Fighting for the soul of Israel (the People & State)

See this important news from or about Israel:

• Jameel's Fighting for the soul of Beit Shemesh (I strongly recommend that you watch the first video, to see what today's demonstration's about.)



• Jewish Daily Forward's Thousands to protest treatment of women



• Haaretz's Ultra-Orthodox Jews ask Israeli media to help rid them of extremists

Over 30 years ago, when we first visited Israel, my husband expressed his concern that, if Israel's enemies ever left it alone, there'd be a civil war. What neither of us ever expected was that the civil war might not be simply chilonim (secular Jews) vs. datiim ("religious" Jews), but also datiim vis. datiim. That some extremists among the Chareidi ("fervently Orthodox") would wage a verbal war of intimidation against more "modern" Orthodox Jews has really come to us as something of a shock.

The Dati Leumi (Religious Zionist) and more moderate Chareidi communities certainly have their work cut out for them in trying to limit the damage caused by both religious and relio-political extremists. I wish them luck, because I think that whatever happens in the State of Israel will (continue to) influence Jewish communities abroad, as well. And I don't want to live in a Jewish world in which eight-year-old Jewish girls are called whores for wearing knee-covering skirts and shoulder-covering, high-necked tops that most "normal" people would consider modest.

I stand by what I wrote--I still think that the obsession with tzniut/modesty is a self-fulfilling prophecy.


Wednesday, December 28, 2011 update:

I guess there are enough Jews in New York City for the New York Times to publish an article on the subject--see their Israeli Girl, 8, at Center of Tension Over Religious Extremism.

See also:

• With the demonstrators: Did we grow up here? (Haaretz)



• Thousands protest ultra-Orthodox extremism (Jerusalem Post)
  

Do you think the following comment to this post by Heshy is an excessive reaction, or do you think there might be some truth in it?

"zach December 27, 2011 at 5:38 PM

. . .

This is the future of Israel. Demographics will favor the charedim in a decade or two, and with it the collapse of Israel as a technical powerhouse as it transforms into a poverty stricken third world country. And when chareidim have the power, they will wield it just like the Taliban did."

January 9, 2012: Poster Child--Naama Margolese—an 8-year-old Israeli girl taunted by ultra-Orthodox men who think she is immodest—is the new face of Jewish women’s rights [re Beit Shemesh incidents involved the harassment of little Orthodox girls by "Sikrikim" (extremists among the Chareidim)]