Inside job? The implications if so, of the Yad Vashem desecrations, extensive as they were, are far reaching. Certainly, the quantity and openess in which the deed was executed has some of the earmarks of people in the know as to how to enter and work unprotected. Not to go bonkers on conspiracy, but it may also mean that other anti-semitic acts in Israel, and crucually, in the world at large, could also conceivably be carried out by the same secular forces; nothing like a little ant-semitism to keep the flock together. If so, its a dangerous game because there are, where the rubber hits the road, serious neo-Nazis lurking for their sandy shot. It brings up touchy subjects like the Israeli’s handling of the Munich Olympics massacre. But Steven Plaut’s theory is plausible, and deserves consideration, and reinforces the fear that the secular elite, the heat, of a changing demographic. Over one third of school age children in Israel are now orthodox to ultra orthodox.
—Vandals spray-painted anti-Zionist graffiti at Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, its chairman said Monday, suggesting radical ultra-Orthodox Jews were to blame.
The anti-Zionist graffiti was painted at 12 spots across the memorial compound, including a slogan that read, “Hitler, thank you for the Holocaust,” ”Jews, wake up, the evil Zionist regime doesn’t protect us, it jeopardizes us,“ and, ”If Hitler hadn’t existed, the Zionists would have invented him.”“We are shocked and dazed by this callous expression of burning hatred against the Zionists and Zionism,” said Yad Vashem Chairman Avner Shalev. “This unprecedented act crosses a red line.” Read More:http://life.nationalpost.com/2012/06/11/israel-holocaust-memorial-defaced-with-graffiti-radical-ultra-orthodox-jewish-groups-suspected/
Historically, many religious Jews disdained Zionism since it would not expand on Jewish authority but rather remove the power already acquired. Correctly, they foresaw Zionism supplanting traditional Jewish life with a new form of secular cultural power; the identical Enlightenment, secular liberal ideology used by the non-Jews the pious sought to distance themselves from. Zionism, ironically, has to some measure revitalized Jewish culture and simultaneously replaced it with political belonging and secular humanism and some strains of counter Enlightenment philosophy as well, the common denominator being absence of the traditional jewish expression of spirituality. So, its not in a vacuum, that these religious Jews are apt to show a disinterest in larger society. They are an easy target and are worthy of much criticism at times; still, visceral dislike to their existence, their intense messianism, the sense of threat felt by many secular Israelis lies outside objective factors in many cases, but underlies the anti-Jewish bias which permeates Israeli cultural dialog not that different than the labels of messiah murderers and parasites, and feeble inferiors that was invoked by the Nazis and others.
( see link at end) A few days ago some repulsive graffiti was painted on a wall at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial site in Jerusalem, attacking Zionism. Saying something like, “Zionism thanks you for such a nice Holocaust.” The Israeli media in sheep-like unity decided with no basis whatsoever that the graffiti was placed there by ultra-Orthodox anti-ZIonist Hareidi Jews, the black coated ones….
—Ultra Orthodox Jews celebrate the Jewish festival of Purim in Jerusalem’s Mea Shearim neighborhood on March 9. (Menahem Kahana/AFP/Getty Images)—Read More:http://pixtale.net/2012/03/the-festival-of-purim/
But there is reason to believe that the ultra-Orthodox had nothing to do with it and that the vulgar graffiti was placed there by far leftists and communists. And they are the ones who claim that Zionism ”profited” from the Holocaust!
Why? Because the graffiti uses slang words and expressions that the ultra-Orthodox would not know or use. And because the communist urchins have been writing similar anti-ZIonist graffiti on walls around Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and elsewhere….
—Ultra-Orthodox boys dressed up in costumes of a Hasidic Jew and a traditional Arab share a cigarette during Purim celebrations in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighbourhood of Mea Shearim in Jerusalem—Read More:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/picturesoftheday/8397896/Pictures-of-the-day-22-March-2011.html?image=17
…To me the handwriting even looks the same. A typical anti-Zionist slogan on a Tel Aviv highway wall I saw yesterday reads, “Zionism made me lose my virginity.” Clearly no ultra-Orthodox vandal would write such a thing and the Ultra-Orthodox are ultra-prudish when it comes to sexual references. But the Bash-Zionism theme, the same that appears in the graffiti at Yad Vashem, is exactly what the far-left and commie youth like to paint….
—This is where I decided to celebrate the holy festival of Purim. What I discovered was a very conservative religious group of people who’s passion allows them to leave their inhibitions aside once a year, and celebrate in a manner that could easily be misinterpreted by outsiders.
s a photo journalist I was able to join them in their celebrations, but it was made abundantly clear to me that other journalists in the past have sensationalized their behaviour. Yes, they are drunk. Yes, there were under age kids smoking. Yes, there were grown men doing summer saults down the middle of the road. However, they insisted that this was all part and parcel of their religious belief.—Read More:http://photito.wordpress.com/tag/orthodox-jews/
So any guesses why the media herd pronounced in unison that it was the Orthodox behind the Yad Vashem vandalism? Read More:http://stevenplaut.blogspot.ca/
Historically, Israel has engaged in an accommodationist strategy; that is, multiculturalism, the illusion of inclusion that strengthens their sense of otherness, and marginality. Textbook pecking order social capital. Give them a few rights to sprinkle some holy water or whatever, some ceremonial functions, while making important decisions elsewhere. Tokenism. And to some degree these religious were complicit, an act of auto-colonization and a response of disengagement, based on the pretext of genuine wrongs the state had committed such as the treatment of Sephardic immigrants, unnecessary militarism, and instances of neglect and ridicule of holocaust survivors in WWII and postwar, the Tranfer Agreement, ( Haavara )Rudolf Kastner etc. leading to justification that they could not challenge the State’s power but could exploit it to advantage, which effectively serves ruling class interests.
As is clear, the ultra orthodox way of life is its own way, very anti-establishment in its expression of speaking truth to power. Almost bohemian hippies, counter-cultural dropouts in their own way; the clannish lifestyle, the search for spiritual kicks and highs, the anti-materialist attitude, the under-achieving mentality with regard to work, anti-militarism, and overall spit in your face attitude to dominant culture through dress and even through intolerant and narrow minded views only makes them more marked. A disconcerting threat to the careful construction of mainstream Israeli identity. The secular establishments response, cowardly, is to paint the religious as wild oppressors and themselves as righteous, moral humans undermanned by these hordes, permitting them to bathe in the luxury of tagging themselves as subversive defenders, rebels, fighting to save society from an uncivilized religious authority that is smeared as intrinsically un-democratic, Nazi, and mullahs of Iran in waiting.
—Young children and their fathers affixed yellow Star of David patches with the word “Jude,” the German word for Jew, on them to their coats and others onto prison uniforms. Some sat inside a mock cage while young boy no older than six years old was shackled in handcuffs.
For the one thousand ultra-Orthodox who demonstrated in Jerusalem on Saturday night, the costumes were symbols equating the government and Israeli police to the Nazis. The generally far-right wing sect — which makes up about 10 percent of the population in Israel — has been under attack recently over its attempt to institutionalize segregation between men and women in public.For most Israelis, the costumes were an abominable reminder of the atrocities that in part lead to the creation of the sovereign state of Israel itself.—Read More:http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/275285/20120102/israel-ultra-orthodox-holocaust-protest.htm
ADDNENDUM:
( see link at end) :Before taking them on one by one, let us note that not all Jews felt any dilemma at all nor attempted to resolve the conflict between Jewish traditional Orthodoxy and modernity. Large portions of the ultra-Orthodoxy or the haredim resolved the dilemma by defying modernity altogether or seeking to minimize its presence in their lives. Their attitude might best have been summed up by Rabbi Moses Sofer of Pressburg: “All that is new is prohibited by the Torah.”
Their resolution of the dilemma took the form of refusal to adopt modern dress, life styles, and often even language. Yiddish-speaking haredim are still to be found everywhere from Brooklyn to Meah Shearim, often living in homes where there is no television or radio, with no internet connections, where no form of higher education or training besides yeshiva study is pursued, where Darwin and astronomy do not exist; in short – where an embargo on modernity in most of its forms takes place.
The pole diametrically opposite to the rejection of modernity by Orthrodox extremists is the secularist extremism of modern Jewish assimilationists. These resolve the dilemma by rejecting all forms of Jewish tradition and embracing modernity and “progress”, not to mention consumerism, as its replacement.
In between the two extremes are those who have searched and attempted to develop and proffer various forms of blending of Jewish tradition with modernity. And all of these forms have failed in one way or another.
* * * * * * * * * *
Perhaps the most commonplace form of “blending” in the Diaspora is the adaptation of Jewish tradition to modernity through religious reform. This has taken many forms. In its earliest manifestations in Europe and especially Germany, this took the form of adopting outer symbols and signs of modernity while maintaining a total commitment to Rabbinic, i.e., halakhic, Judaism. In the vision of Moses Mendelsohn and others, Jews would maintain their traditions while dressing in modern fashion, speaking German or whatever was the language of their surroundings, learning modern trades and professions, making synagogues less “backward” looking, making Jewish prayer less boisterous and disorderly and “offensive” to gentile sensitivities, and so.
Such modest tampering however gave way within a generation to “reforms” so radical that the European reformers themselves often were indiscernible from the full assimilationists. Jews would move their sabbath to Sunday, would refrain from circumcision, would abandon all observance of kosher eating laws, would pray in the language of whichever country in which they happened to live, would cease to attend separate Jewish schools, and so on. Some of the radical reformers openly converted to Christianity altogether….
… In parts of Europe it was and is support for social democrats. In the United States it was and is political liberalism. While the American Reform movement has long abandoned the Christianization of its early European radicals, it has by and large attempted to resolve the dilemma in this manner. The American Conservative movement has been not far behind. Such attempts to substitute fashionable political causes for Jewish identity have generally failed. They often resulted, not very surprisingly, in full assimilation. Read More:http://www.jewishmag.com/47mag/secularism/secularism.htm
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