While I love to
share words of Torah and encouragement with the greater public, I have often
shied away from commenting with my personal opinions on social and political
issues in public forums as it is so easy to misunderstand or misrepresent the true
purpose behind a person’s statement. Furthermore, while there is a great amount
of purposeful, useful, and intelligent discussion to be found in these forums,
there is at least ten times that amount in hurtful, insulting, and frankly,
unintelligent comments, that I generally hesitate to offer a contribution.
However, due to a personal experience in the past week, I feel responsible to
make my voice heard and insure that the community I associate myself with is
well-represented, and that those I feel are in the wrong are acknowledged as
such.
This past
Wednesday night, June 21, at around 9:30PM, three religious Jews, soldiers in
the IDF, were
verbally abused by a mob while davening Maariv at the “Shteiblach”
in the Beis Yisrael neighborhood in Yerushalayim. The police
were called in to escort the soldiers out of the neighborhood safely. This is
just the latest incident of violence against religious soldiers here in Eretz
Yisrael, but this one has prompted me to share my feelings, primarily
because I was there.
At the time, I
didn’t know what was happening. “Shteebs” is a minyan “factory”,
with five different rooms allowing minyanim to be going on an almost
24-hour basis. While this incident was happening in Room “Bet”, I was davening
further back in Room “Hay”. In the middle of our Minyan, a huge
tumult began outside with well over a hundred people gathering in the outer
courtyard of the shul. Huge swarms of people were pushing back and forth, there
was screaming and yelling, to the point that nothing else could be heard inside
our room, let alone being able to daven. When davening finished
and I walked outside, all I could see was a mass of people around the entrance
of “Bet”. The first thought that crossed my mind was, “terrorist
attack”, and when I heard the arrival of the police, I decided it was best to
leave first and ask questions later.
I found out on
the news around an hour later what had actually taken place. Three frum Jews,
Orthodox Jews, had been davening, only to be met with abuse, including
the vilest of insults, “Nazi”, as if they had perpetrated the deaths of
millions, simply because they were soldiers in the IDF. (I had heard those
calls while I was there and had assumed they were being directed at an Arab
terrorist.) My first thought was pure embarrassment; not sadness, though that
followed quickly after, but embarrassment.
I identify as a
Chareidi Orthodox Jew, whether I’m required to put an “ultra” before the
“Orthodox” depends on how much variance you give to the Chareidi label.
While I belong to the halachic camp that serving in the IDF is not a mitzvah
and also believe it is spiritually detrimental, I do not believe it is an aveirah;
after all, there are many reasons why one might join the army. (Not that it
matters, but I have many family members and close friends who have served in
the IDF. I do my best to support the soldiers of my country both socially and
spiritually.) It is certainly possible for a religious person to make a Kiddush
Hashem while serving in the IDF.
But why did
this particular incident hit me so hard? This certainly wasn’t the first
instance of something like this happening, no one even got hurt! The obvious
explanation is because I actually was present in this instance, and that
certainly plays a part, but it’s not everything. It is more about the question
I keep asking myself: What would I have done if I knew what was happening while
I was at shul? Would I have jumped into the fray and defended the soldiers?
Would I have yelled back at the protesters as they shouted? Would I have done nothing?
Before I asked
myself that, I needed to ask myself what should I have done? Obviously,
it would be suicide to take on a mob, even one that was not engaging in
physical violence. However, I feel that doesn’t release me of the
responsibility to do something, just in a different format.
The people who
are abusing and assaulting IDF soldiers may be called Chareidim, but
they don’t represent our community. They are a minority; to the best of my
knowledge, no known figure in the Chareidi world has proposed or even
simply supported the abuse of soldiers. They are extremists; furthermore, they didn’t
become extremists because of these incidents, they were extremists even beforehand,
but it wasn’t necessary to speak out the distinction. Everyone I’ve spoken to about
this incident has felt the same way as me, actually even stronger than I do. But
even so, and without regard for any other social or religious circles, we as Chareidim
have the responsibility to speak up and say loudly what we clearly believe. It’s
important for us to make a clear distinction between what we consider right and
wrong.
We do not
support the abuse of Jews. Whatever disagreements exist over the complicated
issue of serving in the IDF, they are not with the soldiers themselves. Any
person who acts in a manner similar to what I witnessed Wednesday night is
wrong and is not affiliated with our Torah Hashkafah. Anyone who viewed
that spectacle should feel anger and embarrassment. To be fair, even though
there were around 100 people at Shteebs during the incident, I have no
idea how many were actively involved in the abuse. However, none of them were
working against the abusers either. That someone even similar to us hashkafically
could act in such a way should anger us all.
So what should
we do to combat this? Attacking a mob is never a good idea, but vocalizing to
the greater community our disagreements with these actions instead of keeping
it to private conversations is something we can all do. We can let the minority
know that they are the minority. And when we aren’t up against a mob and see
such abuse taking place, we should make it very clear to those perpetuating
such acts that they are wrong. By knowing there is someone there against them,
perhaps they’ll then think twice before engaging again. Any Chilul Hashem
those three soldiers might make by serving in the IDF shouldn’t compare to the
one we make by standing on the sidelines.
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