Hippocracy

My people are at war with an enemy who proudly boasts of killing civilians yet screams blue murder when the innocent Lebanese civilians they cowardly hide behind are, tragically, caught in the retaliatory fire. An enemy whose brave heroes shamelessly cheer on the street, fire weapons in the air and gleefully share out sweets when our babies are butchered. An enemy whose barbaric civilians dance for the local TV cameras holding aloft the limbs of our fallen. I do not therefore think now is the time for me to lob my peculiar brand of critique at the petty foibles of my own community. Instead I will take a departure from form and direct my ire at my other family and the democratic society that claims to represent my interests because I am part of it.

It was Israel’s best friend, the USA, along with best friend Britain that pressured her, against her much better judgement, to allow Hamas, who they themselves branded a terrorist group, to run in the Palestinian democratic election. Once the people had spoken and the duly elected government of our partners-in-peace had shown its true face (albeit behind a balaclava mask) our good friends suddenly recalled pressing engagements elsewhere and we were left to deal with repressing the rewards for our disengagement, alone.

In Lebanon the democratic parliament, enjoying the full support of all Israel’s best friends in red white and blue, has a minister and almost a third of its body coming from Hezbolla, for whom (Jewish) infanticide is part of the manifesto. Just so as to keep this farce fresh and exciting Israel is urged by the colourful black and white coalition of the Talking Heads Club to spare this ‘legitimate’ government, even as it may (grudgingly) wage a defensive war on its proxy who enjoys full control over Lebanon's border with the only real democracy in that part of the world.

Democracy, the doctrine that claims to allow the masses to determine the general direction of their governance, has replaced religion for many as the panacea for all the world’s ills. A peek at the Middle East today should be enough to shake even the dimmest of brains out of that reverie. Maybe an intrinsically good people would automatically fare better under democratic rule than the yoke of selfish and cruel opportunists but a democratic election alone will not serve to turn swordsmen into ploughhands. Clearly not all peoples are ready for rule by whatever majority, as much of the population in Gaza would admit if they dared.

Democracy, like socialism and theocracy, is an ideal that only works if those wielding it are responsible and worthy. A group of bloodthirsty savages, believers in the Ashariyya doctrine - that because all that happens is caused by God anyway it is legitimate to kill innocents, will not suddenly turn into cuddly lambs just because they were empowered through a ballot box. To think they might is as naïve as to believe that the US and its cohorts have suddenly seen the justness of Israel’s cause.

The sad truth is that the democratic experiment in the Middle East has failed miserably. The undemocratic governments of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan are unusually mute in their criticism of Israel’s legitimate self defence this time because they themselves fear the democratic ambitions of these Islamist groups. Parties that have the support of the streets in their countries. Meanwhile the true democracies of the US and the UK, whose own forces are now within plucking distance of these same terrorists, are cynically pleased to have Israel act as their virtual warning bell.

Still, I am a Jew and I was taught that God rebuked the Israelites for celebrating when the Egyptians, who had enslaved and massacred them for centuries, were drowned in the Red Sea. I therefore feel the pain of the innocent in Lebanon, now cowering in their shattered cities praying that the next explosion does not finally, if accidentally, put them out of their misery. This despite the arguments I hear from those in my community who correctly remind me Hezbolla is an integral part of their freely and democratically elected government and it is only right that the entire people should enjoy the fruits of their chosen leaders' purposeful actions against their equally innocent neighbours across the border.

Democracy does not work any more than socialism or theocracy did. Thirty years of Israeli experience in the hallowed halls of the that uber-democracy the UN and hundreds of blatantly biased resolutions against her, can testify to that. So sometimes it is necessary for the David to resort to force to dictate justice and if the oppressed in other places learn from that to rise up against their repressors... we will just have to put it down as collateral damage.

Call Me Cassandra

Last week an elderly Jewish man was pulled over by the police in New York. I am not entirely clear exactly what happened but it seems clear he had committed some minor misdemeanor. Enraged Chassidim claim he is deaf and could not follow police instructions so the police beat him before arresting him. More reliable sources are less dramatic and say he might have been treated a little forcefully as he was cuffed and led to the patrol car after belligerently refusing to hand over his papers. I know very few actual details and those come from notoriously biased and unreliable sources so I am not going to offer my opinion on the rights or wrongs of the police action.

What followed however was a scandalously irresponsible riot by the Torah warriors of Borough Park. Fires were lit on the streets and police cars were attacked. At least one police car is said to have had a Molotov cocktail thrown through its window. It took riot police hours to quiet the streets according to press reports. Local Chassidim while worried about the Chillul Hashem (desecration of His name) the riot caused are adamant that the police had it coming to them because of their aggressive enforcement of traffic laws in their area.

Last week a twenty-year-old ultra-orthodox man admitted his three-month old baby boy to hospital with internal bleeding in the head and bite marks on the neck. The baby subsequently died and the father has been charged with manslaughter after allegedly admitting beating it. Apparently the infant, who the father suspected was malformed, had not allowed him to sleep and had had his head bashed against a wall. Again I do not know any facts other than those the media is releasing and thus I have no opinion on the rights or wrongs of the case. Not surprisingly though, the Rabbinate in Jerusalem do know for certain he is completely innocent and have threatened riots if he is not released immediately. The police have taken the threat seriously and are bracing to contain them.

I know the Rabbi of Jerusalem and he is a well-meaning man. That however does not excuse such abhorrent naïveté. It is unpardonable that a community should try and use its brute force to squash vital investigations into reprehensible crimes. I believe most just people would agree to be locked up for a few days, even when innocent, if that would help keep actual child killers behind bars.

To offer a blanket amnesty to anyone wearing the garb is racist for implying that non-frum people kill babies and Chassidim don’t. Worse than that it is shortsighted because it is very likely that the father will eventually be found to be guilty and we will have shot ourselves in the leg again. It also proves that, on our list of priorities, protecting the good name of the community comes before protection of the members of the community and that is even worse.

On the other hand the very language of riot and Molotov cocktails used to be alien to the Chassidic movement and it is worrying that in the space of a week it has flared up in two completely isolated incidents. The causes are different it is true. The debacle in Jerusalem is a testament to our system of appointing leaders on the basis of their scholarly achievements while little to no attention is given to their actual leadership qualities and sound judgment. It is patently obvious that both are sadly lacking in this case.

The American riots stem more from a lack of any sort of leadership and are for me far more worrying. There is no doubt in my mind that a generation of Chassidim is growing up and learning to flex its muscles. It is a tight-knit and homogenous group with a very fast if less than reliable grapevine. The youth feels alienated from a society that thinks the official Jewish groups who claim to speak for all Jewry represent them too, while their real voices are in reality seldom even noticed. Needless to say it would be wise to bend an ear.

I Wore New

This has been niggling in the back of my mind for a while already and I have alluded to the thought before here. Aren't we Jews just too nice to be taken seriously? The Muslims stridently screech for what they want, as unreasonable as it might look. By none too subtly, regularly reminding us of what they are prepared to do if they don’t get their way, they are shamelessly pandered to by, frankly, everybody with a healthy respect for their own hide, not least Jack Straw.

We Chassidim do not follow the Olympics closely. Most, I dare say, are not aware the winter games are in full swing. Certainly there is little enthusiasm for the Hellenistic ideal. There is indeed little trace of the Adonis in the fellow who shared the showers with me this weekend in my local mikve. As he massaged soap over his generous limbs he wondered aloud to the equally gross Neanderthal studiously shampooing his forehairs in the next shower what the point of the Olympic games is. There was a kind of triumphant superiority to his repeated mantra; “What difference does it make to mankind that some skier from Austria can go faster than anybody else down a mountain?”

“Yes. Does he deliver emergency medicines at the bottom of a mountain?” That spark from chimp number two proved he had understood the profundity of the argument.

It was a scrawny little Gollum who earned my respect though. He had been washing himself quietly and doing his best to melt into the background as some people do when those with more lung than processing power take the floor. I couldn’t help noticing wryly that only in a Chassidic mikve could a forty year old man wash his hair with Johnson’s Baby Shampoo and leave with his manhood intact.

“It is not about winning” he said and I smugly awaited the old canard about taking part. “It’s about losing.” He had everyone’s attention.
“Think about it. Let’s say each sport has a hundred competitors and you have fifty sports, that means by the end of the games you have fifty winners and four-thousand-nine-hundred-and-fifty losers. And look how well behaved and civilized that whole thing is.”

I think even the moulting bears understood. As I looked at that man his gnome’s forehead had turned into the dome of a learned man and his nondescript face had taken on the allure of a diminutive scholar.

There is, it is true, a certain dignity to being sporting and I do not feel our situation is dire enough here to warrant actively promoting a more active and forceful method of getting noticed. I am however worriedly watching the situation in Israel now with the new Hamas government being sworn in. Regardless of my positions on specific governments or policies in Israel I will not be able stand by and be silent as I see governments, who refuse to deal with terrorist organisations in their own countries, open negotiations with and support for a group who openly refers to the Protocols in its constitution.

In sport there is indeed dignity in losing but in war dignity is in victory or death in its pursuit.