communities taking these steps, which leads me to assume that their protestations of disagreement are so much hot air and mostly being said out of a sense of self preservation.

This situation also encapsulates a lot of the reasons that I don't ever see myself making aliyah and moving to Israel, ever. The government knows all of this stuff is going on, they know that these people are flouting the law not only in Beit Shemesh, but also on public buses, in modern Orthodox and secular communities, in Mea Shearim, and they continue to enable this behavior by plying the ultra-Orthodox community with social aid, grants, immunity from national service and on and on. I want no part of a state that's so willing to throw the rights of its less religious (let alone non-Jewish) citizens under the bus of ultra-Orthodox demands. A lot of this could be averted if there was at least a clear separation between synagogue and state, but no one shows any real inclination to make that happen. It makes it very, very hard for me, as a non-Orthodox Jew (and a convert) to even consider monetary support of Israeli causes, let alone anything like aliyah. Why would I give my money to a place that appears to be increasingly a Jewish state only for the most Orthodox, the rest of world Jewry be damned? I understand that that's probably not an entirely fair position to take, but the more I read about things like this, or about groups like Women of the Wall being spit on and attacked with no one doing anything, or about women being told to sit in the back of the bus, the less inclined I am to try and be fair.

[gardenvarietycitizen]

...and things have gone to another level, one small group of people in Jerusalem (looks to be NK-affliliated) upset with the supposed oppression of Charedim have staged a protest dressing kids up in Holocaust prisoner uniforms - you can see pics up on VozIsNeias.

It's getting condemnation from even quite a few of the very right-wing types that were wishy washy and "yeah, but... but..." over the spitting. There's a big ol' thread on the mothers' forum about it.

Years ago there were some people who used Nazi imagery with regards to the army during the pullout from some settlements, and that was met with condemnation too - you just do that. So, could get interesting.

I'm obviously just reading about this on the internet from FAR outside but just as someone who has read about various of the participants over time just as out of interest, it seems to me that maybe things that need to come to a head and be discussed openly might get a chance, if there's anything at all good to come of all this maybe that would be it.

[FaustianSlip]

From the article:

Said a haredi woman, who refused to give her name, “We didn’t come to demonstrate, we came to show our power...."

That says it all, really. They're bullies, plain and simple, and the numbers being quoted on VisIzNeias (1500+, and that's just the men) don't sound like "a tiny minority" to me. That sounds like a sizable segment of the Haredi population, especially when you consider that there were women and kids there, as well. The Haredim are a minority in Israel, but they're using intimidation and outright violence to coerce everyone into letting them do what they want, and they've been doing this for a while now. When they were able to get away with giving women a hard time on buses and attacking them at the Western Wall for talleisim, they figured they could push a little further, and a little further, and now here we are. Israel is going to turn into the Jewish equivalent of Saudi Arabia if the government doesn't start addressing these issues pronto.

Also, this?

“How can this country be called a democracy when they are trying to force us to adopt their culture and their standards?†asked Shimon Levy....

Um, Shimon? This word, democracy, I do not think it means what you think it means. Also, dude, you don't even think the state of Israel should exist! You're happy to protest in the street about what a shanda it is to have a Jewish state before the Messiah arrives, but I'm sure you don't mind the evil state fighting your wars for you, giving you subsidies to study Torah and all the rest, and now you're complaining that this democracy, which you don't even think is supposed to be on this earth in the first place, isn't bending over backwards to spit on little girls and do whatever the hell you please. Um, no. That's not democracy, buddy, sorry to disappoint.

Ugh. I shouldn't read this stuff, it pisses me off so much. And what's worse, while this is generating discussion now, I suspect this one incident will be resolved in some way, things will die down, and everyone will go back to ignoring the elephant in the room.

[thoughtful]

If the rabbinic leadership in the Orthodox community doesn't agree with these people, there are steps that can be taken- put them in cherem, deny them entry into your synagogues, decline to give them synagogue honors, don't count them in your minyanim. If any of their groups are involved with certifying the kashrus of restaurants or food, stop accepting their hechshers. If you really find them so deplorable and their behavior to be so completely against Torah, these are the kinds of things you do to draw a line between them and yourselves.

This.

[2xx1xy1JD]

I just got back from Israel.

The silver lining in this whole mess is that I've never seen oppression of women get this sort of massive public attention in Israel. It was literally front page news every day, and the lead item on the nightly news. The average Israeli knew all about it and was angry about the treatment of these girls and women. The Bet Shemesh story was just featured on the front page of the Jerusalem Post magazine section on Friday, and the 4 page story covered the issue in depth.

Now, I had known about incidents before this, but that's because I'm a Jewish feminist nerd who hangs around internet forums and other Jewish feminists. This degree of attention from average Israelis, though, is unprecedented.

Previously, I had seen issues being ignored by secular Israelis who didn't think that the fanatics really affected them in Tel Aviv, or seen Orthodox dismiss incidents as being "provocations" by women who were obviously feminists/Americans/anti-religious activitists. What seems to have changed this time is that (1) things are relatively quiet otherwise in Israel, so for once military issues aren't at the top of the agenda, (2) the blame-the-victim bullshit evaporates when people see a sweet 8 year old Orthodox girl in tears, and (3) the non-Haredi Orthodox community and even Haredi-lite community are angry as hell.

[cindyluvs24]

I'm trying to imagine what would happen here in NJ if adult members of a group spit on my child because his clothing was objectionable by their standards.

[cindyluvs24]

Are these guys so tough if their target wasn't a little girl ?