These are NOT Peleg Rioters these are Mainstream Charedim

 

There is a common—extremely common—claim that Haredim make whenever there is a riot or act of violence carried out by members of the Eida Haredit or the Peleg Yerushalmi:

“We aren’t those Haredim. They are extremists; we’re not. Rabbi X doesn’t agree with rioting. There are differences in hashkafa (outlook, beliefs, worldview). The secular world doesn’t understand the distinctions between the various groups.”

This morning, the day after the Alon Shvut riot, Radio Qol B’Rama’s Yaki Adamker and Yisrael Cohen—two of Israel’s most prominent Haredi journalists—interviewed Rav Boaz Naqi, a spokesman for the Peleg Yerushalmi.

I don’t particularly care about what he said; frankly, there were no surprises. The issue is that they spoke with Rav Naqi at all. The interview was respectful, especially by the standards of Israeli news interviews. More important than the content or tone of the conversation is the fact that the conversation took place.

Qol B’Rama will not interview MKs from Yesh Atid. That is a policy decision; they are effectively off-limits. A few months ago, for the first time in a very long time, these same two journalists interviewed a Yesh Atid MK. The conversation lasted roughly 30 seconds. One of the journalists felt the need to insult the MK at the beginning of the interview. The MK hung up, and that was the end of it.

When Haredim make their claim—that there are important differences between groups, that Rav Dov Landau or Rav Moshe Hirsch may despise the state but do not encourage violence, and that they are not like the Peleg or the Eida—they forget one important point: no one cares.

No one outside their community cares about the microscopic distinctions between these worldviews. Perhaps those differences would make for an interesting graduate-school seminar, but in the real world they are largely irrelevant. Put aside, for the moment, the argument that Rav Landau’s and Rav Hirsch’s statements help lay the intellectual groundwork for the violence perpetrated yesterday. That is a separate and important discussion. The critical point is that these differences are an illusion.

More significantly, the Haredim themselves do not seem to care. Mainstream Haredi media figures clearly view someone like Rav Boaz Naqi as part of their community. No mainstream Haredi journalist would refuse to interview members of these groups. No one is going to exclude them from a minyan. (Full disclosure: I have attended synagogues in Haredi neighborhoods where I was not counted for a minyan. It was rare, but it happened.) No one is going to question the kashrut standards of the Eida Haredit. No one is going to do anything remotely comparable to what some—admittedly a small number of—religious Zionist rabbis and community leaders have done in response to the hilltop rioters.

Anyone who read the tepid condemnation issued by the Shas and Degel HaTorah MKs saw a perfect example of what I mean. Not one word about who committed the crime. Not one word about who was attacked. They condemned violence in the abstract. They devoted far more words to criticizing the Supreme Court and defending their own community than they did to condemning the attack itself. These MKs felt that their job is to protect their community, including the rioters.

So yes, it was Haredim who rioted—without any adjective attached to soften, qualify, or limit that description.

About the Author

Ben Waxman was born in the US  He lived in the Jerusalem area for decades and now resides in the Shomron.