Failed leadership. That is the only way I can explain it – if the latest Pashkevil (public notice) by a small group of mainstream Charedi leaders is not a forgery and is in any way accurate. (I happen to know that at least one of the signatories is a highly regarded Posek in the Charedi world.)
It’s pretty much common knowledge by now that there are sizable groups of ‘activists’ in the more extremes segments of the Charedi world that just love to cause trouble. Lots of it in protests that are supposedly in name of God. There have been so many instances of it, that repeating yet another instance is of little value. It’s going to continue happening with regular frequency. Especially in and around Bet Shemesh since one of its suburbs – Bet Shemesh Bet (2) - is home to those extremists.
But when this kind of thing gets the support of mainstream Charedi leaders, that’s worth paying attention to.
Their obsession with issues of modesty is so intense that they actually support those extremists. Encouraging them in their ‘holy’ task of assuring the purity of our people. And literally cursing the people that they are protesting against, who by their own words do not have the proper education to appreciate the level of sexual purity these leaders seek for our people.
Bet Shemesh Daled (4) is one of its beautiful new suburbs. The largest one to date. I happen to have taken a brief ‘tour’ of that suburb a few months ago when I was there and marveled at the relatively upscale look of those new structures.
I was told at the time that the vast majority of residents that will be living there will be Charedi or Chasidic. Some have in fact already moved in. I saw of few of them walking in one neighborhood there with their wives and children. I remember thinking at the time how nice it is that there are so many young Charedim that can afford those beautiful new living quarters.
This is the community that is under attack by those extremists – with the blessing, apparently, of the abovementioned mainstream Charedi leaders.
What follows next is a description of recent events there. Although I have no way of knowing how accurate that description is… and while the fact that the self identifying Charedi source I am about to excerpt is admittedly biased (which will be more than obvious to the reader) the abovementioned Pashkevil makes his story quite plausible:
Recently, the Chareidie parasites living in Beit Shemesh Bet have taken vans and taxis to Dalet, to scream at the residents, to spit at girls and grown women and to destroy property.They scream at people talking on their smartphones, making their lives miserable.
In addition, they deface the brand-new walls of the city with graffiti about "tznious."
All this to discourage Dati Leumi people from moving in.
Last week, the residents who are fed up with these "roaches" dressed like people, took the law into their own hands and chased them out. The "roaches" started physically assaulting the residents and all hell broke loose.
So, the extremists went to their "gedoilim" and they issued a "fatwa" a Kol Korah, blessing them and encouraging these sickos to keep fighting even if it leads to violence.
This is not going to end well! Last week in Yerushalyim one of their teenagers hurled a flaming garbage bin down the street and a mother of 11 got hit bad and she is still in a coma.
I do not approve of the prejudicial way in which he tells this story. But I can’t say that I blame him for feeling that way if what he described is anywhere near true.
How can anyone that calls themselves a leader so publicly support what those protestors are doing? It is beyond comprehension if true.
Now it may be that these leaders were misled about what they were singing on to. It’s possible that Pashkevil was written by the protesters themselves after ‘consulting’ with those leaders and misunderstanding what those leaders told them. It's also possible that the Pashkevil is a forgery.
But even if I bend over backwards to be Dan L’Kaf Zechus to those leaders (judge them favorably) and say that they did not write or approve anything like this, they have still failed. The idea that they can be so easily mislead to the point of allowing this kind of thing to go on and praise it without a single negative word is a gross failure in leadership.
True leadership demands finding out whether accusations against fellow Jews are true before signing on to protests and praising the protestors . To simply trust what them without verifying their accusations is a moral failure. And should that Pashkevil be an outright forgery - they need to do a lot more than make that known to the public. They have to make sure that it never happens again. And the best way to do that is to make sure those protesters spend considerable time in prison… ‘lock them up and throw away the key’. Because as things stand now those leaders are complicit.