Raging Silence (J'Accuse!)

Please forgive me for harping on the subject – but it’s gnawing at me, and I cannot let it go.

As you may well know, about two months ago there were several horrendous acts of vandalism and violence against Israelis by Neo-Nazi immigrants from the former USSR that made headlines. However, this has been going on for over seven years now. The very warmly recommended website www.pogrom.org.il has been active for a good while now, and literally contains an arsenal of articles on the subject, starting from 2000. I just can’t get over how this has been collectively hushed and ignored by all, and especially by the bloggers, who constantly claim that they’re far more honest and reliable than the mainstream media. Certain incidents even made it to foreign papers yet were totally ignored in Israel. I wonder where were the usual “Chilul Hashem” detectors (you know, those charedi bloggers who always point out to MO’s chilul hashems and the MO blogs that always find out all the charedi chillul Hashems – of course, a mere coincidence- It would be pure loshon hora to suspect these paragons of brutal honesty of petty bickering and really caring for the issues from the bottoms of their hearts) were at the time. I guess they were re-running Miriam Shear And The Wicked Haredi Thugs episode #9678. That and similar events should never be downplayed, and since haredim unfortunately won't do it, heck, the blogg-mob will. Yet it is clear as day that the issue at hand is not the curtailing of the violent events –au contraire, the more, the merrier, as they provide good reader-fodder and are a good incitement tool- but the delegitimization of an entire segment of Klal Yisroel in order to prove their ideology’s ultimate triumph. How can I make such a nasty accusation? Because I have, even if not hard evidence, at least a very convincing indication to the claim. Let me just bring up a number of them;
- The worst case of sexual abuse and coverup thereof ever happened in a Mizrahi yeshiva, Netiv Meir, when, after serving a three-year jail term for nineteen counts of rape, statutory rape, sexual miscinduct etc., the Rosh Yeshiva, Ze’ev Kopolevitch was brought back to the yeshiva. The Israeli papers at the time of the court case alleger that rabbis Chaim Druckman and Avraham Shapira knew, or heard allegation of Kopolevitch’s actions yet remained silent. He's still in the Yeshiva. Not once did any blogger bring this up.

- Modern Orthodoxy’s two major publications, the Jewish Press and the Jewish Week steadfastly protected Mordechai Tendler, as well as his brothers who allegedly molested high school girls. Actually Harry Maryles openly said that he accepts UOJ’s accusations against Kolko but not Tendler.

- There is now an alleged rapist, accused of assaulting girls on dates. To date, not a word has been said about him, no warnings, no blog rants. This guy goes over to little girls at weddings and is cajoling them, saying how pretty they are, in front of their parents.

These are but a few blatant examples of how negative events in MO society are willfully ignored; yet similar events in haredi society are exploited by these bloggers, not to sound the alarm nor to eradicate the events themselves but to smear and delegitimize everyone who doesn’t agree with them. No big deal, you may say, who are these bloggers after all, and what is their influence. This is a valid claim. However, the great minds and leaders of YU are all over their message boards, tacitly or cunningly encouraging this trend. Besides, the WWW is tomorrow’s mainstream media. It would be a fatal mistake to downplay its significance, as it was the case with newspapers; by the time traditional Jewish leaders woke up to publish a paper of their own, the Haskalah movement had already ravaged the majority of Jews.

But the Neo-Nazi incidents and the silence about them -even after published in mainstream media- trump all sense of sanity. If these event’s don’t shake one’s very foundations, there is something deeply corrupt within him. I still can’t get over it! Nazis in the land of Israel! Swastikas in Erets Yisroel! When a pig stuck its feet in the wall surrounding the Temple, the earth shook! And now these events, which, as I told you, have been going on for at least 7 years, pass as if nothing had happened! Nazis goose-stepping in a uniform I have worn some years ago! Is ignoring this not complicity? Is it not a clear message to these subhuman vermin that they can go on with their atrocities with impunity? That the Jewish community at large doesn’t want to acknowledge nor deal with the problem? That bearded and black-hatted Jews (“Black Hat Morons”™) the world over are responsible (which in and on itself is true to a great extent) for the actions of the Beit Shemesh hooligans, yet the Israeli Nazi gangs are welcome to roam free.
I accuse Dov Bear, Gil Student, Harry Maryles, Cross-Currents and the heads of YU who regularly appear on these blogs of a pact of silence in this horrendous atrocity. How come you all claim to be independent thinkers, original and nuanced, yet you seem to be synchronized and somehow always sing the same tune? What will you say when this problem blows out of its current proportions? What will you do when a bigger shul in Israel is torched?

Well, don’t bother answering. I know the answer. You’ll say if only the haredim had accepted Evolution, (the mainstream version, of course), joined the IDF (like the bagel fressing blogging wussies who never held a gun) and observed Yom Haatzmaut, and of course accepted the giyurs of your local grocer, ah, then it would have never happened. Or they'll just become part of Israeli day-to-day life... like terrorr attacks.

Now bow your heads in shame and join forces to stop this before it’s too late. We can discuss evolution, halocha and history later.