Thugs That Beat Jerusalem Woman Linked To Ger Hasidic Sect

And that's not all.. The head of this Ger hasid-founded modesty squad runs a printing business that prints pashkvilim, wall posters, used by haredi rabbis to warn their public about 'immodest behavior' (like wearing otherwise modest denim skirts, for example) and other perceived ills.

In other words, this agitator-enforcer-kanoi makes his money by being a kanoi – the more 'problems' he finds in the haredi community, the more money he makes. How's that…

… for a conflict of interest?

Analysis: What can rabbis do?
By MATTHEW WAGNER

A mishmeret tzniut, roughly translated as "modesty squad," is a vigilante body, usually with some form of rabbinic license, that has taken upon itself to enforce normative ultra-Orthodox behavior.

The mishmeret tzniut derives its power from its ability to identify and manipulate the zealotry of the haredi majority.

There are a multitude of such bodies representing different haredi sects that deal with issues from the eradication of MP-4 and DVD sales in strictly haredi neighborhoods to the fight against ultra-Orthodox pop concerts, from the creation of separate seating in the waiting room of the local post office to the strict supervision of women's clothing stores to make sure no tight-fitting or otherwise immodest apparel is being offered to haredi females.

All the crusades chosen by the various modesty squads are no-brainers for the majority of the haredi populace. After all, who is not against the sale of potentially lascivious movies in one's neighborhood? And who is not opposed to the introduction of Western-style pop stars to the wholesome haredi culture?

Rabbinic leadership may or may not buy into the means used by the activists to further their just causes. Even if the rabbinic leaders oppose certain actions taken by the mishmeret hatzniut, they usually cannot publicly attack it for fear of losing their credibility among the public who look to its rabbis to champion haredi zealotry and meticulous adherence to the letter of the law.

In Jerusalem, the most well-known and established enforcer of haredi norms is the Council for the Purity of the Camp (Va'ad Le'ma'an Tohar Hamachane), which was created by Rabbi Yitzhak Meir Safronovitch with the blessing of the fifth Gerer rebbe, Israel Alter, also known as the Beis Yisrael, who passed away in 1977.

It is unclear what connections the council has to the Ger hassidic sect today.

Binyamin Meirovitch, one of the men detained by police due to his alleged connection with the severe beating of a divorced woman, is also connected to the Council for the Purity of the Camp.

Meirovitch owns the Ne'eman printing press that publishes pashkevilim, the black and white notices plastered on the walls and bulletin boards of haredi neighborhoods. These notices, complete with the signatures of prominent rabbis, are the preferred medium for relaying warnings, orders or information from the rabbinic leadership or quasi-rabbinic bodies such as the council to the haredi street.

One of Meirovitch's employees is Elchanan Buzaglo, who was accused by police of, along with six others, beating the divorced woman.

The rumor on the haredi street is that the woman was beaten because her former husband complained that she was acting immodestly.

Despite the brutality of the beating, as described in the police rap sheet, a vocal contingent in the haredi community took to the streets against what they saw as police intervention in internal matters.

As Shmuel Poppenheim, a spokesman for the Edah Haredit put it, "The vast majority of haredim are opposed to the use of violence.

"But when the iniquities are taking place right next door, anybody in their right mind would do what it takes to put an end to the madness."

No formal announcement condemning the violence against the woman was released by the Edah Haredit. However, according to the Chadarei Haredim (haredi rooms) Internet forum, Rabbi Moshe Sternbach, a member of the Edah's leadership, told his students it was permissible to hand over to the police haredi zealots who desecrated God's name with their actions.

Sternbach could not be reached Sunday at his Jerusalem home to verify the report.

Wagner makes several errors. Let me briefly correct them:

1. A mishmeret tzniut, roughly translated as "modesty squad," is a vigilante body, usually with some form of rabbinic license, that has taken upon itself to enforce normative ultra-Orthodox behavior.

Modesty squads enforce their own particular versions – usually the most extreme – of haredi behavior, and they do that enforcing against haredim who often follow more lenient rabbis. This is not simply a matter of forcing Gerrer hasidim to follow the often bizarre and perverse rules of Gerrer society.

2. All the crusades chosen by the various modesty squads are no-brainers for the majority of the haredi populace. After all, who is not against the sale of potentially lascivious movies in one's neighborhood?

The key word here is "potentially." mp4 dealers sell mp4s, dvds and videos made specifically for the haredi market. The vast majority are made for children.

The real problem with mp4 stores is that a haredi man who owns an mp4 player can easily outside of haredi neighborhoods buy secular movies and – because they are so small in physical size – easily bring them home.

Rabbis seek to stop this secular influence from spreading by banning mp4s all together. This same tactic was tried and was largely unsuccessful with videos and dvds. Still, fearing for your physical safety because you watch Last of the Mohicans or Star Wars in the privacy of your own home does cut back a bit on this behavior.

3. There are a multitude of such bodies representing different haredi sects that deal with issues from the eradication of MP-4 and DVD sales in strictly haredi neighborhoods to the fight against ultra-Orthodox pop concerts, from the creation of separate seating in the waiting room of the local post office to the strict supervision of women's clothing stores to make sure no tight-fitting or otherwise immodest apparel is being offered to haredi females.

Modesty squads go well past making sure all clothing sold is modest as defined by the Shulkan Arukh, Code of Jewish Law.

They hurl bleach on women wearing bright colors or 'unapproved' fabrics like denim. Bead work, sequins and jewelry all draw their wrath, as well. None of these items are prohibited by Jewish law.

4. Rabbinic leadership may or may not buy into the means used by the activists to further their just causes. Even if the rabbinic leaders oppose certain actions taken by the mishmeret hatzniut, they usually cannot publicly attack it for fear of losing their credibility among the public who look to its rabbis to champion haredi zealotry and meticulous adherence to the letter of the law.

Wagner puts modesty squads in the best possible light, and puts the rabbis who set them loose on the haredi public in that basking glow, as well. Wagner probably does this to maintain access to his sources. But the truth is far worse than Wagner reports.

Modesty squads terrorize and beat women and men whose only 'crimes' are not violations of Jewish or Israeli law.

Much of the haredi public is terrorized by these thugs and would love to see them stopped.

These thugs need to be stopped. Finally, the Jerusalem police are moving to do just that.

Let's hope the police don't stop at the level of street thug and instead proceed up the chain of command, until thugs like the Gerrer Rebbe – a long time protector of haredi child rapists like Gerrer hasid Avrohom Mondrowitz (more on Mondrowitz here)– do hard time for the violence and intimidation they unleash.

Comments

[EndingSuperstition]

yup the mishmeret tzniut does its best to make sure that the ONLY bare flesh that boys see is that of other boys and men in the mikva.

this 'modesty' rule is just a rationalization of the homocompliant desires of the 'rabbonim'.

thats right only homosexuals (and nasty old women who were never hot) get that indignant on the topic of attractive women looking attractive.

why is the jewish media ignoring this homocompliance thing?

me thinks the rabbonim doeth protest too mucheth.

[WoolSIlkCotton]

EndingSuperstition, look at the ads in the back of the Village Voice (New York newspaper), either on-line or in the printed paper, and look at all the prostitutes (both sexes) who specialize in the Chassidic gentleman's needs.

[anonymous witness]

Shmarya, there is a much larger story than is being printed here. The relationship between Elhanan Buzaglo and his Hareidi employers is most likely more extensive than beating up somebody once a year because of their sex life.

If it turns out that the reports regarding the modesty patrol being tied to the Gerrer chassidim are true, this revelation is even more profound.

There are a lot of chareidim in the money changing business. Many that I have noticed are Gerrer chassidim. I first want to make a disclaimer that not all money changers employ the tactics that I am about to describe when they get a bounced check in the sum of thousands of dollars. However many do.

Many of these guys know exactly where to find a thug when they need one should they feel that they have been double crossed. There are two methods that I am aware of for a vendor to recover lost funds. Neither of them involve litigation. One is to sell the debt to one of these thugs. For example, the bounced check is for $5000 US. The vender then sells the debt for let's say $4500 dollars or ten per cent less than the value of what he was owed. He eats his loss of $500 dollars but he is immediately paid 90 per cent of what he lost from the thug. This thug who has paid $4500 dollars of his own money to the vender, then goes after the debtor like a fly on shit. He of course is not going to send his lawyer after him. He is going to use whatever physical means necessary to get his money back plus the extra $500 dollars.

You might say that this is not a lot of money to be doing this. It adds up if you have an employer giving you consistent business with debts both big and small.

Now the vendor has justified his own actions by saying to himself that he is not responsible for anything that happens to the debtor. He only sold the debt(and took a loss mind you). "How this thug gets his money back is of no business of mine." Whatever!

A second way of dealing with a debtor that may be employed is by cash on delivery with one difference. Instead of the vender i.e. client paying for the services rendered, the debtor pays for whatever their fee is on top of the original debt.

Do not think for a second that one can just call the police on these people. That would be a big mistake.

What I just wrote above leads me to another suspicion.That the woman involved in this incident is not the first person to have the shit kicked out of her by the goon squad. Either this woman is very courageous or just plain ignorant of whom she was facing. In any case G-d protects the fools. At least that is what they say. He smiled on her with providing her with a judge with wisdom. Something that has been severely lacking in the Israeli court system when dealing with all sorts of organized crime. The judge is keeping Buzaglo in custody until the court proceedings have been completed. Otherwise she would probably need some sort of witness protection program.

[Nigritude Ultramarine]

Every woman in Jerusalem needs to have a gun. Problem solved.

[rebitzman]

++Every woman in Jerusalem needs to have a gun. Problem solved.++

By and large - they do.

yup the mishmeret tzniut does its best to make sure that the ONLY bare flesh that boys see is that of other boys and men in the mikva.

This reminds me of something . . . what is it now . . . ?

Oh yes! Something about ancient Greece and how men and young boys would be naked around, and admire, each other in gymnasiums and bath houses.

Now, what was that about Orthodox Judaism always going on about how they are the opposite of Greek culture?

[Anon]

This is one of your more unsubstantiated posts. Nowhere in the article does it connect these hooligans to the gerrer sect. In fact it says quite clearly that "It is unclear what connections the council has to the Ger hassidic sect today." Do you not read these articles before you post or do you just intentionally distort them?

[Losers]

thats right only homosexuals (and nasty old women who were never hot) get that indignant on the topic of attractive women looking attractive.

Nah, they're seem more like sociopaths.

A lot of homosexuals are okay with women and actually like females who make themselves beautiful - such as the many gay hair dressers, make-up artists, and clothing designers (I'm not saying all the men in those professions are gay, by the way). They love it when women make themselves beautiful and even go all out to help them do so.

These modesty guys and their leaders . . . if they really cared about holiness and correct behavior, they'd point out the disconnect between finding it wrong to be seated near a woman on a bus, and thinking it's perfectly okay to make physical contact with a woman for the purpose of beating her.

These guys seem more like the thugs that just go around looking for any excuse to give someone a stomping. But, instead of shaved heads and black boots with red shoelaces - or instead of baggy pants and uniformly colored bandanas - these guys wear black pants and jackets, white shirts, black hats, and beards. They think that by dressing like Amish guys, people won't get hip to the fact that they're just stompers in a gang looking for whatever trouble they can find, or make.

Losers.

[hancock park]

What we have here with the denim skirts, wrong color of dresses,etc. are the crazy chumrahs carried out to the nth degree. This is not the halacha,even you want to be a fanatic, fine, but it is not the law and don't try to force it on others. Unfortnately, this mindset is permeating orthodox judaism in the U.S. also. See no more Lipa concerts. The scarry thing is that in Israel and here there seems to be a growing segment of Yeshivish Jews looking for chumrahs. I don't understand it.Here in the U.S. many of the chumrahniks are baal tshuvas on top of it all. They dont have a proper perspective of what orthodox judaism is all about. The Rabbis are like politicians. They put their fingers to the wind and perceive a growing affinity for these extreme chumrahs, and thus don't condemn it. Heaven forbid someone may lump them with the modern orthodox.

[avraham]

This has nothing to do with tzniut. It is power grab by the different chasidic groups.
This happened often in Eastern Europe. The idea is to posel some group for not being frum enough, and by that to gain power.
The rabbi nods his head in quiet approval as the thugs do his bidding.
(It happens every year in Uman. Just last year it was a bit better. )

[shmuel]

"This has nothing to do with tzniut. It is power grab by the different chasidic groups.
This happened often in Eastern Europe. The idea is to posel some group for not being frum enough, and by that to gain power."

Beginning to understand why the Holocaust happened...

[Joel]

"Purity of the camp"????? HAHAHAHA!!!! This coming from Chasidim? Kuzarim bnei Kuzarim? HAHAHAHA!!!!! No, i am not mocking the Jewishness of any group but it just seems so funny that Sephardim look upon Ashkenazim as "fake jews" and "converts" and then the "converts" go and try to delegitimize the MO, and then the MO say that the Reform arent Jews.. HAHAHA!!! we are never going to see any unity in our lifetimes. I have given up. Everyone is better then the next guy. This is just too much. I have a prediction, if we dont get our acts together soon, Israel and jews in general are doomed. So much for Da'at Torah being the all wise all seeing guidance that we are all supposed to worship. I wish that even one Rav would stand up and scream ENOUGH ALREADY!!!!!! Sorry if this rant seemed disjointed, I am really tired.

[Yochanan Lavie]

Maybe they should move to the Afgan-Pak border, among likeminded people.

[Yochanan Lavie]

I believe in safe sects.

[quico]

Lets just keep in mind that even the most sadistic thugs can take a bullet...and who doesn't where they live?

[Mp3 Players]

I always thought that mp3 players and mp4 players were a little high tech for me but when my daughter bought one for me for Christmas I instatly fell in love with it. I love having all of my favorite songs that I never hear on the radio anymore at anytime on my mp3 player.

[Rose Bush]

Dictators. Nothing else.