Blaming the Victims: Academic Says Haredi Rejection Of BTs Leads To Cultlike Extremism

By refusing to accept them, haredi society pushes  BTs into forming their own separate, sometimes fundamentalist communities.

Study: Haredi rejection leads to extremism
Ultra-orthodox society's refusal to accept former seculars into its midst forces them to form their own separate, often fundamentalist communities, new book argues
Tzofia Hirschfeld • Ynet

The case of the mother from Beit Shemesh, dubbed "Mother Taliban," who was accused of severely abusing her 12 children and turning a blind eye to incest in her family shocked the Israeli public last year.

But it now seems that the fact the affair had taken place among the ultra-Orthodox community in Beit Shemesh is no coincidence. A study by sociologist Dr. Shlomi Doron of the Ashkelon Academic College argues that the rejection of formerly secular haredim by the ultra-Orthodox communities in Jerusalem serves as a catalyst for adopting extreme behaviors.

In a soon-to-be-published book, Doron claims that by refusing to accept into its midst former seculars, the haredi society pushes these people into forming their own separate, sometimes fundamentalist communities.

"Becoming religious is an interesting phenomenon in Israeli society," explained Doron. "On the one hand, these people make a significant, highly-valued spiritual move, and on the other hand, the haredim put many obstacles in their path," he said, referring to obstacles in matters of education, marriage and housing.

"A place in which many former seculars live is considered less desirable. When a new haredi family wants to rent an apartment, the other residents immediately check who they are and whether they have any secular roots," Doron said.

Personal crisis

This conduct, he added, forces many families to form communities of their own. "These are people who have cut off all ties with their secular family, secular community and secular identity. When they fail to get accepted into the haredi world, this leads to a personal crisis," explained Doron.

"This vacuum is often filled by people of 'spiritual domination,' like 'Rabbi' Elior Chen, who manage to drag them to horribly extreme places.     

Referring to the case of the abusive mother, Doron suggested that being rejected by the haredi world has created not only a spiritual, but also a mental vacuum for her. "When one changes his religious identity and there's no one to welcome him on the other side, this can cause quite serious mental problems… in fact those who are guilty of the extremism of former seculars are to a certain extent the haredim themselves."

The solution for this, concluded Doron, can come only from the great rabbis.

First of all, Elior Chen's abuse took place in a non-ba'al teshuva family. Secondly, while some burqa ladies are BTs, others are not.

And then we have ample evidence of non-BT haredi extremism and violence. (Just google "riot" on this blog for a small part of that evidence.)

Haredi rejection of BTs, treating BTs like second class citizens and discriminating against them and their children is abhorrent, to be sure, and it certainly must contribute something to the mental makeup of BTs who go over the edge.

And it is true that BTs tend to take halakha and agadata more seriously over all than born haredim do, and they tend to do that with a naivete that can be easily exploited by dominant religious figures.

But to blame burqa women and Elior Chen on BTs is foolish. It is also another way of saying that, without the 'pollution' of BTs, the haredi world would be much healthier, and the Elior Chen's would not exist.

And that is quite simply false.

[Hat Tip: Joel Katz.]

Comments

[Yochanan Lavie]

I think most Modern Orthodox are more accepting of BT's. I know several BT-FFB marriages in that community.

[nobody]

Yochanan: Many BT-FFB marriages exist in US haredi communities. The article is describing that the situation is different in Israel. I don't know that Israeli MO treats such situations differently than Israeli haredim. Do you know about that?

[Ben]

Haredim are all into yichus. They have created their own aristocracy which is by the fact of their birth from hosheve parents are superior to the rest of the am haaretz Jews around them. They are the elite. Just listen to Haredi presenting a Rav, he will often go into detailed explanation who was his father, grandfather, which families his brothers and sisters are married into...

BTs are low on this scale and it would take them many generations to climb the ladder. Most likely there families will never be able to shed their inferiority.

[Alternative Childcare]

Nobody: I know that. Sepharadi/Ashkenazi, so called FFB with BT, marriages involving giyur, are all common within the dati leumi and hesder world. They are far more progressive in that way, which is why the delegitimacy agenda struck at our batei din for giyur.

On the other hand, Sepharadim, BTs, etc, are very aggressively excluded from marriages in the charedi world, Litvak and Chassidish, certainly if the husband is the Sepharadi one; if there is something wrong with the boy, they may accept a Sepharadi girl.

Remember that not all BTs are the same, and it really depends in Israel to which group they are trying to BT into, so to speak. Obviously BTs to Breslov groups are going to be different types of people than those trying to join dati leumi groups (I choose that example because of the violent sectarian group that formed around a Breslov BT place in Jerusalem several years ago).
But yes, the social, class, ethnic, and religious differences are not at all similar to the situation in the US.

[SJ]

I don't know who is crazier. Haredim or the people who join them. Teiku.

[pierre]

I think the FFBs are too embracing of lunatics who are going to represent a 'fringe', wherever they are - even if they find themselves in the center of an ideological sphere; "They've got moxie! - they just need their brains washed and some guidance!"...the Modern Orthodox are to adamant about fulfilling all the mainstream Yuppie/Upper Middle Class bona fides (in good part to afford dayschool education...), to tolerate fringed fringies.

[ah-pee-chorus]

++ don't know who is crazier. Haredim or the people who join them. Teiku.++

Posted by: SJ | July 14, 2009 at 07:49 PM

i will attempt some gemara logic to answer.
if one assumes the lifestyle is a good thing and not crazy then the question wouldn't apply so working under the assumption that it is a crazy lifestyle, those born into it have many obstacles in their path away from it. those who join them must be running away from something, probably themselves, and to choose haredism as your destination means you are REALLY crazy. teeyoovta? lol.

[DK]

BTs often don't know what they are getting into until it is too late. But as education is increased, more Jews will understand the contempt of the ultra-Orthodox is rooted in yichus, not just a belief system, and hopefully, the baal teshuvah movement will be hobbled to a large degree.

Better understanding poisons the waters of Kiruv.

[Ben]

DK, I agree, most BTs are starry eyed naive idealists. Unfortunately way to often their beautiful idealism is being crushed by the very people who sing siren songs to them in the beginnig.

This is really sad.

[Yoni]

Here in the center of uber-secular Tel-Aviv, there's a BT kehilla led by Rav Ephraim Auerbach, son of Rav S.Z. Auerbach z'l. The kehilla consists of many creative types: artists, musicians, writers, etc. Rav Auerback encourages his talmidim to stay in TA, in touch with their non-frum families and friends, and to keep their distance from the hareidi enclaves. He tells them that much of the hareidi world is corrupt, and that seeing it from up close would only disillusion them. From what I've been told, his modus operandi is selling his talmidim on Torah, not on the hareidi world.

[Jeff Eyges]

Shmarya, who is Doron? What's his orientation? Is he Hareidi, or an MO sympathizer? I'm curious as to his motivation for wanting to exonerate the FFB factions.

[Ben]

Yoni, it is interesting that Rav Auerbach sees that the results of applying "true Torah halachic way" that Haredim claim to master to life is terrible.

The only question in my mind is - whether or not it is honest to disassociate the ideology (halacha) from its results (haredi cults) as this repspected Rabbi seems to be trying to do?

Is it not something like saying it is Ok to habitually use heroin, just don't look at those shaking people under the bridge, they did not use it properly?

[Dr. Dave]

Ben,

The chareidi world is the result of misapplying the Torah.

Chareidim are not religious Jews.

Chareidim ignore most of the Torah, particularly parts about dealing with your fellow man.

Chareidim ignore the Torah in favor of non Halachic rules, so-called "chumras", that have nothing to do with Judaism.

All Jews are equal. There are no saints in Judaism. Moshe Rabeinu - the most revered Jew in History (by Jews, J.C. is probably the most venerated by non Jews), is considered to have sinned. His gravesite was hidden to prevent the atavistic worship nonsense of the Chareidim.

The Chareidi cultists with their "yichus worship" and Rebbe/Rabbi cannonization are in violation of the Torah!

Chareidim have the wool pulled over the rest of Judaism's eyes if they have us believe that they are more legitimate or Torah true than the rest of us.

Laugh at them, but don't give in to their nonsense.

[Yoni]

Ben - you ask
"Is it not something like saying it is Ok to habitually use heroin, just don't look at those shaking people under the bridge, they did not use it properly?"

My quick answer would be that it's more like saying that democracy is a good thing, just don't look at East Germany ("German Democratic Republic") and North Korea ("Democratic People's Republic of Korea"), they did not implement democracy properly notwithstanding their names.

[Ben]

Dr.Dave, Yoni, I agree with your explanations, but Haredi do claim to be the ONLY LEGITIMATE TORAH TRUE JEWS!

Furthermore, great majority of regular non-haredi Jews, including modern othodox agree with this. Even greater majority of all rabbis agree with that.

Until I see overwhelming majority of Rabbis (modern orthodox and others) express publicly what you've just said, I would be inclined to think that this is the TRUE TORAH WAY, since majority of experts (rabbis) agree with it.

[Ben]

Yoni, majority of democratic leaders did not give much credit to the names of German Democratic Republic and Democratic Republic Republic of Korea. They despareged them openly. This is not that case with Haredi and other Orthodox Rabbis, who fluctuate between open approval of Haredi claims and silence. Rabbis do agree in their hearts that Haredim are closer to true halachic ways then they are.

[justayid]

Ben

Conservative Judaism believe in Halacha (pace Tucker and Gilman) and quite explicitly do not think Haredim are the only torah true jews.

In your political analogy, it would be like pointing out that Pro-soviet but non-communist regimes in the 3rd world, like India under Indira Gandhi, recognized the democratic nature of East Germany, while ignoring that West Germany and the US did not, cause you dont want to recognize anything said by those nasty imperialists about democracy.

[nobody]

"Dr.Dave, Yoni, I agree with your explanations, but Haredi do claim to be the ONLY LEGITIMATE TORAH TRUE JEWS! "

So what if they say that? Ben, you only type this, or something like this, (and a major part of why you are hung up on this is) because deep down for some reason you agree with them (the haredim, that is). Why you believe such claims I don't understand, but until you get past that, you will never grow. It seems you want to believe it too.

Furthermore, there is a difference between saying haredi Judaism is a legitimate expression of yiddishkeit that one has free will to choose to express - a difference between this and saying it is THE TORAH TRUE way and nothing else is legitimate. I can see why you expect people not to say the latter, and quite frankly most people don't (except haredi themselves and not all of them). I'm not sure why you expect people not to grant the former (Dave was willing to say so, but I disagree and most probably would - but so what).

[whoever]

being a bt myself, i can attest to all the discrimination that exists here. i shaped myself so well that it may be at times impossible to tell whether i am a bt or not, although the fact that i started (on my own) before bar-mitzvah did help.
however, with regards to shidduchim, all the ffb girls offered to me had "something" wrong: a bad name, extremely bad looks, and in one case no money at all (that must be really bad in the charedi world, for she was a sweetheart and it just did not work out between us for other reasons - i only found out about the money afterward). the bt girls were ok, and i marred one of them. i do, in the end, hold the "professional" shadchanim responsible for that mishandling of bts.
however, i nurture no illusions - in the lubavitcher world the rule is that bt familes marry bt families and ffb into ffb, just look at the simcha postings on sites such as shmais.com where "gezeh" families do not "marry out". i am already telling my children, young as they are, that we will neveer be seen as 'equal".
with regard to the rest, it is widely known that ffb families sweep their problems under the rug while bt families will be blamed for all ills. for example, if someone gets mentally ill (e.g. depression, it can't be "caught") it's heard "you should know that bts are trouble"; if there's a handicapped child, "bt families are like that", and so on.
finally, the torah scholarship world ocks bts no matter how hard they work or how far they get - look at how many mock steinzaltz for not being born frum to this day!