Here's how much they hate Haredim in Tel Aviv

This is from a recent article in Haaretz. It is entitled "Three Out of Four Israelis Want to End the Gaza War. Here's Why It's Not Happening." Author Linda Dayan (descendent of a dayan perhaps) writes as follows:

In the past seven days alone, you could have attended a mass anti-war demonstration at Habima Square; another anti-war demonstration at Habima Square; a rally to bring home the hostages at Hostage Square; another rally to bring home the hostages, but with more shouting, at Begin Street; a protest against starvation in Gaza organized by Arab community leaders in Jaffa; and a protest against American complicity in the starvation in Gaza outside the U.S. Embassy branch. Then, you could come right back to Habima Square on Thursday night for another round of anti-war demonstrating. This is just within the municipal limits, of course. Other massive protests have also taken place throughout the country – namely the mixed city of Haifa and Arab city of Sakhnin, in Israel's north.

Each of these demonstrations carries its own message. At one, saying "starvation isn't a Jewish value" would be considered provocative; at another, signs declare "end the genocide." Some rail against the government for allowing Haredi youth to dodge the military draft, while others call for wholesale refusal to serve in the military at all.

So here she is lambasting the IDF's assault of Gaza, well actually the starving of Gaza because the bombing which left 75% of the buildings uninhabitable doesn't seem to be a topic of discussion anymore.  And yet, simultaneously, she condemns the Haredim for not wanting to be part of the army that is wreaking all this havoc on Gaza. These Haredim get a label of course, because Israeli politics is mostly about personal attacks and not so much about issues. That label is "draft dodgers." That's a derogative term because its basic meaning is people who abandon truly defensive armies of countries that are being attacked. It doesn't apply here because nobody is attacking Israel. Israel does all the attacking. And besides that, the army, which does most of its attacking via the air force, doesn't need the Haredim. And besides that, the Israeli military is a secular dictatorship that crushes religious life out of anybody who joins it. She doesn't mention any of that. Writers like her will go out of their way to understand the perspective of all kinds of groups but never the Haredim. They are just bad. They are draft dodgers.

You see here how much hatred these people have for Haredim, and no doubt religion itself. She'll continue to condemn Haredim, as if it's some kind of reflex, for not being part of the organization that she is also condemning.

If you are Haredi, do you want to live in a place like this, where you are held in contempt by 80% of the country? 80% you ask? Yes, it's the Chilonim plus the Dati Leumi. Aaron Rakeffet of Yeshiva University said, "The Haredim are 100% wrong for evading the draft." I heard him with my own ears. And I have heard the same uttered with contempt by other Dati Leumi people. 

I wanted to tell him, "100%? That's pretty wrong. You need a good argument to say that an entire society of religious people, one that is led by talmidei chochamim who are following the instructions of gadolim of earlier generations as well as tzadickim, that it is 100% wrong." His argument is that "we are surrounded by enemies."

In the attack on Iran, Israel was helped by Jordan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. Those are the Arab countries that are respectively the richest, the largest by population, and the one with the longest shared border. I don't know if you can say that Israel is surrounded by enemies. It has some, but it hasn't had a war against a modern fully equipped army in 60 years. If Israelis want to be paranoid and worship in a religion called anti-anti-Semitism, that's their business. We don't all have to destroy our religion for the sake of theirs. But they all, Dati Leumi included, hate Haredim so much, that they deem it righteous to mock them every chance they get, not matter how much inconsistency is exposed in doing so.

I'd prefer to live in a place where the people don't know what a Haredi is. Author and former yeshiva guy Shalom Auslander dressed as a yeshiva guy and went to a shooting range in Nevada to gauge their level of anti-Semitism. He didn't find any, even after he told them that the black hat he was wearing meant he was Jewish. "Oh that's what that is," one said. They had no idea. 

I prefer to live around people who don't become apoplectic at the sight of a religious Jew. They have no opinion about it. They might even admire it. That's not what you find in Israel.