My, that’s a special kind of stupid. I once met a young fellow who, besides being a dick about other things, was an indépendantiste. Not a sovereignist, not a separatist - those are just regular folks. No, he was a le Québec aux Québécois, everyone who’s not pure laine tissée tricotée needs to get out now, indépendantiste.
And he was German! He was a first-generation German immigrant! He moved to Quebec from Germany!
Like your aunt, when I brought this up, he changed the subject.
Though I must say, that’s a pretty great mental image.
jayjay:
I’ve made it clear that I don’t condone the rioting.
Noone Special:
I lived in Israel as a student for two years. That was eighteen years ago, so my experience might be a bit out of date, and I’ll admit I haven’t had to deal with much of what citizens like yourselves have to. Still, I’m hardly ignorant of Israeli life and how the Haredi community interacts with it.
Plenty of Haredim serve in the army as well. Not in the same percentages as Mizrahis or Hilonim, but given the difference between the communities in both study as lifestyle and in Zionist idealism, understandable.
Even in America, divinity students had draft deferments when there was a draft. I won’t condone anyone using Torah as an excuse for draft-dodging, but the fact is that full-time Torah study is a genuine way of life for much of the Haredi community, and has been so since they established the Old Yishuv, decades before Zionism was a twinkle in Herzl’s eyes.
This much I’ll grant. However, at the time that the Status Quo agreement was made, intermarriage was hardly a concern. And as for not in-marrying in a civil ceremony, that was kind of the point - if you were going to get married (or divorced), why not do it in a universally-accepted manner rather than beget generations of children whose status according to Halacha is forbidden or even in-doubt? If the “Who is a Jew” controversy left a bad taste in people’s mouths, can you imagine the “Who is a Mamzer” battle? The onset of this is just beginning to hit the American Jewish community, and it won’t be pretty.
Here in America, there’s a lot of stuff that’s not open on Sunday. Assuming one national day of rest per week, why shouldn’t it be Saturday, in the Jewish state?
That’s right, they have their own school system for that. So how are they hurting the Hiloni schools, which do teach those things?
Funny, I didn’t notice the Haredim rioting over gay pride parades in Tel Aviv, or objecting to Hiloni schools teaching evolution and non-Biblical history, or roads for people to go nightclubbing on Friday nights that don’t needslessly go through religious neighborhoods, I have yet to see them campaign for any form of theological policing. Aside from the issue of non-religious marriage (which is really only a necessity if one wishes to marry outside his/her religion, an extreme rarity in Israel), there’s very little that the Haredim assert themselves into the private lives of other Israelis. I realize that you feel these other things are an unreasonable imposition of religion, but if you take a step back, you’d see that equivalent situations exist in most (if not all) other Western countries, but in Israel it has a Jewish flavor rather than a Christian one.
Kalhoun:
I can’t agree with you more. And the religious history and character of Jerusalem is very real, even if you think the underlying beliefs are false.
They would be very happy for this parade to be somewhere else. The route the parade organizers chose was deliberately in-your-face to the Haredim.
The Haredim do not ask non-Jews to observe the Torah. They’re not even seeking to force non-religious Jews to observe the Torah (in most aspects…I’ll grant that they do want all marriages or divorces between Jews to be performed according to Jewish law). They want those who do not necessarily share their beliefs to recognize that their culture considers Jerusalem to be the seat of Torah-based holiness and to not march through it declaring how proud they are to not believe that.
Because that’s at the heart of what I’m trying to say here. I’m NOT trying to say that the gays don’t have the right to their opinions, or to be proud of their sexuality. I’m NOT arguing that the Haredim are acting in a tolerant manner, and I am NOT BY ANY MEANS condoning their use of violence in expressing their opposition to the parade. What I AM saying is that the gay groups are being equally intolerant, in that they are failing to show recognition for the religious culture and nature of Jerusalem, especially in the Haredi neighborhoods. Jerusalem is not New York or Berlin or Shanghai. Its nature, like that of Vatican City or Mecca, is essentially religious, and to parade through it for the purpose of thumbing one’s nose at that religion is also an expression of intolerance.
They’re being disrespectful; not intolerant. And rightly so. They have expressed their disdain for homosexuality. Calling an entire group of people an abomination isn’t exactly a show of love. They’ve told these people that they’re to be loathed and they want respect? Fuck that and fuck them. If their faith says that this victimless behavior is bad, shame on you for siding with them. They deserve nothing in the way of religious respect.
Where in the US does public transportation shut down on Sunday?
I admit, I’ve never so much as marched in a gay pride parade, but to the best of my knowledge, none of them have ever taken “Jerusalem is not the seat of Torah-based holiness” as their theme. Maybe this is unique to the Israeli gay rights movement?
Exactly who do you think was marching in this parade? Gay Palestinians? Yes, Jerusalem is hugely important to Jews. And this is no different for gay Jews than it is for straight Jews. To the extent that Jerusalem “belongs” to the Haredrim, it belong in exactly equal measure to organizers of the parade.
Oh, as to your contention that this is only a problem because it’s happening in Jerusalem, and that those protesting the parade are only doing so because the parade is getting “in their face,” I offer you the following:
That sounds like a real “live and let live” attitude, right there. Remind me again how the gays are the bad guys, here?
With all due respect, I think things have changed since then, in many directions.
Nope. Can’t agree to that. At the very least, if they don’t want to be in a military force, all 18 Y.O. Haredi men should do something like two years of National Service. It could even be within their own communities.
Nearly 25,000 at any given moment, out of a population base of perhaps 500,000? 5% of the total Haredi population (which meansprobably upwards of 30% of draft-aged men) are fully committed and good enough to be Yeshive Bokhers? Give me a break. What we have here is the use of a loop-hole for draft dodging on a massive scale.
(re: Marriage and burial)
OK, maybe marriage is an issue. But burial? This is just a power play by the Haredi and Dati establishments.
Also, what was that about “Live and let live” again?
Complete slap-down on all public transportation? All shopping, all day, including out-of-town malls?
I’ve lived in the states. I’ve taken busses, planes, trains on Sunday. I’ve shopped on Sunday.
Also, there is an emerging custom here that all shops are closed from about 2-3 PM on Friday until Saturday late morning (10:30-11:00 AM). I like it. I think it’s a good thing to let all the retail-hell workers get at least Erev Shabbat off. But there’s no need for a 36-hour moraorium on everything other than for purely religious reasons.
Oh, and anyway, I never liked whatever remained of Blue Laws in the US, either. Two wrongs don’t make a right.
Because they’re getting a lot more money from the state than my kids are? (at least double per-capita, in fact more like 4-5 times as much.) And because noy teaching basic skills to children means they will be trapped without the ability to make anything of their lives but study Torah for ever and ever?
Oh, I did. They’ve just given up on it in the past few years as a lost cause.
Well, I guess I should be forever thankful that they aren’t controlling my life totally!
You must have mised this part, too. They also objected strenuously to local governments trying to set up free busses from the suburbs into Tel-Aviv and back on Friday night, which were expressedly supposed to help youngsters keep from being behind the wheel of their (parents’) cars after drinking. Whatever happened to “Kol hametzil nefesh ekhat… ?”
Like I said – shpping and public transport on Saturday. Getting imporant roadworks done on Saturday, when it wouldn’t get in the way of all the drivers. Allowing meat shops to sell anything they want, including pork and sea-food… the list is endless, and none of these would produce any “non0jews” like the marriage issue might. IMO marriage is the one and only issue on which I’ll grant you that there should even be any sort of debate. BTW, I was married in a religious ceremony, out of choice. I just want others to have other choices.
First, I disagree wi you that religious coercion exists anywhere nearly as strongly anywhere else in the Western world. Second, Jewish Issurim tend to be stricter than Christian ones. Third, like I already said, I dislike Christian coercion just as much, only it’s not so much my problem
It’s my understanding that Jerusalem is a city, and that people live there, people for whom it is the city of which they are citizens, not a giant synagogue of which they are willing or unwilling congregants.
One of the things that happens when you have a city is that a certain proportion of its people will be gay, and when you have pretentions to being a western industrial democracy, some of those gay people may well want to have a pride parade.
If you’ve decided that Jerusalem is nothing but a holy city, and that it’s offensive to have a gay pride parade in a holy city, you’ve basically said that any gay people who happen to live there will never get to have a pride parade. That’s stupid.
Or they refuse to allow the Haredi to define what the “culture and nature of Jerusalem” is. If the people who want to participate in the parade are residents of Jerusalem they ARE PART of the “culture and nature of Jerusalem”. If the Haredi of Jerusalem have public demonstrations, parades, gatherings at the wall, or temple mount, etc. then it is hipocracy of the highest order to deny the same to the other citizens of Jerusalem. The Haredi are doing nothing less than setting up their own little nation-state and enforcing it with vigilantees in this case. I don’t see that action as being worthy of “tolerance”. The Israeli government should arrest those attempting to interfere with peaceable demonstrations just as they would if someone started harassing or inflicting violence on peaceful demonstraters at the wailing wall. The city’s “nature and culture” is defined by its citizens, ALL its citizens, not just some of them.
Enjoy,
Steven
Not so stupid if you never want a gay pride parade in Jerusalem. lol.
Not to take sides but could Gay Pride Parade going through an ultra-orthodox neighborhood be likened to the Orange Order Marches through Catholic neighborhoods? I suppose the political power of the situations is a little reversed.
Well thank you, Helen Lovejoy, for thinking of the CHILDREN!!!
Last time I checked, there’s no such right to not be offended. You can’t shield your children from everything, and quite frankly, if they’re so afraid their kids will turn into big time sinners from the mere site of a gay guy daring to march in a parade, well, then maybe their beliefs weren’t as strong or as right as they thought. You shouldn’t have to use force and fear to keep your kids from straying from their religion-if you do, then perhaps it isn’t worth staying in said religion.
And perhaps, somewhere, there are Haredim children out there, who ARE gay, who will be given some kind of HOPE seeing this, that there’s nothing wrong with them.
As for your Vatican comparison, last time I checked, the Vatican is pretty much populated by priests and the like. And I have my issues with the Vatican as well-if a gay pride parade wanted to march past the Vatican to protest the Catholic church’s treatment of gays, I’d be all for it.
In fact, there was a major gay pride parade in Rome in 2000, although the Pope vehemently opposed it:
Doesn’t seem to have been any rioting, though.
Has it really changed all that much? I lived in Jerusalem in the 1970s and it was already a huge issue then. My last night there, a Saturday, was spent going to the cinema with my friends, and I remember having to wait while a group of Haredim picketed the cinema entrance because Shabbat wasn’t over, according to them. Buses didn’t run anywhere in West Jerusalem from mid-afternoon Friday to late Saturday evening. All shops were closed between these times. Some stretches of road near religious neighbourhoods were hazardous on Saturdays because of the crowds of Haredim stoning cars. The actual religious neighbourhoods themselves, like Mea Shearim were completely closed to traffic.
At least we had the option of going shopping or out for a meal in East Jerusalem!
Many of the people we used to know in Jerusalem have since moved away; it simply became too oppressive for secular people to live there. Certainly the few times I visited in the last 25 years it was visibly more religious and conservative.
Nationwide in the seventies there was already a great deal of resentment from the secular majority about the disproportionate influence the religious lobby had on official government policy, because of the way the minority religious parties would hold the balance of power and impose their minority demands on coalition governments. Whether or not the national airline could fly on Shabbat, civil weddings, imposition of Kashrut on shops and restaurants, army service were already hot topics then.
From what I’ve been reading about the Gay Pride March, as well as bringing the longbeards together in opposition, it also highlighted the fact that the gay community is one of the few areas where there is coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians. According to this article in the Guardian (UK):
Not quite sure about ‘no other community’ but I’ve read that many gay Palestinians end up living in Israel, among Israelis, because of the more open attitudes from most Israelis.
For some reason the link to the article didn’t show up in my post.
Right, because picketing is allowed on Shabbat, apparently.
And throwing stones at cars, too, apparently.
It should also be noted that Vatican City and Mecca are in different situations from Jerusalem because the controlling government bodies for the area have used their governmental law-making powers to enact restrictions on behavior of the citizens in accordance with religious guidelines. Vatican City is an independent nation with the Pope as head of state, and the “religious naure” of Mecca is enshrined in the laws of Saudi Arabia. In other words, it is not any intrinsic holiness of Vatican City or Mecca which prevent gay pride parades there, it is the governments which control them. The government which has jurisdiction over Jerusalem has no such laws. Gay pride parades are legal in Israel, all of Israel. If the Haredim want that changed they know how to find the voting booths.
No democratic nation, under the rule of law, nor free citizens thereof, should tolerate individuals, or even communities, taking the law into their own hands and repressing the freedom of others, be it to stop a pride parade, or suppress the publication of cartoons depicting Mohammad. If these individuals, or communities, want to live in a theocracy they should either move to one, like Saudi Arabia, or enact one peacefully, like Vatican City.
Acting as vigilantee enforcers of theocratic laws which have no recognition by the actual sovreign nation of Israel is right out.
Enjoy,
Steven
I think you pretty much answered your own question…
And I was not necessarily saying things have got more religiously restricted/coerced – there are some situations where things have got (IMO) worse, some where things have got better. My only point was that cmkeller’s 2 years of student life (and I’m assuming the rather sheltered life of a Yeshive student?) here, 20 years ago, are, in no way, shape or form, an indication of the present situation. No more, no less – things aren’t necessarily “better” or “worse”, and have not necessarily changed “towards” some end or in some “direction” – they’ve just changed
Kalhoun:
The Torah calls an ACT an abomination, not a PERSON.
But they’re not the ones complaining of intolerance. I am pointing out the hypocrisy of some of the earlier posters in this thread who feel the gay pride folks deserve tolerance while the religious folk do not.
Miller:
There’s certainly a lot less of it.
Well, it’s kind of implicit in the “there’s no such thing as Torah-based holiness, we’ll demonstrate it by being publicly proud to defy what it says” theme.
Not true. To Jews who believe in the Torah, there is a quality of holiness in Jerusalem which makes it unique, which cannot be replicated anywhere else. To those who do not, there is history, but they believe that the historical figures who made Jerusalem so significant were mistaken about the qualities they so valued in it, and there is nothing intrinsic to it that cannot be found in New York, Berlin or Shanghai.
As to your quote from the Shas Minister…political grandstanding. He and his ilk have not made as big a deal before the parade was planned to be in Jerusalem.
matt_mcl:
It is a city, but it’s one with a special cultural character. No one forces people to worship or obey the religion(s) which consider it holy, but all the same, it is intolerant to parade a denial of this belief through its streets.
Mtgman:
But the definition has long since been there. It’s not modern Haredim who have decided that it’s a locale with special religious meaning.
No, they are residents of Jerusalem. Perhaps if this were a new city, such as the century-old Tel Aviv, the culture can be newly defined by its current residents. But not a place with that much history.
I don’t see the vigilantism as worthy of tolerance either.
Guinastasia:
No, but to go out of one’s way to offend is intolerant.
Children aren’t born with strong belief. That doesn’t make the belief itself inherently weak.
Mtgman:
But I’m not talking about legality here. I’m talking about tolerance. I’m talking about recognition of the cultural (and culture includes religion) significance of a place and taking actions, however legal, that thumb one’s nose toward that.
A ridiculous distinction. When you insult people’s behavior, you insult them. When you call what they do evil, you call them evil.
And included among such people are gay Jews.
As pointed out by others, people are being forced, and a gay pride parade is not intolerant.
The culture is defined by the people who are there. It doesn’t matter if it’s thirty thousand years old or thirty; it’s the people there now who matter.
Not when the people taking offense are bigots. Catering to their bigotry is enabling it, and therefore a form of intolerance.
They are. They are recognizing the strong and continuing cultural trait of bigotry. They should “thumb their noses” at it as often as possible.
Nice post, Der Tris.
CMKeller, don’t you think the freedom to march in the face of bigotry would be embraced by the jews if the tables were turned? The world is made up of lots of things we don’t agree with. If the gay marchers aren’t hurting anyone, the Haredim need to get over it. I don’t care what they believe. They are on record as being anti-gay and that is wrong. I hope the gay community makes their parade an annual event.