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Jewish World Review Oct. 19, 2001 / 2 Mar-Cheshvan, 5762
http://www.jewishworldreview.com --
A NEW terrorist threat has now been
identified emerging from the rubble of the World Trade
Center: it is "fundamentalist" Jews. At least that's the
message presented by Uri Regev, director of the Israel
Religious Action Center, in a recent lecture in a Reform
temple in Cleveland.
The lesson to be learned from the September 11 loss of
human life, he concluded, is the need to band together to
fight both Muslim and Jewish religious zealots. Earlier in
his speech, he identified the Jewish religious zealots he
had in mind: the fervently-Orthodox, who have distorted Torah to
provide license "to get rid of infidels."
Get it: the fervently-Orthodox kill people. They are no different than the
Islamic terrorists who flew jumbo jets into the World
Trade Center or Palestinian suicide bombers. They all
seek to drive out the infidels.
Regev's equation of Orthodox Jews and radical Islamists
is despicable. My only response is that of Joseph
Welch, chief counsel to the US army, to Senator Joseph
McCarthy: "Sir, have you no sense of decency left?"
Within 15 minutes of the first jumbo jet crashing into the
World Trade Center, between 80 to 100 Hatzoloh
volunteers - Orthodox and Haredi Jews who are on call
24 hours a day and receive no reimbursement of any
kind for their services - were on the scene evacuating
people. By 10:00 a.m. 200 volunteers and 24
ambulances were at the World Trade Center, treating
the injured and evacuating the area.
When the south tower collapsed, most of the Hatzoloh
volunteers were standing directly in the line of the falling
debris. One took cover near a firetruck. He felt a
firefighter fall on top of him. When the black cloud
passed, he realized that the firefighter had been
decapitated by falling glass.
Another volunteer received a 50-stitch gash in his head.
A photo in Business Week showed a long-bearded
Hatzoloh volunteer, his tzitzit (ritual fringes) hanging out
from under his orange Hatzoloh vest, holding up a dazed
fireman and leading him from the scene.
In all, Hatzoloh lost 10 vehicles, including two fully
equipped ambulances. A number of volunteers had to be
hospitalized, and many more bentched gomel (offered
the traditional thanksgiving prayer).
Does Regev really see no difference between the
"fundamentalists" risking their lives to save others outside
the WTC and those responsible for the deaths of more
than 5,000 people inside?
Regev also played typically fast and loose with the truth
before his Cleveland audience. He spoke of "fervently
religious Jews" setting fire to Conservative and Reform
synagogues and institutions. In doing so, he repeated the
libel used by Reform fundraisers in the United States for
years. Hundreds of thousands of dollars have been
raised on the claim that "fervently-Orthodox" torched a Reform
nursery school in Mevaseret Zion four years ago,
despite the absence of a scintilla of evidence to support
that charge.
The "ultra-Orthodox" arsonists of a Conservative
synagogue in Ramot in the summer of 2000 turned out
to be two young men wearing Nike T-shirts and with
long prison records - hardly the typical haredi garb or
educational background.
OF FIRES AND LIARS
We can also be sure that Regev did not mention in
Cleveland that virtually every major private medical
organization in Israel serving the general population -
such as Yad Sarah, Ezer Mitzion, Ezra L'Marpeh,
Zichron Menachem, Kav L'Chaim, Magen L'Choleh -
was founded by haredi Jews.
I would also bet that Regev's audience did not hear how
haredi Jews frequently outnumber secular Jews at
dialogue groups designed to bring religious and
non-religious together. In short, they did not hear
anything that would have given the lie to the portrait of
hate-filled fervently-Orthodox bent on eradicating infidels.
Regev's calculated demagoguery reflects an ugly aspect
of Israeli life: the exploitation of tragedy for narrow
partisan gain. We witnessed this again last week at the
Knesset memorial services for those killed in the Sibir
Airlines disaster. Shinui Knesset member Victor
Brailovksy, whose own cause as a Prisoner of Zion was
actively championed by Orthodox Jews in America at
great personal cost and risk to themselves used the
occasion to criticize the Chaplaincy Corps for not having
searched for bodies on Shabbat, even though there was
absolutely no chance of finding anyone alive.
Interestingly, neither he nor Yossi Sarid, who used the
occasion to attack the Chief Rabbinate, saw fit to
condemn the city of Tel Aviv for going ahead with its
Love Day bacchanal on the very day that so many Jews
were killed.
Sure, Regev has his issues. He favors civil marriage, the
dismantling of the Chief Rabbinate, the end of Israel as a
Jewish state, or what is the same thing, the recognition of
any credo promulgated by any group of Jews as
Judaism. These are all legitimate issues that have been
debated before and will be debated again. But to
advance his political agenda by stirring up hatred for
one's fellow Jews and comparing them to the murderers
of thousands is unconscionable.
Regev could learn a lesson from David Bateman, rabbi
of the Conservative synagogue in Ramot, victimized by
arson last year. Bateman could have gone to America on
a widely publicized speaking tour describing how his
synagogue had been torched by the fervently-Orthodox and
pleading for funds to stand up to the haredi menace. He
would have become an instant celebrity and returned
laden with enough money to build a palace.
Instead Bateman cautioned the media -- wisely, as it
turned out -- against making any assumptions about the
perpetrators, and issued a statement that the act should
not be considered an expression of the "ultra-Orthodox"
but, at most, that of "some kind of lunatic fringe." That
night he convened a gathering outside his synagogue
attended by Jews across the religious spectrum from
ultra-Orthodox to secular to express their revulsion.
The Jewish world today desperately needs more
Reform leader, have you no
sense of decency left?
By Jonathan Rosenblum
Regev did not tell his audience that Orthodox
institutions are far more likely to be vandalized than
non-Orthodox. In 1997-98 alone, there were 32 such
incidents in which syngogues were set on fire, holy
books torn, burned or smeared with excrement, and
swastikas spray-painted on the outside. Not once did
Regev issue a public condemnation. Not once did he
speak of secular "fundamentalism," and we can be sure
that he did not compare the perpetrators of these acts to
Osama bin Laden in Cleveland.
JWR contributor Jonathan Rosenblum is a columnist for the Jerusalem Post and Israeli director of Am Echad. He can be reached by clicking here.
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