.jpeg)
Friday, March 01, 2013
Reporting from Ground Zero
The crossroads in Samaria were protected by jeeps full of soldiers. Palestinian minibuses were on the road transporting construction workers, Israel is allowing them into Israel to reduce the prices of apartments, that are now more expensive than in Hong Kong or Manhattan. My students have divided themselves into several groups: the Arabs come on Friday (the religious Jews dont because of the Shabbath) and the rest on Wednesday.
The country is in chaos, we have no stable coalition. Unlike any other Western country, our political divisions are not left and right, but about piety: The Haredi (Agudeh) are the most observant, the Religious Zionist (Mizrahi, Bennet) are moderate, the Sepharadi (Shas) are led by Moroccans graduated in Litvak religious schools, and the Secular Jews (Lapid) have no firm beliefs, like the people in the Western world and China. The main issue that divides them is the military service of the Haredi young boys and girls: divinity students are exempt all over the world of military service but our "yellow-eye" jealous co-Israelis hate (really hate) the idea that some are not conscripted to the army and they dont want to understand that a religious father would rather die that let her daughter serve two and half years in the Army. Most Israelis consider them parasites and immoral. Yossy Sarid (pic), a forgotten old politician, wrote about this in the fishwrap HaAretz: Israeli politics turns around the unbearable "burden" of the ultra-Ortodox that do not servetheir three and half years in the army. Dont we have any other problems? Any other burdens? Sarid writes in an ultra-literary style, with obscure Aramaic references. I admire his style but understand only half of it. Once, Israeli politicians were intellectuals like Sarid.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
26 comments:
Yossi Sarid's "other burdens" are the men and women of the West Bank who he wishes to evict from their homes.
He did mentione the Jewish neighborhood in Hebron, and something about Dr. Goldmann. Sarid long realized that his turn to the "left" of the Labor Party z"l was his political suicide. And he abandoned active politics, he is more of a writer.
I understood that he wrote about the idiocy of turning coalition-building on the idiotic issue of conscription of yeshive-bochers. And of haredi girls.
The haredim are like the priests during the 2nd Temple.
[D]ivinity students are exempt all over the world ... a religious father would rather die that let her daughter serve two and half years in the Army.
What a load of crap. 1st of all, when the US had conscription, divinity students were not exempt - they could serve as chaplains or in non-combatant roles (medic) if they had religious objections to bearing arms. Judaism does not prohibit "rabbis" from serving in the military. As far as the religious are concerned , ALL their men are "rabbis" even if they can barely read (especially if being a "rabbi" gets you out of military service). Same thing with daughters. I don't object to special accommodations being made so that the religious can maintain kashrut, separation of the sexes, etc. but if you want to benefit from the state you must also defend it - otherwise go live in Brooklyn.
The original exemption was for a few dozen serious scholars who had survived the Holocaust. Ben Gurion could not have imagined that there would be hundreds of thousands of "scholars".
K
Yossi has shit taste in women.
The daughter thing is a red herring. Nobody is talking about conscripting their daughters. And even with the sons it's not so simple. Feiglin called for a professional army with the rest serving a minimal training period and maybe he has a point. But the conscription thing is a proxy for the larger question of how much longer will the professional religious be a poor, uneducated and unemployed dependent class.
"Professional religious" is an oxymoron. Since the destruction of the Temple, the Jews have not had a professional religious class - all Jews are supposed to be religious and all Jews are supposed to work. Being religious is not mutually exclusive with working.
But I don't see this as the fault of the religious - like any type of welfare, it's the giver that's at fault. If bears give up fishing for salmon and hang around the town dump eating garbage, it's the fault of the humans - I don't blame the bears for taking the easy way out.
K
Like many intellectuals, and according to the picture, Sarid seems to prioritize meeting his educational obligations.
Anon.
Yossi has shit taste in women.
Yes, the one with whom he's speaking in the photo has ugly tattoos and a poor dye-job. But she does have a nice pale complexion.
But she does have a nice pale complexion.
And we all know that being white is the most important thing that there is. The whiter the better. Nothing else matters, really.
K
I guess my tastes aren't universal, and yes, there are other things besides complexion that are important. But considering aesthetic appeal of complexion alone, I prefer pale to dark.
It is true that the Jewish religion has nothing against soldiering and wars. So divinity students should be the most bellicose, and in effect, the religious-Zionists are. Moreover, our religion has nothing even against females soldiering, we are not Buddhists or Christians. During the war of independence, children (age 14 - 16) were conscripted.
The problem with the Haredi is that they are anti-Zionist. Not active antizionist but passive antizionists. They are waiting for the Messias to lead them. If anything, they are a Galutic remnant, with all the good and all the bad that we were in the Galut. Israel is a secular country.
I think the social security problem will be solved, they have to work, but after the Holocaust they are deadly afraid of taking a fighting political position like Zionism. Even after 60 years after the triumph of Zionism they want to be in good terms with Arafat, Ahmedenijad, etc. Galut mentality.
The problem with what you refer to as the Haredim (which is not quite an accurate label-come to Bat Ayin or Shechem to see a bunch of black hats whose kids all serve in the army, many in elite units, and who are to the right of most daati leumi) is not that they are afraid. It is that their leaders have lost all fear. They feel secure in their position. And therefore, what Burnam refers to as their words' formal meaning is very divergent from their real meaning. The formal meaning: "we are the real Jews, the keepers of the pure Judaism, and we will stop at nothing to protect this." The real meaning: "this is our feedlot, and we will sell our block vote to anyone who assures it, and stop at nothing to maintain our position as patrons redistributing goods and services to our clients. Anyone who steps out of line will be crushed." This does not strike me as a stable long-term position.
But blocs selling their votes to the highest bidder is one of the features of democracy and arguably one that leads to better results than having "wise men"/ arrogant leftists such as Sarid determine the outcomes.
K
But I despise democracy and don't believe in it. And who if not arrogant leftists buys the votes?
B
Haredi leaders are of my age and background. Believe me that they are sincere and they only want to protect their people. Ingratiating oneself with the enemy is a galutic strategy that worked for generations. Zionism seems to them suicidal. Vote selling is only instrumental.
Galut has 2000 years of history.
Zionist Israel around 70. At majority of that short time, the most important part of it it was under the leadership of people like Sarid. Not anymore though.
So maybe they have a point.
Israel is moving in uncharted waters. It already replaced the leadership which created the state. Those leftist as people usually name them are considered idealist weaklings. History proves otherwise I might say. Tough as steal realists they were in my opinion. Present leadership is not tested.
Haredi are in Israel to stay. Whatever the future holds I do believe they will be there as an important part of it.
The people leading it today and who will be leading it in the future made their bones implementing the orders of guys like Sarid. They know what these people are worth. See Bennett's comments about his service in the last Lebanon war.
I am not certain the Haredim as they organizationally exist today are here to stay. Once they start working and serving, they will come out of cryostasis, and there will be a chain reaction. It is already happening. It is what Rav Kook started, in some ways.
Once they start working and serving, they will come out of cryostasis, and there will be a chain reaction.
That is the real reason why their leaders DON'T want them to be secularly educated or work or serve. The last time the Haredim were enlightened, they weren't Haredim any more.
K
It's already happening, with their leaders' tacit approval. Lots of water has passed under the bridge since the 1800s.
Israel is moving in uncharted and extremely dangerous waters. Being a Zionist, after the Holocaust it seems to me a better choice than Galutic cryostasis. But I understand the reasons and respect my elders and the Haredim are like my elders. And I reject Lapid's popularist arguments that the Haredis dont work and dont serve in the army and are parasites. Those are antisemitic arguments and untrue - absolutely untrue. They are a low maintenance population, need no policing, and produce more than they consume. Not like say the Beduins.
What do they produce? Not being an asshole, just curious.
They are low maintenance. It would not be a problem I guess.
But then citizenship offers political power for the ones who contribute. Pay taxes, serve in the military.
Haredi do neither. So low maintenance or not, their desire to yield political power, to become king makers is very annoying for the ones who do contribute.
The entire concept of citizenship votes is put in doubt. Interesting that Israel is as always the vanguard.
The haredi are not the only parasitic community who brings nothing to its host society and uses its womens wombs to increase its share and its power. Time used not birthing and not begging or blackmailing society for handouts is wasted.
Great reproductive strategy in a Darwinian sense. It is quite logical that the ones who are used to feed and protect the puppies of the expanding parasitic subculture get quite angry.
In Hungarian case it's even more acute. Their parasitic subculture , the Roma, are also extremely aggressive and belong to a different ethnic group.
In Israel military service makes the problem so acute.
It ain't fair.
The seculars are suckers or what?
You go in the army, give Hezbollah a chance to pierce your skin with nice shrapnel while the nice haredi study. Meaning they pop some kids while you crawl on your belly around the frontier. And then you got to work and pay taxes to maintain the army and the state administration - you know, like schools, bureaucracy, police, schools etc - while they get to pop some more kids. And then you got to feed them also.
And after all this they want power. They want to have the right to speak.
Hard to swallow for the others.
In strictly monetary terms you are right. They are low maintenance.
But socially they are expensive.
I think Teo has the better analysis. It's true that it could be worse - the Haredi could be Gypsies or Bedouins. But that's an awfully low threshold - the other citizens have no right to complain as long as the Haredi are not thieves and rapists? A small amount of deference should be accorded them because they are upholding a small remnant of Yiddishkeit. So offer 500 annual exemptions to their best young Torah scholars.
K
As always in real life nobody has a perfect solution.
I'd say nobody has any solution at all.
Number of new born is around 1/3 of all Jewish birth in Israel. And we know how diverse the community is. So a compact and coherent 1/3 ( more then the others anyway) is something absolutely huge. The seculars are feeling something quite unpleasant breathing down their necks.
I bet on the taliban sorry haredim.
The seculars are split, have no consistency. The stakes are much lower for them. Or they imagine stakes are lower. So they will back down. They always do. Remember Lapid the Older? Nothing happened. Nothing will happen now. Except more Haredi babies of course. Plenty of them.
I do not think anyone imagined something like this. From smart logical people, the best mankind has to offer, the country was going to deviate toward a Talibanised version of Judaism.
Imagine that.
We do not understand God's plans. We can't predict anything.
We know nothing.
PS. Only J's troll seems to know a lot of things for sure.
:):):)
The one thing everyone knows is that the future belongs to those who show up. But no one makes a decision that the ones who show up will be mostly Haredi. Each individual secular woman decides how many children she will have for reasons that are good and sufficient for her and collectively the decision is in favor of the extinction of all that she believes in.
K
Post a Comment