Religious hardliners fight back

[rug]

January 2, 2012
AFP



Backlash … protesters donned death camp uniforms. Photo: Reuters

JERUSALEM: Hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Jews, some wearing yellow stars or the uniforms of Holocaust death camp inmates, have demonstrated against what they called media attacks against them over their efforts to segregate the sexes.

The bearded men and young boys in Jerusalem's ultra-Orthodox Mea Shearim neighbourhood were ostensibly gathered to protest about the jailing of a member of their community for leading vigilante attacks against a local religious bookshop, considered not religious enough by hardliners.

But the ultra-Orthodox news website Kikar Hashabbat said the main purpose of the rally had become that of fighting back against ''incitement against the ultra-Orthodox public''.

During World War II, Jews in Germany and countries occupied by the Nazis were forced to wear yellow stars to identify themselves in public. Kikar Hashabbat said the wearing of them at Saturday's rally was ''an exceptional protest measure''.

http://www.smh.com.au/world/religious-hardliners-fight-back-20120101-1ph5c.html

[backscatter712]

1. Classy!

Christian fundies, Islamic fundies, Ultra-orthodox Jews...

It's all the same mental disorder to me.

[LeftishBrit]

2. I am sick of people who act as though anyone who tries to prevent them from imposing their religious

rules on others is equivalent to the Nazis.

And it's particularly nasty to act in this way in Israel, given that a sizable proportion of the population are Holocaust survivors or descendants of Holocaust survivors.

One good thing about it, is that it will rally public opinion against the religious extremists.

[Mosby]

3. They are getting desperate

Really really disgusting, and it's only going to hurt their "cause".

[Jim__]

4. "Do they have a different God than we do?”

An excerpt from the Jerusalem Post:

This is not a challenge I expected to have when we had children, or when we moved to Beit Shemesh more than a decade ago.

As a national-religious family, we are Torah-observant. As part of our Jewish values, we have worked hard to make our home a place of respect for haredi Jews, non-Jews, non-observant Jews and all others. We have included haredi scholars and public figures among the role models for our children, and the message to our children has always been sharp and unmistakable: We do not have a monopoly on morality.

But how to deal with the fact that today, my children associate the word “haredi” (ultra-Orthodox) with the word “evil”? My daughter asked me if she would be killed for walking next to a “haredi” building on the way to her friend’s house. Who would have believed that I would ever hear such a question, or that I could even blink at giving an answer? The honest answer made me even more fearful than the question: I don’t know. I certainly hope not, but I can no longer say for sure.

As the haredi world claims “incitement,” I am reminded of an incident that occurred several months ago.

more ... ( http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-EdContributors/Article.aspx?id=251802 )