The Haredi bane

The story is by now familiar enough to make grown men gag in disgust. In Israel, the Haredi, the ultra-Orthodox (as opposed to the merely “Orthodox” who are called Dati) have raised their voices and thrown their excrement. One Dati women dared to sit in the front section of a public bus and was abused by Haredi passengers. Students who attend an all-girls school set up by Dati parents near an Haredi neighborhood in Beit Shemesh have to run a gauntlet to get to class. Little girls are called whores and have had eggs and bags of feces thrown at them. Apparently the sleeve and hem lengths the girls don are not long enough for Haredi standards of modesty even though they cover the arms and legs entirely. Oh, wait; examining a photo, I think I can see the stocking-covered ankles of eight year-old Na'ama Margolis, the little girls whose torment finally made the national and international news. Burkas, anyone?

Two weeks ago when city workers tried to remove signs (illegally erected) mandating the separation of the sexes on city streets (this is so familiar isn’t it—think 1938 after the Kristallnacht) new signs went up in defiance of the law. When police showed up to remove those, about 300 Haredi men threw stones at them and burned trash cans creating a foul stench and polluting the air with smoke as a supplement to their verbal outrage at little girls whose ankles show. Television reporters were attacked when they attempted to film these events.

Not surprisingly Israel’s president, Shimon Peres is on the side of the girls. Urging Israelis to attend a rally on their behalf he said, “Today is a test for the nation, not just for the police. All of us, religious, secular, traditional, must as one man defend the character of the State of Israel against a minority which breaks our national solidarity.” Tzipi Livni, formally foreign minister, currently the head of the Kadima Party which holds the largest number of seats in the Knesset, lent her support to the forces of sanity: “We are struggling over Israel's character not only in Beit Shemesh and not only over the exclusion of women but against all the extremists who have come out of the woodwork to try and impose their worldview on us.” Even right-wingers, religious and secular, oppose what the Haredi in their arrogance, their “my way or the highway” do. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called on the police to act aggressively against violence aimed at women and urged Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein to make certain that laws against excluding women from public spaces are enforced. Moshe Abutbul the mayor of Beit Shemesh, himself Haredi, decried the violence against young girls. “Beit Shemesh denounces such behavior,” he said according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “Violent men belong behind bars,” he continued. “I urge the Israel Police to act with a firm hand against all the rioters,” adding that reporters should not make assumptions about all Haredi Orthodox Israelis.

The mayor, however, seems not to speak for the Haredi he claims to represent. Shlomo Fuchs, for one, seems not to have gotten the memo. He was arrested for calling a female soldier, Doron Matalon, who dared to sit in the “men’s section” of a public bus a whore and a shiksa. As she is 19 years old and not a mere eight, as is Na'ama Margolis, she at least knows what a whore is. Fuchs was joined in his insults by other Haredi passengers. The same day that Fuchs was indicted, female members of the Knesset's Committee on the Status of Women rode in the front of a bus Haredi demanded be segregated. They were insulted by male passengers who complained that the women were acting in a provocative fashion by sitting with men. The MK’s were accompanied by television crews. When these were spotted by brave Haredi, they opted not to get on the bus.

Our Father in Heaven, Rock and Redeemer of the People of Israel, bless the State of Israel, dawn of our redemption. Shield it with Your love, spread over it the shelter of Your peace. The rabbis of old believed that the Second Temple was destroyed because of senseless hatred. That was Jerusalem of old. We thought we were over that. Welcome to Jerusalem, 5772. According to Othello, Cyprus was for goats and monkeys. Jerusalem? It has Haredi.

Kristallnacht, then and now

Seventy years ago calamity befell us. No, I wasn’t born yet, but still I include as part of “us” myself and my children and all who are Jewish; all who believe in the glories of Western Civilization, and all who advocate for human rights.

On November 7, 1938 a Jewish student, outraged by Nazi treatment of his parents held in a freezing no-man’s land between Germany and Poland, expelled by the former, rejected by the latter, hungry, deprived of sanitary facilities and hope, took it upon himself to seek revenge. He went to the German embassy in Paris, asked to speak to the Ambassador, was allowed to see a minor functionary named Ernst vom Rath and shot him. Hitler’s Propaganda Minister, Joseph Goebbles, who had long advocated one final devastating pogrom against the remaining Jews of Germany, seized this opportunity and suddenly vom Rath achieved the status of an Aryan hero. German newspapers and radio blared forth the news that the assassination attempt, so close in time to the 21st anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution in Russia was part of the international Judeo-Communist plot to take over the world. If vom Rath died, the Nazis warned, the Jews of Germany would pay a heavy price.

The world waited as surgeons tried to save the man’s life. When the announcement came, on November 9, that vom Rath had succumbed to his wounds, the stage was set for what has become known as Kristallnacht, the night of broken glass, the night of November 9-10 when the full savagery of Nazi furor was unleashed onto defenseless Jewish communities in Germany and Austria.

The Jews of Germany had achieved what Jews in America also had, an equality of status, if not of complete opportunity. They had served during the Great War; some had become internationally known scientists, physicians, businessmen and cultural leaders in music, literature, drama. They had built synagogues of great beauty and size; they lived in homes of middle class comfort; they were like us here, now; only they were them, there and then.

That night over 200 synagogues were destroyed by fire; Jewish homes were invaded and looted; whatever commercial property was still in Jewish ownership was attacked. Jews were beaten; some were arrested. Only synagogues immediately abutting “Aryan” property were spared. It was the Jewish community’s September 11, the day their world changed forever. And further indignities ensued. The following day German insurance companies approached Nazi officials and asked permission not to pay the Jews for the damage to their property and lives. Too smart for that the Nazis said, no, you must pay, but then we’ll fine the Jews, because the attack on them was their fault because of the attack on vom Rath, and we’ll return the money to you.

Seventy years ago. Three generations ago, and yet the memory lingers, the pain endures. Here in Providence a remarkable event is being planned. On November 9 at the Veteran’s Memorial Auditorium in Providence, eight adult choirs, four children’s choirs, four cantorial soloists, 40 members of the Rhode Island Philharmonic, in total about 320 people, will present a musical commemoration of Ashkenazi Jews on the anniversary of the Kristallnacht, but it will be about more than just the one horrifying event. In fact, the program’s driving force, cantor Brian Mayer of Temple Emanu-El emphasizes that it is not a holocaust program. It is not only to be a story about burning buildings and smashed glass but an attempt to bring to light the great culture the Nazis tried to eradicate and to honor the new realities in our world 70 years later—that with the rise of Eretz Yisrael Jews need no longer live in fear the way they did 70 years ago; that we in America have come a long way towards a much more tolerant society for Jews, and for people of color, though there is still a long way to go. “But look how far we’ve come since 1963, from Martin Luther King’s ‘I have a Dream’ speech to today, when Barack Obama is the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party. This is why the program has 5 scenes about the great Ashkenazi Jewish culture that developed over 1000 years before the kristallnacht. The sixth pays due homage to the events—kristallnacht and the holocaust; but the seventh emphasizes Psalm 133—‘How good & pleasant for brothers and sisters to dwell together in harmony.’ It is an historic concert of memory and hope.” On stage for that final number there will be as many Gentile as Jewish performers.

The narration, tying the 1000 years together, will be read by Leonard Nimoy. (Full disclosure: I am the principal author of the narration.)