Fresh Air Amid the Reek

Even more remarkable than the article itself was where it appeared.

Written by Elissa Strauss, an essayist and a “co-artistic director” of a “non-religious Jewish house of study for culture-makers at the 14th Street Y” in New York, the piece – “What Did the Orthodox Do Now?!” – graced the pages of the Forward, where Ms. Strauss is a contributing editor.

The essay’s focus was the non-Orthodox Jewish media’s “fixation with Haredi Jews”; those organs’ “hunger for sensationalism” in their reportage on the Orthodox community; the “crude laziness” evidenced by such tunnel vision; and the reduction of “a whole community of Jews” to “a kind of caricature in stories that often traffic in stereotypes.”

Points well taken, and the Forward, of course, is a good example of such invidious ink-spilling.  It has some excellent reporters but also maintains a stable of writers and bloggers with chronically jaundiced views of the charedi world.  And so it deserves credit for publishing Ms. Strauss’ piece, which was essentially a rebuke of its own journalistic bent with regard to our community.

Ms. Strauss attributes the obsessive negativity displayed by some non-Orthodox writers for charedim to a desire to feel a “moral superiority” over their subjects, to “pat ourselves on the back for being so much better.”  But she also raises the specter of other “much more complicated emotions” involved, “possibly including envy…”

A second remarkable article appeared recently in a Jewish publication that doesn’t display any noticeable anti-charedi bent: the venerable politically conservative monthly, Commentary.  On the heels of Ms. Strauss’ piece, it published a lengthy scholarly historical and sociological overview of the charedi community, written by Jack Wertheimer, a respected professor at the Jewish Theological Seminary.  Titled “What You Don’t Know About the Ultra-Orthodox” (although the latter term is eschewed in the text of the article, in favor of “Haredim”), it presents an impressively clear and unbiased picture of the American charedi world and its ideals, and demonstrates what the piece’s subtitle promises: “The least understood and most insular American Jews have much to teach us.”

Professor Wertheimer acknowledges various grievances and complaints some Jews voice about charedim; in each instance, though, he also explains the charedi viewpoint, and does so eloquently and well.

As in every community, there are, unfortunately, distasteful things and unsavory players in our own.  We do ourselves no favor pretending otherwise.  “The Haredim,” however, explains Professor Wertheimer, “are expected” by other Jews “to be free of vice because they are supposed to ‘tremble in fear of G-d’.”

How wonderful a testimony to the Torah’s truth such perfection would be.  Alas, free will is what it is, and living a superficial charedi  lifestyle cannot preclude bad behavior.  But generalizing from outliers to the community as a whole is wrong and indefensible.

As is the refusal Professor Wertheimer asserts “to acknowledge the good and not only the problematic or off-putting [to some outsiders] aspects of Haredi life.

Ms. Strauss puts it pithily: “We aren’t really interested in the Orthodox.  We aren’t willing to see a full picture, the good and the bad, the complexity of these many individuals living so differently than us.”

That’s a sort of unwillingness many of us charedim, too, are occasionally guilty of, whether the subjects of our opinionating are other groups of Jews, non-Jews or President Obama.  But it is particularly glaring, all said and done, in Jewish media reportage on charedim.

Not long ago we read in shul of how Bilam broke the news to his sponsor King Balak that Hashem has thwarted their plans to curse Klal Yisrael, the king responded: “Come with me to another place from where you will see them; however, you will see only a part of them, not all of them, and curse them for me from there” (Bamidbar 23:13).

At first thought that puzzles.  Why would Balak think that having Bilam look at the Jews from a different place and in a limited way might facilitate a successful curse?

Things, though, can look very different from different vantage points.  And a focus can be chosen.  One can aim one’s sights at the negative in a people – or a community or an individual; or one can pull back to see a larger, more comprehensive, and thus more accurate, picture.

Perspective, in the end, is everything, and a skewed one can be a very misleading and dangerous thing.  Balak clearly hoped that a view from a different “angle” might reveal something negative about Klal Yisroel, some vulnerability into which a curse might successfully settle.  Boruch Hashem, he had no success.

Unfortunately, some Jewish media have succeeded for years in portraying charedim from a malevolent perspective, sullying our community and beliefs with selective vision, animus and unjustified generalizations.

Ms. Strauss and Professor Wertheimer deserve kudos for pointing that out, and for suggesting that those media aim to be accurate and fair.  May those writers’ words be taken to heart by those who so need to hear them.

© 2014 Hamodia

Agudath Israel Responds to Israeli Ground Mission in Gaza

With the news that a ground invasion of the hornets’ nest known as Gaza is underway, Agudath Israel of America calls on all Jews to pray for the safety of the soldiers and the citizenry of Israel, and to undertake meaningful acts of kindness, charity, Torah-study and special observances to help merit Divine protection of our brothers and sisters in Eretz Yisrael, on the front lines and everywhere else

As has been the practice in many shuls over past years, in response to the call of the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah, the recitation of Tehillim (Psalms) 83, 130 and 142, followed by the tefila of Acheinu, is recommended.  But our every prayer should include entreaties on behalf of our fellow Jews.

May our tefillos be received in mercy by Hakodosh Boroch Hu, and help usher in days of peace and security.

# # #

Letter in the New York Times

To the Editor:

“A Damaging Distance” (news analysis, Sunday Review, July 13) may well be right that the reduced interaction between Arabs and Israelis is lamentable. But to attribute Israel’s erection of a barrier wall between Palestinian land and Israeli land to “the common wisdom that the two nations needed not greater intimacy but complete separation” ignores something rather important.

The wall was built for one reason: to prevent terrorism. In the three-year period after its erection, only a handful of murderous attacks were carried out in Israel. In the three-year period before it was built, 73 such attacks took place, and 293 Israelis were murdered as a result.

(Rabbi) AVI SHAFRAN
Director of Public Affairs
Agudath Israel of America
New York, July 13, 2014

Gratitude and Fortitude — Agudath Israel of America Statement, July 10

As enemy missiles continue to rain on Jewish communities in Eretz Yisroel, and many are intercepted by the Iron Dome anti-missile system, it is incumbent on all Jews to feel hakaras hatov, “recognition of the good,” toward the United States of America, which has funded the system over the years of its development.  We are reminded, at a time like this, how America has made a major contribution to the defense of Israel, for which we must be deeply grateful.

At the same time, we must remember that Im Hashem lo yishmor ir, shov shokad shomer – “If Hashem will not guard the city, for naught does the guard stand vigilant” (Tehillim, 127) – and that it is therefore to Hashem that we must focus our entreaties with special intensity at this critical time.

Our prayers should include entreaties for the wellbeing of our fellow Jews under attack, as well as for those who are risking their lives to defend them and defeat those who wish us harm.

As has been the practice in many shuls over past years, in response to the call of the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah, the recitation of Tehillim (Psalms) 83, 130 and 142 after Shacharis, followed by the tefila of Acheinu, is recommended.

Torah-study on behalf of our beleaguered brethren is also deeply appropriate, and should be intensified.

May our teshuvah, tefilla and tzeddaka prove worthy merits for future days of peace and security.

Mr. Obama, Phone (My) Home

I just can’t seem to remember whether President Obama telephoned me last night.  It was a busy evening.  I had a chasuna, a seder and davened Maariv.

No, I’m quite sure I didn’t get a call from the White House.  But the father of murdered Arab teen Muhammad Abu Khdeir did receive one the other day from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in which the Israeli leader expressed his deep condolences for what authorities have described as a nationalism-inspired killing, and pledged that the “perpetrators of this horrific crime” would face the full severity of the law. “There is no place for such murderers” in Israeli society, Mr. Netanyahu said.

Asked later by the Jerusalem Post about the call, the father said that he had received dozens of phone calls and couldn’t recall if Mr. Netanyahu had been among the callers.  Ishaq Abu Khdeir, a representative of the Arab victim’s family, denied outright that the Prime Minister had telephoned the family. “This is a false claim,” he said.

The family also refused, according to the Palestinian news agency Ma’an, to allow Israeli president Shimon Peres to pay a condolence call in person. When security personnel arrived to prepare for the president’s visit, they were turned away.

The mother of the slain boy, for her part, was quoted by The New York Times as expressing her hope “that the Jewish mothers [whose sons were murdered] feel what I am feeling… May [G-d] burn them like I am burned.”

And there we have it: the amity barometer-reading for the Palestinian world.

The malice is even more manifest in Palestinian media.  The official Palestinian Authority daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida reported the words of former PA prime minister and current PA executive committee member Ahmed Qurei, during a visit to the Abu Khdeir home.  “The holocaust perpetrated by the Nazis,” he declared, “is the same holocaust that the occupation is perpetrating against our people… they kidnap children, fight civilians in their homes and houses of prayer, torch fields, and violate human rights in the most despicable manner.”

The same periodical also compared Abu Khdeir’s murder to the Holocaust, writing in its editorial: “The Holocaust lies heavily on the conscience of humanity to this very day… However, Israel is trying to emulate [the Holocaust]; with its arrogance and unconstrained brutality, its language of tanks and its racist ideology that includes despicable ‘selections,’ it constantly incites to kill Palestinians and to hunt them like beasts in order to destroy them everywhere and by every means, both at the hands of [Israel’s] military forces and at the hands of the settlers, who have been unleashed [to act] with brutality unrivaled even by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria [ISIS].”

Of course, leaving the fever-dream world of Mr. Qurei and the Palestinian press, the same impressive unity that Jews in Israel and the world over demonstrated in hope, and then, sadly, mourning, several weeks ago was just as evident in the pan-Jewish condemnation of the murder of Muhammad Abu Khdeir.  The thought that Jews could kill an innocent Arab boy left all feeling Jews stupefied and despondent.

In an op-ed published this week in Haaretz, President Obama reiterated his position that “Israel cannot be complete and it cannot be secure without peace.”  That is a truism, of course.

I have a deep respect for Mr. Obama, having carefully analyzed his actions and words over the past six years.  I believe he is sincere when he says, as he did in that same op-ed, that “the United States [is] Israel’s first friend, Israel’s oldest friend, and Israel’s strongest friend.” And that “neither I nor the United States will ever waver in our commitment to the security of Israel and the Israeli people.”

And I believe he means it when he writes: “I’ve seen what security means to those who live near the Blue Line, to children in Sderot who just want to grow up without fear, to families who’ve lost their homes and everything they have to Hezbollah’s and Hamas’s rockets.

“And as a father myself, I cannot imagine the pain endured by the parents of Naftali Fraenkel, Gilad Shaar and Eyal Yifrach, who were tragically kidnapped and murdered in June.”

The President was entirely responsible to add that he is “also heartbroken by the senseless abduction and murder of Mohammed Hussein Abu Khdeir, whose life was stolen from him and his family.”  And by writing further that “At this dangerous moment, all parties must protect the innocent and act with reasonableness and restraint, not vengeance and retribution.”

Does he recognize, though, that the reason peace in the region is so famously elusive is because of the mindset of people like Mr. and Mrs. Abu Khdeir, Mr. Qurei and Arab media like Al-Hayat Al-Jadida – which is, tragically, the mindset of so much of the Arab world?

I suspect he does, and that whenever he addresses both sides of the conflict as if both are equally blameworthy for the lack of peace, he is simply, as he has done in the past, offering “evenhanded” words to mollify a rabid world that he know places inordinate value on platitudes.

But should he call me tonight, I’ll make sure.

© 2014 Hamodia

 

Musing: The Two-Word Solution for Gaza

The Palestinian population has provided Hamas with what legitimacy it has as an elected entity.   A population giveth, but it can also taketh away.  There are certainly Gazans, perhaps even a majority of them, who are disillusioned with Hamas.  Social services have faltered greatly and any sane Gazan recognizes that the bombs falling daily are the result of their government’s goading of Israel.

So the solution to the hostilities can be summed up in two words: Gazan Spring.

Musing: Iron Dome Hakaras Hatov

The New York Times today notes that:

“The United States has been instrumental in helping to fund the development of Iron Dome and has proprietary access to the technology. Israel has said that the system has a success rate of nearly 90 percent in intercepting the missiles it is meant to thwart.”

Indeed, in 2013, US President Barack Obama pledged continued funding of the Iron Dome system, stressing that America’s commitment to the State of Israel is a “solid obligation” and “non-negotiable.”

In 2014, the US provided $235 million for Iron Dome research, development and production.  At the time, President Obama called it “a program that has been critical in terms of providing security and safety for Israeli families,” one, he continued, that “has been tested and has prevented missile strikes inside of Israel.”

Actions and words worth remembering, and worth expressing hakaras hatov for, in these trying times.

Agudath Israel Statement About Arrests in Murder of Arab Teen

Reports of arrests of members of the Jewish community in connection with the recent murder of an Arab youth, Muhammad Hussein Abu Khdeir, should fill us all with revulsion.

The Jewish faith does not tolerate violence other than in self-defense and condemns murder as a grave crime.  To take the life of an innocent human being is not only an indefensible, evil act but, here, brings our people down to the level of our most implacable and cruel enemies.  It is a chillul Hashem, a desecration of G-d’s name.

The entire Jewish world was plunged into mourning at the news of the three innocent Jewish teens who were murdered several weeks ago by as-yet unapprehended parties.  And mourning was, and is, the proper response of individuals to such crimes, not misguided attempts by vigilantes to exact “revenge,” which is the Creator’s to dispense.

May the families of both the murdered Jewish boys and the murdered Arab boy be comforted.  And may governmental authorities successfully bring all the murderers to the justice that can be meted out in this world.

We beseech the Creator, the One who “makes peace in His heavens,” to send us the day soon when peace will reign over the Holy Land.

If Only

To re-read Rachel Fraenkel’s words in a New York Times report that appeared mere hours before the discovery that her son Naftali and his two friends, Hashem yinkom damam, had been murdered is to experience anew the shattering moment that accompanied the first reports of the discovery.

onfiding to a reporter her belief that the kidnapping would “end in a positive way,” she took care to add: “Not that I don’t consider other things.  I’m not in denial.  If I have to fall apart, I’ll have time to do it later.”

The time, to the anguish and agony of us all, came.

I was on the phone with a colleague discussing an important legal development when I heard a mid-sentence gasp on the other end of the line, and thought I sensed tears.  Although no official word had yet been released, my colleague had just received an alarming e-mail and informed me that some news sources were reporting a “development.”  Suddenly the legal issue had not the slightest importance.

It was astounding how so many Jews so far removed from one another – geographically and otherwise – came together in hope and tefilla during the weeks the boys were missing. “Prayer vigils,” wrote a Forward reporter, “united even those not prone to praying.”

And no less remarkable was the broad and resounding collective moan of mourning after the unthinkable became reality.  It was the sound of an entire people’s grief.

And for those of us who understand that the murdered boys are not only victims but kedoshim, there was particularly painful poignancy in the subsequent revelation that the first clue about their fate was a pair of tefillin found inside the burned-out Hyundai believed to have been used in their abduction.

Some Jewish readers were outraged by the New York Times article in which Mrs. Fraenkel was quoted.  Headlined “After West Bank Kidnapping, 2 Mothers Embody a Divide,” it could have been seen as comparing the mother of the Israeli boy with, lihavdil, the mother of a boy, Mohammed Dudeen, who was shot and killed in Dura, a town near Chevron, when he hurled stones at Israeli soldiers searching for the abductees.

But I don’t concur with the exercised readers.  It’s the role of a journalist to report, not take sides (even when an issue is lopsided), and there was no tilt toward the Arab woman in the piece.  Quite the contrary, the facts reported spoke for themselves, and more loudly than any opinion piece could have done.  Not only were the kidnapped boys portrayed as the innocent yeshiva students they were, but Mrs. Fraenkel, by her words, showed herself to be a paragon of sensitivity and compassion.  Expressing how “extremely upset” she was when she heard what happened in Dura, she told the Times, “I really don’t want any Palestinian to get hurt.

By stark contrast, the Arab mother wouldn’t even concede that a kidnapping had occurred, insinuating that Israel had staged the abduction.  She kvetched about the fact that Mahmoud Abbas hadn’t visited – “Our prime minister can’t come to offer condolences?  Shame on you.”  And she said that if she bears a new son, she will name him Mohammed. “All pregnant women in the neighborhood,” she said, “will name them Mohammed.

(A subsequent New York Times piece, the day after the discovery of the murders, quoted the mother of one of the men identified by Israel as a kidnapper/murderer.  She promised that she will educate her grandchildren “to be for jihad… [to] be as their father, to be fighters and to be martyrs.”)

And that, of course, is the crux of the essential issue here, the “asymmetry of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict” that the first article asserts some see – though not the way they see it.

The asymmetry lies in the embrace of hatred, unconcern for life and celebration of violence that characterizes so many Arab residents in Yehudah, Shomron and Gaza; and the will for peace, cherishing of life and distaste for violence held by most, if not all, Jewish Israelis.

All of Klal Yisroel is in mourning this week; none of us, even if we had never before June 12 heard the names Naftali Fraenkel, Gil-ad Shaar or Eyal Yifrach, Hy”d, feels that they are anything but our kerovim.  May Hashem grant the families, and us all, nechama.

It is not uncommon for aveilim to imagine “if only” scenarios – “if only he hadn’t taken that route,” “ if only I had suggested she see that doctor,” “ if only we had pressed him harder to take that advice…”

I have my own clock-turning-back fantasy here.  If only the two suspected murderers, when they were younger, had attacked some soldiers with rocks, like the boy in Dura, and been dispatched to a place very different from the next world of their imagining… Three pure-hearted boys would be in a beis medrash studying, or on the way home for a Shabbos with their families.  Instead of in their graves.

That’s anger speaking, of course.  And anger doesn’t yield good things.  What will yield us good things here is another set of “if only”s.  The sort that focuses on the future.  If only we seize this national tragedy to become better Jews.  If only we look inward, tease out and address the personal faults that prevent us from being better parents, children, siblings, spouses.  If only we aim to daven every day as we have over the past weeks.  If only…

We can’t change the past.  The future, though, is another matter

© 2014 Hamodia