B"H
I have been publishing vast amounts of articles about the Jerusalem haredi demonstrations lately. Let alone the case with the mother who may have abused her child. May or may not ? Who knows after all the proofs, speculations and rumours.
My intention is not giving a negative picture of haredi society. The opposite; especially Chassidut is one of the greatest ideologies in the world and I love the subject.
Today the question is how much greatness there is and how much we have to deal with reality and all its negative sides. Do we only need to concentrate on the positive sides of life and overlook or neglect negative topics ? Or should we rather point out difficulties in society in order to find solutions ?
How far should we go ?
Friday, July 17, 2009
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Should we overlook the negative topics you ask? I heard that Hamodia is hiring. You'd get the job in a second Miriam. Just kidding. But I don't know how you could ask that, with all of the "overlooking" going on in terms of things like child molestation and kids at risk. The chareidi society are experts at overlooking, no doubt about that.
ReplyDeleteB"H
ReplyDeleteI don't think the HAMODIAH is hiring women.:-)
I didn't mean "overlook and not dealing" with society problems. What I rather meant was "should we in public more concentrate on the positive things" and deal with the negative as many other people do. Intensively and without being in the press all the time.
The whole case should have been dealt with quietly but, unfortunately, the demonstrations started and then Mea Shearim just lost it. The Toldot Aharon destroyed their reputation without even realizing it. Rebbe David Kahn should have spoken out and dealt with the matter. Going to the hospital, dealing with this particular family, lokking for professional help, whatever.
The whole case it a total mess now and President Shimon Peres met a member of the Edah in order to stop the demonstrations and threats against doctors and social workers.
It looks like none of the Rabbis really knows how to deal with such a situation. This is the problem of haredi society. Most people simply don't know how to deal with society issues and try to pray it away.
Well, after thinking it over, this just takes to the extremes what social workers see in their daily life: When a child is abused, there is always a lot of denial and even aggressiveness from the abusers and their immediate surroundings.
ReplyDeleteOf course, few of them will stage mass protests, but the issue of "differing versions" and conspiration theories circulated by immediate family are not that rare. This is why it is so difficult to help those children: because very often the abusers are manipulative, etc...
I don't think we should over look the negative sides of haredi society. I think you are great person to here the negative from because you understand them better then most.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your even handed account of this. I really appreciate your opinion--it's much more enlightening than the BBC coverage I heard last night, which can be boiled down to "gosh, Jews are terrible, aren't they?!" Thanks for your perspective.
ReplyDeleteB"H
ReplyDeleteIt is not so much a matter of overlook or not. What I intented to say was: There are blogs only dealing with the religious side of haredi Judaism such as Zaddikim (righteous people), Mitzvot, Halachot, etc. Problems exist but such blogs never mention them.
Every society in this world has its problems and special cases. No one is perfect and so is haredi society. We are all people and things happen !
The whole case of this particular woman should have been dealt with in a very different way and causing such a desaster where the whole world is pointing at the Jews or religious Jews was totally unnecessary. Thanks to the Israeli leftist and haredi hatred media YEDIOT ACHARONOT and the radio channel KOL ISRAEL which are just looking for headlines and scandals but don't care about people.