Anti-Zionist Haredim Tear Down Mourning Notices For Haredi Pol

In 1984, when Porush defied the Gerrer Rebbe and Council of Torah Sages, dozens of Gerrer hasidim beat him up and trashed his building.

Suspected anti-Zionist Haredim destroy rabbi's mourning notices
By Yair Ettinger • Ha'aretz

Mourning notices posted around Jerusalem announcing the death of former politician and journalist Rabbi Menachem Porush were vandalized on Tuesday in the ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods of Geula and Mea Shearim. 

The Porush family said they were not surprised by the act, which they suspect was carried out by an anti-Zionist sect who rejoiced over the rabbi's passing and called him a "leader of despicable Zionism." 

Thousands of people gathered on Monday to pay their respects to Porush, one of the leaders of the Agudat Yisrael party, who died on Sunday at the age of 94. 

Large mourning notices posted by various ultra-Orthodox organizations on the walls between Jerusalem's Davidka square and Shabbat Square in the Mea Shearim neighborhood extolled the virtues the long-serving Knesset member. 

Porush, portrayed in the notices as a warrior "in the battles for our sacred values," had led the ultra-Orthodox campaigns against a mixed-gender swimming pool, archaeological digs, the High Court of Justice, and even against opening the Karta parking lot on weekends last year. 

Porush's death marks the end of an era, which began in the pre-state Jewish community, including all the ultra-Orthodox struggles against the Zionists and all the attempts to cooperate. In Porush's case, this cooperation earned him calls of "extortionist" from the secular side and "traitor" from the ultra-Orthodox zealot side. 

His son, Deputy Education Minister Meir Porush, eulogized his father in Yiddish yesterday. He related how his father had wept when the Rabbi of Brisk [Yitzhak Zeev Halevi Soloveitchik, one of the greatest opponents to Zionism] died in 1959. Porush, he said, had learned from him fighting methods, how to "run the campaign to achieve its goal." 

Porush, a seventh-generation Jerusalemite and descendent of Lithuanian immigrants, sat in the Knesset for 35 years until 1994 and remained politically active until his death. 

Ministers and public figures came to pay their respects, including Education Minister Gideon Sa'ar, Opposition leader Tzipi Livni, Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin and Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, who defeated Porush's son in the 2008 mayoral election. President Shimon Peres attended the cleansing ritual preparing the body for burial yesterday morning. 

Addressing the deceased, he said: "I haven't seen a harder working man than you. You did not waste a moment of your life. You devoted every minute to the public, the state and the Jewish people." 

"He was a great Jew. He was like one of the stones of the Western Wall in the holy city of Jerusalem," Peres said. 

"Menachem my friend, you were filled with vision and hope for the future of the Jewish nation. You loved the nation and worked to unify it. You stood as a bridge between the parts," Peres said. 

The son of a deputy mayor of Jerusalem, Porush entered politics through journalism, working as a writer and editor for religious newspapers for two decades until his election to the Knesset in 1959. 

He represented the ultra-Orthodox community's affairs in Jerusalem, but unlike his father, who was very poor, combined business with politics to accumulate a huge fortune. His affairs included ownership of the Bikur Holim hospital (which ended badly) and of Jerusalem's Hamerkaz hotel. "God made me lucky," he once said, adding that unlike his father "I won't depend on anyone." 

In the hotel, which has since been sold, Porush used to convene opposing parties in Jerusalem's kulturkampfs. This is where he also held the ultra-Orthodox battles, since most of his opponents were not secular but came from his own faction. 

In 1984, when Porush defied the Gerrer Rebbe and Council of Torah Sages, who demanded he give up his Knesset seat, dozens of Gerrer Hasidim stormed into the hotel, beat him up and destroyed the place. Shortly afterward he told Haaretz that the event took him back to the 1929 riots.

Comments

[harold]

He was a great and accomplished man certainly worthy of a FailedMessaih "Baruch Dayan Emes" post announcing his passing rather than this dribble posting of the shenanigans of these wacko fringe elements.

[itchiemayer]

Sinas Chinam...

[Dr. Dave]

I agree with Harold. I may have disagreed sith some of his policies but I had the utmost respect for the man z"l.

[Levi]

"combined business with politics" ehhhh

[rabbidw]

Acharei mot kedoshim emor.

[Yosef ben Matitya]

Acharei mot kedoshim emor.

no problem with that at all.
it's the gerrers that are outright animals.
i am not looking for finesse in them, they are just criminal idiotic savages.
what is jewish in these deranged idiots?
bayshanim rachmonim my butt.

[HaNavon]

while i do have respect for him, i think that the orthodox should have been more open with regard to archeological digs, and the many other things that he had pushed for that go against reason. that being said, i think we lost a great man among our people who was able to fight against the current of corruption and the closed minded masses who march in lockstep off the cliffs of spiritual insanity.

[Pessie Gelb]

These gerer chasidim are really a bunch of violent whackos full of unholy chutzpo to beat up a rabbi for not listening to their rebbe.

[Jay]

@Harold,
if you think Shmarya did something wrong.. take a look at what the frummer-then-God nut jobs on VIN are saying about Porush:

http://www.vosizneias.com/49948/2010/02/23/jerusalem-anti-zionist-suspected-in-destroying-rabbi-porushs-mourning-notices#comments

[harold]

If you check out VIN they had this story.

Jerusalem - Veteran MK and Leading Rabbi Menachem Porush Passed Away at 93

http://www.vosizneias.com/49842/2010/02/21/jerusalem-former-knesset-member-rabbi-menachem-porush-dead-at-93

As well as:

Jerusalem - Hostilities Aside Thousands Pay Last Respects to Rabbi Menachem Porush

http://www.vosizneias.com/49884/2010/02/22/jerusalem-hostilities-aside-thousands-pay-last-respects-to-rabbi-menachem-porush

I was complaining about not including a mention of his passing. This is after all supposed to be a forum "Covering Orthodox Judaism since 2004". There have been posts in the past when there were acknowledgements to the passing of major Jewish figures. To ignore his passing and to acknowledging the actions of a few hooligans tearing down some posters I found to be disrespectful.

[Jay]

Nonetheless, read the majority of the comments on VIN.

[harold]

Nonetheless, read the majority of the comments on VIN

As Bob Grant would say, "they are sick out there and getting sicker". Most commenters on these sort of blogs are, to quote Bob again, "gavones". Angry ignorant folks.

Reminds me of the famous line of Blazing Saddles where "Bart" (Gene Wilder) says to "Jim" (Cleavon Little) "You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know... morons."

[Bilaam's Ass]

I can't believe it. A rabbi stole my money. A rabbi stole my money."
-- comments of prominent Jewish American mobster Joseph "Doc" Stacher, arrested over the years for "atrocious assault and battery, robbery, burglary, larceny, bootlegging, hijacking and murder," then an Israeli citizen after being deported from America in 1965.

These comments were made upon winning a lawsuit after being swindled by Rabbi Menachem Porush of the ultra-Orthodox Agudat Israel Party.

Robert Rockaway,
But -- He Was Good to His Mother. The Lives and Crimes of Jewish Gangsters, Gefen, Jerusalem, 1993, p. 116-117