Clashing Values in the Holy City June 5, 2007

Today The Los Angeles Times ran another perspective on Jerusalem’s demographic shift, that of Richard Boudreaux, an LATimes columnist. He writes, looking back on Jerusalem’s recent history:

Forty years ago, when Israel captured East Jerusalem and absorbed the Arab neighborhoods, it set out to maintain a large and sustainable Jewish majority in the city it was declaring its eternal and undivided capital. Instead, Jerusalem is gradually becoming more Palestinian and less Jewish.Thousands of Jews leave the city each year, many of them alienated by an ascendant ultra-Orthodox minority that is asserting its socially conservative values and political power. Even as Jerusalem attracts a growing number of Palestinians, polls show that many less devout Jews are becoming estranged from it and are more willing to consider dividing it again.

This article, as opposed to many of its type, gives more of an insight into the mentality of those leaving the Holy City:

Israeli analysts say one reason many Israelis would accept dividing Jerusalem is their estrangement from the city. The Jerusalem Institute poll showed that nearly two-thirds of Israelis thought of their capital as “a city of the ultra-Orthodox,” nearly half said it was poor, and one-third considered it “scary to live in.”"Jerusalem is dismal, depressing. People there are nervous, agitated and cross,” said Sharon Daya, 38, a swimming instructor who lived in the city all her life until she moved five years ago to a western suburb with her husband and three children. “I miss nothing about it. I go to great pains to avoid going there.”…

They tend to be repelled by the city’s poverty, threats of Palestinian violence and tensions with haredim, who have thrown rocks to stop Jerusalem traffic on the Sabbath and burned clothing stores for selling “immodest” attire. These less devout Jews often look to Tel Aviv and other Israeli cities as more attractive alternatives.

The article continues:

“More secular Israelis are beginning to relate to Jerusalem as culturally alien,” said Yossi Klein-Halevy, a senior fellow at the Shalem Center, a Jerusalem research institute.”That is potentially devastating for Jerusalem’s centrality in Israel and within world Jewry,” he said.

“The more Jerusalem turns haredi, the more secular Israelis will turn away, and that will have political consequences as future Israeli leaders decide whether to keep the city intact.”

I applaud the religiosity in Jerusalem ascending upwards. May it skyrocket. Heavenward. But this commentary on the haredization of Jerusalem belies a bigger point.Jerusalem’s ultra-Orthodox community is like no other in the world. And while it is only fitting for the Holy City to have a different air than, say, Arkansas, the haredi world itself is fragmented, and is radicalizing out even many of its own members.
I have lamented, numerous times, the fact that my conversion may or may not be recognized in the state of Israel. I always joke: in America I’m ultra-Orthodox, in Jerusalem I’m barely frum. My a cappella album, kosher for sefirah in America, was rejected by Israeli distributors, who told me that the use of beat box disqualifies it for sale in Jerusalem.

The LA times article states:

The city is relatively staid, but on weekends, secular residents visit bars, cafes, restaurants and discos — places shunned by haredim. More such establishments are open in secular neighborhoods today than a generation ago.

Yet this quote does nothing to tell of a Club 613 (religious singles’ club in Manhattan), Makor Cafe, or a Jewish Music Cafe — things which are staple options on any New York area charedi social calendar. There is a fledgling Orthodox party circuit beginning to form in Israel and in New York. Glatt kosher 4- and 5-star dining is beginning to flourish in major Jewish areas worldwide.American olim are flocking to neighborhoods like Nachlaot, which is becoming a bohemian melange of culture where acoustic guitars and jam bands are much more likely to herald the coming of Shabbos than a Chassidic boys’ choir.

In America, only in the most heimish of neighborhoods — a Williamsburg, Brooklyn or a Lakewood, New jersey — would one find this blanket eschewing of kosher dining and kosher entertainment. Even the Chassidic neighborhood of Boro Park has its own version of “chulent night” — the Midtown Manhattan Thursday night gathering already being made famous by New York Times articles. The Orthodox Brooklyn neighborhood of Flatbush has had numerous — kosher l’mehadrin — bars grace its streets.

The haredi world is deprived of its diversity and its vibrance when entire 2007 municipalities are turned into 1857 Poland. It is not to be expected — nor should it be advocated — that every person, upon putting on a black hat, would become prone to joining “tznius patrols” or beating female bus passengers. The anti-parade demonstrations which rocked Jerusalem last year went on against the wishes of rabbinical court leaders: the “haredim” which are making “Jerusalem a scary place” are doing so as a frenzied, radicalized public, not out of any “shift in Orthodoxy”.

For us, the charedi Jews who see halacha as a beautiful way to serve G-d, as opposed to an ever-growing list of forbidden conveniences and “alien influences” to be eschewed, these things can be disheartening.

But we stay in Jerusalem because we know of the city’s immense holiness and connection to the Creator. And we slink out to internet cafes — where we are far more likely to see forbidden materials than in our religious homes — to check our email, because Heaven forbid, someone should be utilizing the most significant media invention of our generation. And we maintain incognito cellphones in case we have relatives who want to send us a text message (and hope no one sees that the phone has SMS).

We fight to keep the “4 cubits of halacha” an actual 4 cubit by 4 cubit area, instead of a rapidly shrinking pigeonhole. We fight to keep at least our 4 cubits a place where we enjoy living, rather than eke existence out in. And we create a culture of hypocrisy and lies — because if you’re hiding A, you might as well hide B and C while you’re at it (even if you would have otherwise never dreamed of doing B and C).

The modern haredi Jew does exist and to give modern haredim a legitimate voice could mean the continued viability of a united Jerusalem. Perhaps then the word haredi itself could become destigmatized.

But as long as the word “haredi” is attached to “the people who beat that poor woman”, the divisions aren’t going anywhere for a while.