Pulling down Posters

B"H

I couldn't believe it yesterday. Suddenly I received an e - mail from a friend of mine who had been a victim of a Jerusalem bomb attack almost eleven years ago. Diana Campuzano from New York finally made it back to Israel after all those years. Since the Ben Yehudah bomb exploded (in 1997) and she got badly injured, she hadn't been back to Israel and especially not to Jerusalem. Once she told me that she could just not handle the memories from the attack.

Now she is here and we met yesterday. I took her to Rabbi Mordechai Machlis for a class and a dinner afterwards. Everything was great and Diana looks good although the signs of her injuries are still visible.

After 11pm we left the Rabbi's house and started walking towards the Old City when Diana noticed a young chassidic couple pulling at a poster hanging in a glass box as a street sign. First I didn't notice what is going on and the couple passed us. Then Diana said: "Look what they did".

A cinema poster with an actor on it was almost pulled out of the box. The young chassidic couple was from the extreme group of Toldot Aharon and apparently wanted to save all of us from bad movies or our own Yetzer (evil side within us). No more secular posters and no more movies ! Ironically, I said to Diana that we should maybe give the couple two cinema tickets for free. Maybe they would enjoy themselves.

However, the couple only succeeded in pulling out half of the poster but I started asking myself what kind of character or whatever one must have to do such a thing. The event didn't take place in Mea Shearim. It took place at the entrance to the Maalot Dafna neighbourhood right at a very busy highway. The area is religious but also secular, as right across is East - Jerusalem and the highway is busy with all kinds of cars. And no one ever has been bothered by posters. Yesterdays' poster wasn't even pornographic or anything. I think it showed the new "Batman" movie but I am not sure. There was a kind of a crazy looking guy on it. Weird but not pornographic or offending.

I just wondered what kind of upbringing this young couple had. Being in a closed extreme ultra - orthodox society. People call Toldot Aharon much worse than Satmar. Both groups have great members but some of them are just as weird as the guy on the poster. The Toldot Aharon live further down in a backyard in Shivtei Israel Street and if they take posters down in their area - okay, I accept that. But walking around in public places and starting to force the whole society in accepting their understanding of modesty is crazy. Nevertheless, I suppose the couple was just too young and hopefully in another few years or so, they might grow up and get some more understanding. An understanding that there are other people, other Jews, in this world as well. I also don't go to Mea Shearim and pull down the posters of certain "Modesty Committees" because I don't like the context.

Any Jew, if chassidic or not, should show at least some respect to everyone else. Dealing with other people is one of our Tikkunim (soul rectifications) and G - d didn't place us in this world in order to shut ourselves up in a backyard and only speak to people who are exactly like us. On the other hand, I am not too upset about the couple, as I got to know many Toldot Aharon members who are great people and, up to a certain point, very open minded.