Various non-mainstream Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) communities in Israel and in the U.S. are clashing with western values embraced by less religious Jews. Daily reports are breaking out of Haredi sects imposing forced gender segregation on buses, spitting on women in the streets who are deemed immodest and rioting against anyone who is perceived different.
What is it that leads to Haredi violence? It seems that the motivation for Haredi resistance to outside influences is an effort to preserve their way of life from perceived secular encroachment. They view outside influences and exposure as a threat to their traditional existence.
The ultimate goal of the Haredi is preserving their heritage. The Haredi should be asking is what is the best method to sustain their way of life? Is it violence? Is it intolerance? Is it spitting on people who dress differently? Is it isolationism? Is there perhaps a better workable model? One that allows for co-existence with those that are different?
A good paradigm of Haredi living, thriving and integrating in the secular world while still preserving their heritage, is Chabad-Lubavitch. Chabad is an outreach movement that according to the terse web definition is "known for their hospitality, technological expertise, optimism and emphasis on religious study." If you look at images of Haredi in Beit Shemesh, Israel, and at images of Chabad emissaries all around the world, they essentially look the same and share a similar religiously intense lifestyle. They sport fedora-style hats, often wear long trench coats and, of course, have conspicuous beards. They both follow the literal dictates of halacha (Jewish law) by praying three times a day, dressing modestly, following strict Kosher and all the rest. Yet the Chabad emissary is an integrated member of society involved in civics and community service with Jews of all observance levels, while the Beit Shemesh Haredi is an angry extremist who believes that violence and isolationism is the way to preserve their lifestyle.
Why is education, debate and acceptance the solutions to preserving Judaism and not ghettoization and violence? Besides the fact that insular Haredi communities will no longer be able to shelter their adherents in a religious cocoon free from secular encroachment, opposing other viewpoints and lifestyles with violence belies the Jewish intellectual tradition of healthy debate. The entire Jewish tradition, including interpretations of various Jewish laws, is based on rigorous, yet civil debates. In fact, the Talmud even preserves the losing arguments because the debate itself leads to a greater understanding of the issues.
The Haredi communities turning to violence have forgotten the essential cornerstone that has kept Judaism relevant, vibrant and intellectually honest through the ages. It wasn't quelling other ideas through violence, intimidation and censorship, but providing a platform for meaningful dialogue about the issues.
The first century rabbis who typify the Talmud's rich culture of debate are Hillel and Shammai, two opposing schools of Jewish thought. These schools of thought debate everything from ethics to interpretations of ritual practice. The dispute that typifies the example of resorting to violent demagoguery is the biblical story of Korach who contested Moses's leadership but did so not for the sake of seeking the truth and engaging in meaningful dialogue but for the sake of attaining power and control over the people of Israel. For this reason the Talmud explains that the debates of Hillel and Shammai's schools of thought will endure but the debates of Korach and his faction will not endure.
If the Haredi want their tradition to endure they should live by the example of Hillel and Shammai by encouraging meaningful dialogue with those that have a different philosophy than them instead of resorting to violence like Korach and his faction. Through encouraging different opinions the Haredi will go much further in preserving their way of life and enhancing their communities -- and start to live consistent with Judaism's rich culture of debate.
When you look at religious extremism around the world, a common thread amongst the variety is pushing the idea that their way is the only Godly way to live and everyone else is sinful. By preaching this, it ensures the survival of their way of life by convincing their members that they have no other choice but the life they are living at that moment.
Having such a close secular neighbors puts a lie to that. For God not to strike down such "wickedness" would have people steeped in the extremist culture to begin to question their way of life and the commands of their religious leaders.
That kind of debate as you so rightly put it is an anathema to any extremist sect and thus they'll challenge outsiders on their own. If they cannot prove another's "sin" through God's wrath, they will attempt to cause their members to circle the wagons out of tribal instinct instead.
There need be no actual encroachment by outsiders for this to occur.
So while I completely disagree with the approach they take and actually find it disgusting, in a way I understand where they are coming from. Just like we impose our view on people when we think they are doing evil to other human beings, they are trying to make everyone "tznius" because they honestly think it'll be better for them as well. I think people should understand this as well and condemn their actions and not the people themselves. (Again, the discussion about societal brainwashing is for another time but its definitely prevalent in this discussion as well).
Take the segregation in their communities for example. This is the way they've chosen to live their lives and the women want to live this way as well. (Well leave out societal brainwashing for a different discussion). They are living their lives in a way which they believe is the best and highest form of living.
If they want to walk on separate sides of the street and sit separately on buses, that's their prerogative. There has always been towns and villages all over the world that have their own rules. To come into a community in which people have been living for years, their home, and not abide by their rules, is just plain disrespectful and insensitive.
That being said, when they start trying to impose their own views on others, that's where they start losing my respect a little. When they spit on people, theres no excuses and its dispicable. They definitely have no right to impose their radical views on everyone else especially in a disrespectful and conceited manner. But to play devils advocate a little, (just to give people another thing to think about but not my own personal view) lets be a little objective.
Is this the only way that this conflict of views is played out?
I would be much more sympathetic to your "the way they've chosen to live" and "the women want to live this way" arguments if the Haredi weren't simultaneously objecting strenuously to the women in the Veiled Cult who have chosen to live in even greater modesty, and who the Haredi accuse of being overly radical.
http://www.amotherinisrael.com/veils-cult-sex-mikveh/
http://www.amotherinisrael.com/burka-ladies-threat-mainstream-orthodox-women/
When many of these devout and pious souls settled in the Holy Land, they were thriving inside their own communities breathing the rarefied atmosphere of Torah Judaism. Along came other settlers, pioneers bearing a radically different vision who reinterpreted their millenarian dream of redemption forcing history to play its hand eventually establishing a secular order -- ruled based on their ethnicity.
And so they have been surrounded by a population who have traded this unending yearning to come close to the divine for a state of their own. A people whose spiritual fire blazed in their hearts are surrounded by another population who have extinguished their inner fires for an external hegemon.
Surrounded by this contradiction they are at wits end trying to smash through the walls of this hegemon to find a space within which to breathe.
And non-Haredi Jews are not being lumped into a single category. In fact this distinction of Haredi versus non Haredi is fluid at best.
It shows that there are many points of view among observant Jews. This distinction of Haredi and non-Haredi or that of Ultra Orthodox and Orthodox are not absolute categories. If anything there might just be a disdain for such labels.
What makes one Utlra-Orthodox instead of Orthodox?
Perhaps at the heart of the issue concerning this horrid display of behavior is how to live in a reality which defies one's religious sensibilities. By religious sensibilities, it is not meant here defining what is tzniut (dressing modestly) or dividing the sexes but rather the premise upon which one bases one's very life. Does one live for l'shem shamayim (for the sake of heaven) or does one live for an ideal according to the politics that dictate the affairs of a secular state? Can both bases be compatible. Can one live according to Torah precepts not in contradiction to the exigencies of a society that looks to its redemption in terms of the historical facts on the ground? In other words, is there really a middle ground where one violates neither his piety or the fact of a secular state run by Jews? This, it would appear, has been the ongoing debate since the yishuv hayashan and one that perhaps cannot be settled.
I offer these comments as one outside of the Orthodox realm..
This is a great point: "In fact, the Talmud even preserves the losing arguments because the debate itself leads to a greater understanding of the issues."
What seems to be lacking in the communities where there has been this extreme response is the transmission of the "why" and the general "hergish/feeling" for Yiddishkeit to the masses. Without the feeling and the understanding, Yiddishkeit looks to those people as just a set of rules that must be adhered to without exception. Also, without the hergish, every argument or act that conflicts with the letter of the law will feel like a threat to those who lack the understanding of the spirit of the law.
Baruch hashem for Chassidus.
Yonit Tanenbaum
If Israel can recognize non-Jewish religions, it should be able to accommodate pluralism among Jews. France can be a French country and still have a secular government, and Israel can be a majority Jewish country with a secular government.
I believe the rabbis thousands of years ago commanded us to celebrate the Maccabees' victory by lighting Chanukkah menorahs for eight days, not by turning into homicidal zealots and attacking Jews who are less traditional in their observances than we are.