New Weapon For Haredi Modesty Patrols: Raspberry Syrup

In bid to keep single men and women from meeting, Mea Shearim haredim smear raspberry syrup on public benches and other meeting places.

New weapon in Mea Shearim: Raspberry syrup
What fate awaits youths who loiter in haredi neighborhood on Shabbat? Ultra-Orthodox residents of Jerusalem quarter smear sticky raspberry syrup on benches in order to deter young men and women from engaging in boisterous conversation with one another
Ari Galahar  • Ynet

A new initiative put together by anonymous Mea Shearim residents is making the lives of youths there just a little bit harder, and stickier. Every week, just before Shabbat comes in, raspberry syrup is smeared on all public seating areas in the neighborhood.

The campaign's objective is to prevent young men and women from sitting on the benches and engaging in conversation.

The bench smearing takes place mainly in the busy section of Malchei Yisrael Street and Shabbat Square, where dozens of young men and women gather every Saturday, which has the Eda Haredit group and Geula neighborhood council outraged.

"These are defensive moves taken by extremist residents of the neighborhood, who don't look favorably upon anything that takes place here," said Itzik, a resident of the neighborhood. According to him, the new status quo prevents residents fro sitting outside on Shabbat. Nor do they have any way of wiping the raspberry syrup from the benches.
 
"Furthermore, they operate inspectors on workdays who goad people to do their shopping quickly and prevent groups of young people from loitering in the streets," he added.

Those who choose to compromise and sit on the steps instead of the benches also know no rest. In recent weeks, the syrup brigades have made sure to pour syrup on the steps leading up to Mercantile Discount Bank in Shabbat Square. Young people who chose to sit on the steps were met with an unpleasant and sticky surprise.

Comments

[Asa]

Ah, the Israel of my dreams, and God's.

[Jerome Soller]

The only way to counter this is with squirt guns of raspberry syrup to spray the bench smearers! :)

[tanya]

Who wants to live in that neighborhood. I bet the real estate prices are way way down. Maybe you could pick up a bargain, if you don't mind the sticky syrup and drowning insects, never mind the crazed locals. Lovely imagery.

[Frumish]

So we see that Mea Shearim is run by faggot gangs who do their utmost to prevent heterosexual experiences. Thus one may say, halachically speaking, that charedi = faggot. Not the flamboyant type of faggot mind you but rather this religious faggot who needs to get a woman to shut up and breed. Sounds like an efficacious system based on the birthrate.
Liberal is one thing but Mea Shearim is beyond Ultra Liberal.

[p_almonius]

I hope they use synthetic raspberry syrup to avoid kashrut problems with bugs.

P.S. I misread "crazed locals" as "crazed lolcats". I think we need a lolharedi site. Perhaps it could be called "I can has sanity?" Throw in the bubbemaiseh about tzaddikim being reincarnated as Jerusalem street cats.

[Mr. Apikoros]

Warning to Haredim:

Don't eat the raspberry syrup off the benches. It will get infested with bees, ants and other bugs, and won't be kosher.

Of course, the Haredi idiots who do this also inhibit the use of these benches by grandpas, grandmas, grandchildren, not to mention men, straight and gay, from having discourse with other men while sitting down.

[phillip]

The whole country is becoming one large
lunatic asylum.

[Ben]

Phillip, don't overgeneralize please. If you watch your local news in USA you'd find that "whole country is becoming a gang of murdering crack ingesting thugs". This is not so for USA and it is not so for Israel. Don't judge majority by the actions of miniscule crazed minority.

[Red Sox Fan]

Ben, if they wanted to end the craziness, the rabbis would. Either these people would be put in cherem or driven out of the neighborhood. So two things are possible:
(a) The rabbis and others there tacitly approve; or
(b) There are a lot more people involved than a "minuscule crazed minority."

[David]

This will lead to even more ass-licking than is currently the practice in that community.

[Mr. Apikoros]

Wouldn't they taste better if covered in raspberry syrup?

[alternative childcare]

I think the important question is which hashgacha did they rely on for the jam? Was it badatz or Rabbanut? If the latter, are they oveir on "placing an obstacle in the way of the blind"?

[harold]

Ben - well said!

...smear raspberry syrup on public benches and other meeting places...

I sure hope that if caught that they get arrested for defacing public property and littering. There must be laws on the books there for this sort of behavior. They should then have to spend a couple or weeks on some form of sanitation duty.

[Pablo Faird]

We know that the ``Vaad Hatznius`` is run by a rogue group of nut cases who answer to noone. Most of the residents do not agree with the tactics used and are powerless to stop it, and unfortunately the Rabbis are powerless as well.
The only way to stop this behavior is through undercover police roaming the streets on Friday`s and Shabbos, or through strategically placed cameras which can identify the perpetrators. Then a good beating which they will remember for quite a while would help as well.

[Shmarya]

The Vaad Hatzniut is run by Ger hasidim.

[Mr. Apikoros]

Better punishment:

Catch 'em, then make 'em lick up all the syrup and jam from the bug-infested benches. Make sure they lick up every little bit. People in Zimbabwe are starving.

[Pablo Faird]

Shmaya,
The ones who patroled Kikar Shabbos on Friday afternoons when I was living there a couple of years ago were Meah Shearim Yerushalmi`s, not Ger hasidim.

[Shmarya]

I'm sure most of the rank and file are Yerushalmis. But the head is a Ger hasid appointed years ago by the Gerrer Rebbe.

[danny]

Here is my interpretation:

The smearing of raspberry syrup on park benches can also greatly inconvenience elderly and handicap members of the community when they need to rest and sit. It's almost like putting an obstacle in the path of someone who is blind.

It is ignorance that causes the modesty vigilantes to perform such acts. The unintended consequence is that there is less peace and more suffering in the world.

[ah-pee-chorus]

Frumish: stop using offensive terms like that. it obscures any potential point you might have.

[harold]

A couple of well placed cameras should clean up the nest.

Anyway, I would assume a few weeks of this nonsence and the locals would be fed up. The key thing is that the town should not clean up the mess or they should "take their time" to clean it up. I sure as h-ll wouldn't want to have these magnets of bees and bugs in my neighborhood.

[ah-pee-chorus]

this is what happens when you combine a society with complete sexual repression with a purported justification for such from an old book and a belief by the deluded that they really know what god wants and are doing a good thing. in their minds this is at least as important as providing food for the starving or comfort to the ill.

[MS]

dont forget- the syrup is a also an extra embarrassment to women since a red syrup stain on their behinds looks like leaked menstrual blood. Such a doubly offensive policy.

[Ahavah]

Obviously, the sane residents of the area should stake out the affected places and be ready with bb guns, bean-bag guns and other non-lethal but highly annoying weaponry. I'm sure they can run away just as fast as the chereidi can when the police are called.

[steve]

Where's Yochanan with his "Raspberry Beret" parody.

[Yossel]

So long as their kind enough to leave a snack out, how about some Fox's U-Bet chocolate syrup? It does so well with raspberry

[Asa]

Lol Yossel. A campfire and some marshmallows and we can have ourselves a Shabbat campfire, and regail each other with non-Torah stories.

[dr. dave]

Asa

And we can sing:

Throw a rock my rov, Kumbaya

[Hometown Postville]

I thought I had heard of everything! Turnabout is fair play- now, how about slathering syrup on their little boys so they can tell who has been playing with them?

[Asa]

Hometown: I thought they did that already, you know, as a matter of foreplay.

[Asa]

dr. dave: I'll bring extra tzitzit. We'll need something with which to hold the tents together. But leave the shtreimel at home, my friend. it's wabbit season.

[Clear]

Where's Yochanan with his "Raspberry Beret" parody.

I stopped by this thread to ask the same thing!

[Frumish]

For Ah P et alia (the class who don't like plain language):

Why not just call things what they are vs using obscure euphemistic nomenclature to obfuscate the salient feature of this particular segment of Mea Shearim society? This modesty patrol thing is very clearly a bunch of sadistic faggots. To say otherwise is to insult their victims.

[Hotspur]

Great, so my poor great aunt and uncle (in their eighties, survivors of the Shoah) should have their clothes ruined if they sit down on a bench to take a break?

I'm serious, cut all the welfare payments to these cruel people.

And what's wrong with people talking to each other? Babylonian Talmud, tractate Ta'anit 30b-31a said that Jewish men would watch girls dance and sing and take a bride from them.

It's amazing how our ancestors were fools till this generation came along with its superior wisdom.

[Yonah]

But when sukkot comes, how will anybody be able to bench lulav??

[Asa]

Yonah, I guess they'll have to grass lulav, or trash it altogether.

[harold]

cut all the welfare payments to these cruel people

I assume you mean to the people found guilty of perpetrating the crime.

[Clear]

Could the unfairly irritated residents form Bench and Stairs Patrols - get groups of guys who watch the benches and stairs and stop the vandals from defacing them?