Group of Israeli ultra-Orthodox vandalize death ca

[Jaga]

This information I saw first in the Polish newspaper but also Jewish newspapers informed about it:

Group of Israeli ultra-Orthodox vandalize death camp in Poland

web.israelinsider.com/Articles/Briefs/11808.htm

By: Israel Insider staff
Published: August 2, 2007

A group of ultra-Orthodox Jews Tuesday was caught vandalizing the Majdanek death camp in Lublin, Poland, during their visit. The men ripped off the entrance gate from its hinges, in what the Israeli ambassador to Poland David Peleg said was "a stain on Israel's good name."

The men all confessed and agreed to pay for damages, and Polish authorities agreed not to press charges, Ynet reported.

"This incident illustrates the enormous sensitivity with which these group visits are handled. The vast majority of visits are conducted without any problems (some 30,000 Israeli youths visit Poland every year) and contribute greatly to cooperation between the two countries and two peoples, it's a terrible shame that these isolated incidents stain the rest," Peleg said.

[Jaga]

I found a very interesting description of this situation in Warsaw Business Journal:

Poland is not Shoah-land

From Warsaw Business Journal


A recent incident in which 35 Hasidic Jewish tourists forcibly entered the museum of the Majdanek concentration camp after the facility's closing time, removing gates from their hinges and breaking into one of the barracks, has highlighted the misunderstandings so prevalent in the hugely complicated relationship between modern Jews and modern Poland.


To be fair, the tourists in this case spoke very little English and no Polish, and were not able to understand what the museum's security guard was telling them. Still, it seems hard to imagine that they didn't understand that breaking locks was inappropriate. The group paid $400 for the damage they caused.

This is not the first such incident. Also in July, around 60 Israeli college students arrived at the grounds of the site of the Auschwitz concentration camp at 11 pm and demanded to be let inside. Despite the hour, the museum guards allowed them to enter, preferring to avoid conflict. The students left the site around 5 am.

The fact is that such tourists represent a small minority of the many Jewish visitors coming to Poland to broaden their understanding of the Holocaust. But the incidents have also underscored that these travellers often understand little about the Poland of today. Many Israeli tour groups arriving in Poland greatly restrict their contact with Polish society, and security guards are a standard feature of package travel. To Poles it often seems they are uninterested, even uncivil, in their relations with locals. Moreover, the message they send is clear: Poland is the land of the Shoah, and little more.

Undoubtedly, it is of extreme importance for Jews to have the opportunity to visit these sites. But in the interest of international relations and intercultural understanding, their vision of Poland should not be blinkered to see only the history of the Holocaust.

Both Poles and Israelis could do much to further that goal. Poland should continue to work to improve ties with Jews around the world, and to present itself as a modern, tolerant country. Jewish visitors, for their part, have every right to seek understanding of the Shoah and its legacy, but they should do so while abiding the law and keeping an open mind about modern Poland.

www.wbj.pl/?command=article&id=38312

[pieter]

Inside Israel the ultra-Orthodox Jews are disliked or hated by many secular jews!

www.samsonblinded.org/blog/why-bait-the-haredim.htm

Haredi Judaism

Haredi or chareidi Judaism is the most theologically conservative form of Orthodox Judaism. A follower of Haredi Judaism is called a Haredi (Haredim in the plural). The term "ultra-Orthodox", which is sometimes used, is pejorative and controversial, as it is often considered to be demeaning, connotes that Haredi Judaism is somehow outside the boundaries of reasonable orthodoxy, and is therefore rarely used by the Jews to whom it is applied. Haredi is derived from charada (fear, anxiety), which could be interpreted as "one who trembles in awe of God" (cf. Isaiah 66:2,5).

Haredi Jews, like other Orthodox Jews, consider their belief system and religious practices to extend in an unbroken chain back to Moses and the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai. As a result, they consider non-Orthodox denominations to be unjustifiable deviations from authentic Judaism, both because of other denominations' doubts concerning the divine revelation of Written and Oral Torah, and because of their rejection of halakhic (or Jewish legal) precedent as binding.

1. Practices and beliefs

1. 1. Views of halacha
One basic belief of the Orthodox community in general is that it is the latest link in a chain of Jewish continuity extending back to the giving of the Torah to Moses at Mount Sinai. It believes that two guides to Jewish law were given to the Israelites at that time: the first, known as Torah she-bi-khsav, or the "Written Law" is the Tanach (Jewish Holy Book) as we know it today; the second, known as Torah she-ba'al peh ("Oral Law"), is the exposition as relayed by the scholarly and other religious leaders of each generation. The traditional interpretation of the Oral Torah is considered as the authoritative reading of the Written Law.

Jewish law, known as halacha is considered a set of God-given instructions to effect spiritual, moral, religious and personal perfection. As such, it includes codes of behavior applicable to virtually every imaginable circumstance (and many hypothetical ones), which have been pored over and developed throughout the generations in a constantly expanding collection of religious literature. The earliest written compilation of halacha, the Talmud, is considered authoritative.

Halacha is a guide for everything the traditional Jew does from the moment he wakes up to the moment he goes to sleep. It is a body of intricate laws, combined with the reasoning on how such conclusions are reached. Halacha incorporates as rules many practices that began as customs, some passed down over the centuries, and an assortment of ingrained behaviors. It is the subject of intense study in religious schools known as yeshivas.

1. 2. Lifestyle and family
Haredi life is very family-centered. Depending on various factors, both boys and girls attend school and proceed to higher Torah study, in a yeshiva or seminary ("sem") respectively, starting anywhere between the ages of 13 and 18. A significant proportion of students, especially boys, remain in yeshiva until marriage (which is often arranged through facilitated dating. See shiduch), and many study in a kollel (Torah study institute for married men) - for many years after marriage. In many Haredi communities, studying in secular institutions is discouraged, although some have educational facilities for vocational training or run professional programs for men and women. Most men, even those not in kollel, will make certain to study Torah daily. Families tend to be large, reflecting adherence to the Torah commandment "be fruitful and multiply" (Book of Genesis 1:28, 9:1,7).

Many Haredi poskim (authorities in Jewish law) forbid television and films, reading secular newspapers and using the Internet for non-business purposes. They feel that mobile phones should be programmed to disable internet and other functions that could influence their users negatively, and most companies in Israel now offer basic cellphones with limited capabilities to accommodate Haredim. However, it appears that many Haredi lay people use the Internet despite this, evidenced by the large number of participants in "Haredi chat rooms."

1. 3. Dress
Many Haredim view manner of dress as an important way to ensure Jewish identity and distinctiveness. In addition, a simple understated mode of dress is seen as conducive to inner reflection and spiritual growth. As such, many members of the Haredi community are wary of modern fashions that compromise their standards of modesty. Many men have beards, most dress in dark suits, virtually all wear a kippah at all times and generally a wide-brimmed hat (typically black) during prayer and outside. Women adhere to meticulous tznius (modesty) standards, and hence wear long skirts and armsleeves, high necklines and a form of head covering when married (scarves, snoods, shpitzelach, hats, or wigs).

Hasidic men often follow the specific dress style of their group, which may include elegant frock coats (bekeshes), wide or high fur hats (shtreimels or spodiks) on the Sabbath and Festivals. During prayer a gartel (a long belt wrapped around the frock) is worn. Some non-Hasidic Haredim also wear this garb.

1. 3. Dress
Many Haredim view manner of dress as an important way to ensure Jewish identity and distinctiveness. In addition, a simple understated mode of dress is seen as conducive to inner reflection and spiritual growth. As such, many members of the Haredi community are wary of modern fashions that compromise their standards of modesty. Many men have beards, most dress in dark suits, virtually all wear a kippah at all times and generally a wide-brimmed hat (typically black) during prayer and outside. Women adhere to meticulous tznius (modesty) standards, and hence wear long skirts and armsleeves, high necklines and a form of head covering when married (scarves, snoods, shpitzelach, hats, or wigs).

Hasidic men often follow the specific dress style of their group, which may include elegant frock coats (bekeshes), wide or high fur hats (shtreimels or spodiks) on the Sabbath and Festivals. During prayer a gartel (a long belt wrapped around the frock) is worn. Some non-Hasidic Haredim also wear this garb.

2. History

2. 1. Modern origins
For several centuries before the Emancipation of European Jewry, most of Europe's Jews were forced to live in closed communities, where their culture and religious observances persevered, no less because of internal pressure within their own community as because of the refusal of the outside world to accept them. In a predominantly Christian society, the only way for Jews to gain social acceptance was to convert, thereby abandoning all ties with one's own family and community. There was very little middle ground, especially in the ghetto, for people to negotiate between the dominant culture and the community.

This began to change with the Enlightenment and calls by some European liberals to include the Jewish population in the emerging empires and nation states. For some Jews, the meticulous and rigorous Judaism practiced in the ghetto interfered with the new opportunities. They held that acceptance by the non-Jewish world necessitated the reformation of Judaism and the modification of those principles deemed inconsistent with this goal. In the words of a popular aphorism of the Enlightenment coined by Yehuda Leib Gordon, a person should be "a Jew in the home, and a mensch (good person) in the street."

Other Jews argued that the division between Jew and gentile had actually protected the Jews' religious and social culture; abandoning such divisions, they argued, would lead to the eventual abandonment of Jewish religion through assimilation. This latter group insisted that the appropriate response to the Enlightenment was to maintain strict adherence to traditional Jewish law and custom to prevent the dissolution of authentic Judaism and ensure the survival of the Jewish people.

The former group argued that Judaism had to "reform" itself in keeping with the social changes taking place around them. They were the forerunners of the Reform movement in Judaism. This group overwhelmingly assimilated into the surrounding culture.

Even as the debate raged, the rate of integration and assimilation grew proportionately to the degree of acceptance of the Jewish population by the host societies. In other countries, particularly in Eastern Europe, acceptance (and integration) was much slower in coming. This was especially true in the Pale of Settlement, a region along Russia's western border including most of modern Poland, to which Jewish settlement in Russia was confined. Although Jews here did not win the same official acceptance as they did in Western and Central Europe, that same spirit of change pervaded the air, albeit in a local variant. Since it was impossible to gain acceptance by the dominant culture, many Jews turned to a number of different movements that they expected would offer hope for a better future. The predominant movement was socialism; other important alternatives were the cultural autonomists, including the Bund and the Zionists. These movements were not neutral on the topic of the Jewish religion: by and large, they entailed complete, not infrequently contemptuous, rejection of traditional religious and cultural norms.

[pieter]

2. 2. Effects of the Holocaust
During this time, the Haredi community was engaged in bitter debates with the emerging new philosophies, most notably those that denied the preeminence, or even relevance, of religion in Jewish life. Anecdotes abound: in one case, a reformer sent a leading rabbi a kosher cookie shaped like a pig, knowing that pork was a forbidden food in the Jewish religion. The rabbi responded by sending back a photograph with this note: "Thank you for your gift. You sent me a picture of yourself, so I am returning the favor in kind with a picture of myself."

The Holocaust brought a pause to the infighting. Until the rise of Nazism, Germany had been the major arena for the Enlightenment policies of acceptance and tolerance. Haredi leaders warned that "if the Jews do not make 'kiddush', the gentiles will make 'havdalah'." 'Kiddush' refers to the beginning ceremonies of the Shabbat, which sanctifies the day through joy and sets it apart from the mundane. 'Havdalah' refers to the ending ceremony, which mourns the departing of the holy as the darkness of the new week commences. Both words connote separation, kiddush meaning literally sanctification, and havdalah meaning separation.

Although illegal, and sometimes socially suppressed, anti-Semitism began to spread in the 1930's in many countries of Europe, partly in response to the Great Depression, aided by a readily identifiable ethnic minority to blame. Such anti-Semitism did not distinguish between Jews, regardless of their religious affiliation or lack thereof. At this time, faced with destruction, Jews were able to overlook the differences between them as they confronted a common enemy.

In the following years, however, the survivors were forced to come to grips with the theological implications of the catastrophe that had all but eradicated their communities. While they struggled to rebuild themselves, particularly in the United States and in Palestine (later Israel), they also attempted to understand why God had allowed such a disaster to befall them.

This was coupled with the emergence of socialist Jewish nationalism, or Zionism, as a widely accepted, secular Jewish philosophy. Until that time, the Zionists were a small but vocal minority among the Jewish population of Eastern Europe. Suddenly, they experienced a tremendous growth, since settlement of the Land of Israel seemed to offer a viable response to the anti-Semitism that was still prevalent in Europe. The Haredi traditionalists had long rejected Zionism, partly because it was a predominantly anti-religious movement. Now, suddenly, the secular Zionists were in the process of achieving their goal of a Jewish homeland. Meanwhile, unable to return to their old homes in Europe and with quotas on Jewish immigration in the United States, a Jewish homeland had necessarily become in some cases the only option for Haredi Jews. In effect, they were suddenly at the mercy of their most bitter opponents. However, they were not without their own leverage, including the sensitive fact that the longest-standing Jewish settlements in Palestine were, in fact, Haredi.

It would have been easy for the Haredi community to explain the events of the 1930s-1950s as the direct result of most Jews abandoning their religious beliefs. In fact, some did; but the vast majority chose a less divisive approach, believing that allowing the Holocaust to occur was a Divine act beyond human understanding. This allowed them to focus on rebuilding their communities, rather than to obsess on the past.

Within a generation, two vibrant new centers of Haredi life emerged: one in the United States, and the other in Israel, with smaller, somewhat less influential communities in England, Canada, France, Belgium, and Australia. As these communities became viable, independent entities, some of the old animosities between them and members of other Jewish groups began to resurface. This time, however, they were sharpened by the charge that, as predicted, those groups' actions and prescriptions have often led to assimilation, thereby threatening the very idea of Jewish continuity. In the post-Holocaust era, that threat is perceived as being more real than ever.

3. Present day

3. 1. Israel

Israel is home to the most numerically powerful Haredi population. The Haredi community there has adopted a policy of cultural dissociation, but at the same time, it has struggled to remain politically active, perceiving itself as the true protector of the country's Jewish nature.

The issues date to the late nineteenth-early twentieth century, with the rise of Zionism. Until the Holocaust, the vast majority of Haredi Jews rejected Zionism for a number of reasons. Chief among these was the claim that Jewish political independence could only be obtained through Divine intervention, with the coming of the Jewish Messiah. Any attempt to force history was seen as an open rebellion against Judaism (see Neturei Karta for a more complete exposition of this ideology). In this the Haredi Jews mirrored the Reform community, which, with few exceptions, rejected Zionism, since it called into question the loyalty that Jews should feel toward their native countries.

More important, however, was the dislike that the political and cultural Zionism of the time felt toward any manifestation of religion. Spurred on by socialism, they taunted religion as an outdated relic, which should disappear (or, according to some extreme views, even be eradicated) in the face of Jewish nationalism. The Haredi Jews point out that even such liberals as Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern political Zionism, at one time contemplated the mass conversion of the Jews to Christianity as a means of eliminating anti-Semitism. As with the nineteenth century Reform Judaism movement in Germany, the result was mutual recriminations, rejection, and harsh verbal attacks. To Zionists, Haredi Jews were either "primitives" or "parasites"; to Haredi Jews, Zionists were tyrannizing heretics. This kulturkampf still plagues Israeli society today, where animosity between the two groups has even pervaded both their educational systems.

Nevertheless, despite the animosity, it was necessary for the two groups to work out some modus vivendi in the face of a more dangerous enemy, first the Nazis, and then the neighboring Arab states. This was achieved by a division of powers and authority, based on the division that existed during the British Mandate in the country. Known as the "status quo," it granted political authority (such as control over public institutions, the army, etc.) to the Zionists and religious authority (such as control over marriage, divorce, conversions, etc.) to the Orthodox. A compromise worked out by Labor Zionist leader Berl Katznelson even before statehood ensured that public institutions accommodate the Orthodox by observing the Sabbath and providing kosher food.

Notwithstanding these compromises, many Haredi groups maintained their previous apolitical stance. The community had split in two parts: Agudat Israel, which cooperated with the state, and the Edah HaChareidis, which fiercely opposed it. Both groups still exist today, with the same attitudes. The Edah HaChareidis includes numberous Hasidic groups, such as Satmar, Dushinsky and Toldos Aharon, as well as several non-Hasidic groups of Lithuanian and Hungarian background.

A small minority of Jews, who claim to have been descended from communities who had lived peacefully with their Arab neighbors during the 18th and early 19th centuries, took a different stance. In 1935 they formed a new grouping called the Neturei Karta out of a coalition of several previous anti-Zionist Jewish groups in the Holy Land, and aligned themselves politically with the Arabs out of a dislike for Zionist policies.

As part of the Status Quo Agreement worked out between prime minister David Ben Gurion and the religious parties, Haredi leader Rabbi Avraham Yeshayah Karelitz (known as the Chazon Ish) was promised that the government would exempt a group of religious scholars (at that time, 400) from compulsory military service so that they could pursue their studies.

Finally, the Agudat Israel party representing the Haredi population was invited to participate in the governing coalition. It agreed, but did not appoint any ministers since that would have implied full acceptance of the legitimacy of non-religious actions taken by the government.

Haredim proved to be able politicians, gradually increasing their leverage and influence. In addition, the Haredi population grew exponentially, giving them a larger power base. From a small group of just four members in the 1977 Knesset, they gradually increased the number of seats they hold to 22 (out of 120) in 1999. In effect, they controlled the balance of power between the country's two major parties.

This situation was exacerbated still further by the rise of a strong Mizrahi (Jews of North African and Middle Eastern descent) population with political aspirations of its own. Traditionally, the political elite in Israel consisted of European Jews, who founded the state. They were joined in the 1950s by entire communities of North African and Middle Eastern Jews (especially from Morocco, Iraq, Tunisia, Yemen, etc.), who were kept marginalized and encouraged (in some cases, even forced) to forego their traditional cultures for the dominant European secular one. There were protests, including a small but vocal "Black Panther" movement among unemployed Sephardic youth in the early 1970s, but the most effective voice for empowerment came from a small Haredi party named Shas, which split off from Agudat Yisrael in the early 1980s. With Sephardic disenfranchisement as its platform, it gained 17 of the 22 Haredi seats in the Knesset. Taking the attitude that restoring Sephardic pride and restoring Sephardic religious observance are one and the same, Shas has created devoted cadres of newly religious and semi-religious men and women with the zeal of neophytes and an animosity toward the country's secular European political establishment. Furthermore, the movement has gained unwavering and determined obedience in its supporters to the teachings of it spiritual leader, Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef.

[pieter]

3. 2. United States
While there has been a Haredi presence in the U.S. since the start of the 20th century, the various groups began to emerge as distinctive communities only in the 1950s, with the influx of refugees from the Holocaust in Eastern Europe, who quickly filled leadership positions. Before then, the distinctions that are now commonly made between Haredi and Modern Orthodox Jews were moot at best; dividing lines between the two camps can now be drawn, though it is important to recognize that there is substantial overlap between the two communities.

As the tides of Jewish immigrants to the United States in the late nineteenth-early twentieth centuries became more settled and affluent, they looked to Europe to provide rabbis and other spiritual leaders and teachers for their emerging communities. While some rabbis accepted the challenge, a number of them returned to Europe soon after, frustrated by what they found in the United States. Unlike Eastern Europe, where Jews constituted a distinct minority group, the United States offered Jews an opportunity to blend into the dominant culture. Many of the new immigrants dropped their traditional customs and laws, both out of choice (the U.S. offered them a chance to escape what they viewed as the constraints of religious identity) or not (Jews refusing to work on the Sabbath were almost always fired at the end of the week; the large majority of those who desisted from working on Saturday had to face the formidable challenge of finding new work each week).

The groups that arrived en masse after the Holocaust found a religious and social infrastructure already in place. While they also feared that their communities might assimilate into the mainstream of American society, they were also able to create more insular communities, devoid of all but the most necessary contacts with the surrounding society. As the communities became more affluent, they were able to assume more and more roles of the city and state for themselves. Today, there exist many autonomous communities in places such as Borough Park, Williamsburg Crown Heights in Brooklyn, as well as more recently the yeshiva centered community of Lakewood, New Jersey, with their own economies, educational systems (yeshivos) welfare institutions and gemachs (free loan societies for everything from money to household items to tools to furniture), medical services (such as the Hatzolah ambulance corps), and security (the Shomrim neighborhood patrol). Some smaller, more isolationist Hasidic groups actually founded their own small towns, such as New Square, New York and Kiryas Joel, New York patterned after the communities they left in Europe. There are still other, smaller, communities throughout the United States which at first did not have all the established institutions of the dominant community in New York. Eventually, even they managed to put many of these institutions in place, thereby preserving their cultural separation.

With these in place, the communities were able to grow and flourish, both because of an extremely high birthrate (eight or more children is normal), and due to outreach programs geared toward other Jews. Most notably the Chabad Lubavitch Hasidic movement embraced outreach with a passion, conducting nationwide campaigns to introduce Chabad Judaism to unaffiliated Jews, as well as to Jews of other affiliations. This helped ignite the Teshuvah Movement that now attracts thousands of new adherents to Haredi Judaism yearly.

On the other hand, despite all their efforts at cultural separation, the Haredi leadership could not ignore the appeal of American life to their own youth. While certain few concessions to American society were made (for example, some groups allowed some of their children to pursue some higher education under certain circumstances), for the most part the response was to adopt an even more extreme approach to insularity. In effect, anything that might be perceived as threatening the cultural homogeneity of the community was disparaged, including secular newspapers, radio, and television. Instead, a program of total immersion in study was encouraged for the younger generation.

Some Haredi leaders realized that the communities could not be kept completely insular and established ways to connect to society without compromising on their intrinsic beliefs. In several instances, yeshivos such as Torah Vodaas, Chaim Berlin and Ner Israel started allowing the boys (or bochurim) to pursue a secular education while remaining in the yeshiva. This was helped largely by the establishment of Touro College by Dr. Bernard Lander, a college based in New York City geared towards Haredi students seeking college degrees. One of the most noticeable things in Touro is the fact that the classes are separate for men and women to keep in line with strict Haredi lifestyles.

Another, perhaps greater threat, was seen in those Jewish groups that attempted to bridge the gap between the religious and secular worlds, since this was perceived as possibly more alluring to the youths of the community, including those who could not perceive of a total break from their Jewish upbringing. Reform, Conservative, and even Modern Orthodox Judaism were seen as threatening to the very continuity of the community.

In the case of Reform, this animosity could be traced to the early nineteenth century in Germany, where Reform waged a battle to wrest control of the communities from Traditional Jews. At that time, both groups attacked each other incessantly in the struggle for hegemony over the Jewish community. Until most recently, the Reform movement felt secure and was not leveling the same attacks on the Orthodox. In many instances, they sought ways to cooperate on common issues, hoping to consume the smaller community. To the Haredim, however, they were seen as a steppingstone to assimilation, to be disparaged and discouraged within their own communities. The criticisms of two centuries earlier were also applied to the Conservative community. Their beliefs and practices were held to be incompatible with authentic Judaism and, as such, rejected.

The Haredim maintain a delicate balancing act: on an individual level, Conservative and Reform Jews are seen as "innocents led astray"(R' Moshe Feinstein). As such Haredim have created extensive outreach programs, conducted out of a deep love and concern for the spiritual well-being of other Jews; on a philosophical level, the generation and beliefs of these movements are condemned as stemming from the widespread denigration of religion of the 19th century. It is this viewpoint that defines the Haredi community's relationship to the larger Jewish community to this day.