Haredi Rabbis Force Daycare To Ban Zionist Orthodox Children

"At the end of last week I heard from some parents that not only has enrollment begun, but it will conclude by the weekend. When I asked the kindergarten teacher for an explanation, she told me I haven't been notified since the daycare will be available next year only for haredim.”

 

Haredi Rabbis Force Daycare To Ban Zionist Orthodox Children
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com

The Hadas Daycare is located in the Kiryat Herzog neighborhood of Bnei Brak, one of the few neighborhoods in the haredi city that has a Zionist Orthodox population.   

Moshe and Hadas Alharar, who own the daycare, allegedly told Zionist Orthodox parents that their children would no longer be able to be enrolled in Hadas Daycare, because it is now a haredi only facility.

"We will not have anyone belonging to the Zionist Orthodox sector enroll in the daycare," the facility's operator allegedly told a parent over the phone.

Until now, Hadas Daycare had both haredi and Zionist Orthodox children enrolled.

But according to a report in Ynet, all that changed after haredi threats, causing the owners to have a special secret early registration for haredim only. It was just by chance that Zionist Orthodox parents found out that they were being excluded.

"At the end of last week I heard from some parents that not only has enrollment begun, but it will conclude by the weekend. When I asked the kindergarten teacher for an explanation, she told me I haven't been notified since the daycare will be available next year only for haredim,” Tehila, the Zionist Orthodox mother of an eight-month-old, told Ynet.

Tehila called Moshe Alharar that evening. He defended excluding Zionist Orthodox children, claiming that haredi rabbis would not allow their followers to enroll their children as long as Zionist Orthodox children are present.

"Maybe we'll succeed in eliminating only 90% [of the Zionist Orthodox], but the aim is currently to completely remove them. We can now service only the haredi sector," Alharar allegedly told the Zionist Orthodox mother.

"I was told they wouldn't be able to accept my son. At first they discussed signing a modesty clause, but the next day they said even that's impossible, since they just don't want the Zionist Orthodox,” another Zionist Orthodox mother claimed.

Zionist Orthodox parents filed a complaint against Hadas Daycare with the Industry, Trade and Labor Ministry. The ministry responded by making it clear that Hadas Daycare was breaking the law.

“The ministry opposes any form of discrimination in acceptance to daycares,” the ministry said in a statement.

Hadas Daycare, chastened, decided to void the early registration and reopen registration to everyone, haredi or not.

“Registration will be reopened in accordance with the by-laws, and will be open to all, without any demands for signing a modesty clause or any other clause which isn't in the ministry's by-laws,” it said.

"The spirit of the issue was completely different, and was taken out of context. We operate under the ministry's by-laws, and will continue to do so. The early registration was made by mistake, and has been cancelled,” Moshe Alharar said.

Comments

[Moshe Aron kestenbaum Williamsburg]

Reshaim arreeram , gemienu youngen, farbissena sthinkers , farshtelta kappas, taking money is ok? But enrolling ? Is yeherag veal ya-vor . Taking money for anything and everything is ok? But going into the army that's forbidden, zenen Zei meshugener? Or are we the crazy ones? What is going on here? Am I walking up side down? Please someone tell me

[jancsibacsi]

Moshe Aron kestenbaum Williamsburg--They are not only gantz mehuga they are evil to,their meshugas knows no boundaries,they are the ultimate hypocrites,the champions of all hypocrites,they are you forgot gemanine menchen if you can call them menchen,all the shame that is upon the jews today they bought it on they have no shame no morality.

[Moshe Mordechai]

Groucho Marx once said, "I would never join a country club that doesn't take people like me."

[jancsibacsi]

Moshe Mordechai--You are tottaly wrong grouche said he wouldnt join a club that would take him in, not that the club wouldnt take him in ,you got it wrong.

[Moshe Mordechai]

jancsibacsi - I stand corrected.

However, my misquote is the policy the Zionist Orthodox ought to take. Why send your kids to a school that is run by people like that?

[jancsibacsi]

On that i agree with you, i wouldnt send my kids were they arent welcome,but to refuse someone who wants to is not right either.

[jancsibacsi]

My last comment was meant for Moshe Mordechai.

[S M L]

It's a never-ending source of wonder to me that a sizable subset of Jews practice and exemplify so much of what can be wretched and wrong in a culture. If they'd stay walled off in their little boundaries like the Amish that'd be one thing but they're aggressive and expansionist - a blight on the good name of Jews everywhere.

[dh]

On the one hand, we want them walled up; on the other hand, we want to bring the women and children out to teach them how to protect themselves.

There is enormous proliferation of incest in Amish families.

[jancsibacsi]

S M L --You described them perfectly,you cant be more right.

[S M L]

I won't say that the ideal would be for them to be walled up and I know nothing about incest among the Amish - in such a small community it's more a matter of a small gene pool causing problems I suspect than incest.

Yes, we do want to expose Haredi young and the women to what lies beyond the bounds of their communities. Perhaps what I meant to express would be better phrased along the lines of hoping that they learn some way to live peaceably among others in a mixed society however that skill or willingness they clearly lack. There's a certain similarity between their tactics and those of Germany in the late 1930s. Does the term lebensraum resonate with anyone on this blog? No, I'm not calling them Nazis however Haredim are clearly invasive.

[gaon]

anti zionists should be put on a boat to zanzibar. a win win situation for all.
let them get social services there.

[Jeff]

Amazing. The Zionist Orthodox, Dati Leumi and the MO in general have spent years having to defer to the Haredim in nearly every sphere of their lives, then they're shocked - shocked!- when the black hats turn around and pull this sort of crap.

Meanwhile, after all this, would any of those parents send their children to a school with the children of Conservative, Reform or secular Jews? Oh, chos v'sholem!

I'm sorry, but as long as they continue to kiss the collective ass of the Haredim, they deserve whatever they get.

[Michael]

Wow Jeff, that's pretty harsh. Do religious zionists spit on Reform and Conservative girls who are wearing 'immodest' clothing? Do they refuse to serve in the army of their native country? Do most of them take money from the government for nothing? Do they have pashkevils banning the internet, t.v.s, movies, women driving, and the color red? No. They don't deserve blatant stereotyping and ignorance and I'm really surprised you think they would.

[Jeff]

They've spent the past fifty years making their collective bed. Now, let them lie in it.

[Jeff]

Michael, you're the Modern Orthodox boy who's been arguing with Joe on the other thread? You seem to be a very bright young man, so I’d like to expose you to a little history I’m sure you haven’t heard from your teachers.

Michael, the reason we are now confronted with the ongoing spectacle that is Haredism, the reason this blog exists, is due to a number of factors:

1. After WW II, the Haredim began arriving here in greater numbers. Their rebbaim - the same ones who had told their followers prior to the war that they were forbidden to come to this "treife medina", thereby condemning many thousands of them to death while they themselves escaped - now told them they had to begin reproducing like rabbits in order to replenish their decimated numbers, while the Modern Orthodox began having fewer children and concentrating, as they should, on preparing them for life in the twentieth century.

2. At the same time, the Modern Orthodox have always suffered from a basic insecurity over what they see as their "compromise" with modernity. For the past three generations, MO children have received mixed messages. On the one hand, their parents tell them, "Our way is better, because we embrace the best that secular culture has to offer while remaining true to the tradition." On the other, the kids grow up watching their parents glancing furtively over their collective shoulder, longing for Haredi approval - an approval we all know they will never receive. This subliminal message is the reason Modern Orthodoxy is losing as many kids to the right as it is to the left. Like the children of liberal and secular Jews, they are particularly susceptible to the machinations of predatory kiruv organizations during what has now become for many of you the almost obligatory year in Israel between high school and college.

3. For generations, both the Jewish Federations and the Haredi leadership (for different reasons) have both fostered and exploited among liberal and MO Jews a sense of nostalgia for the "alter heim". This began largely with the publication of Roman Vishniac's photos, about which Shmarya has written:

http://failedmessiah.typepad.com/failed_messiahcom/2010/04/the-great-deceit-how-the-baal-teshuva-movement-was-spurred-on-by-lies-456.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/04/magazine/04shtetl-t.html?pagewanted=all

4. Modern Orthodoxy has failed for decades to produce a strong, charismatic intellectual leader. The last one was, of course, Rav Soloveitchik, and the results of his influence are debatable. The Haredim, meanwhile, have a mewling rav on every street corner and are brought up from infancy to surrender all authority to them.

5. I highly recommend David Hartman’s (A”H) last two books, “The God Who Hates Lies” and “From Defender to Critic”. In the former, he talks about Rav Soloveitchik, who was his old teacher. Hartman retained his affection and respect for the Rav, but blamed him in large measure for Orthodoxy’s rightward shift. He argued that the Rav elevated halakhah to a level Hartman termed “meta-halakhah” – that is, a halakhah outside of space and time, and therefore unaffected by the vagaries of human experience. He crystallized for the Modern Orthodox the idea of a halakhah that is the product of divine revelation rather than the work of fallible humans, and in so doing, made them that much more susceptible to the influence of Haredi fundamentalism. Far from betraying the Rav’s legacy, today’s Modern Orthodox have in fact fulfilled it by capitulating to the Haredim, even though that was certainly not his intention.

The end result of the combination of all of these processes is that the Haredim now *are* Orthodoxy. They now own the franchise. They’ve far surpassed the Modern Orthodox in numbers and have commandeered the support infrastructure- the kashrut organizations, mikvaot, batei din, etc. Under their influence, all of Orthodoxy has moved sharply to the right, with the result that the right wing Modern Orthodox are now Haredi in all but name, and the so-called “centrists” (a term I dislike because I find it meaningless; today’s “centrist” would have been considered right wing a generation ago), such as the YU crowd, I call “Haredi Lite”. The only real Modern Orthodox today are those on the leftmost fringe, led by Avi Weiss and his students, Shmuel Hertzfeld, Steve Greenberg, David and Donniel Hartman, and perhaps a few others – and most Orthodox (unfortunately) don’t consider them to be frum, and there are barely enough of their followers to fill a function hall for a simcha, in any case.

The bottom line: For over two hundred years, Orthodoxy and the liberal denominations have each been predicting the demise of the other, and as I’m sure you are aware, the Haredim are still trumpeting the old triumphalist slogans: “We’ll bury you! You’ll assimilate out of existence within a generation! Your grandchildren won’t be Jewish!” Meanwhile, we’re all still here, but there’s a difference, now; Orthodoxy is at a watershed. The Haredim can no longer support their irresponsibly burgeoning numbers, and they refuse to educate their children in a manner that would allow them to function and compete outside of their cloistered, xenophobic subculture. As a result, their world is collapsing – succumbing to pressure from without and deteriorating from within – and when they go, they’ll be taking most of Orthodoxy with them. There aren’t enough liberal Modern Orthodox remaining to sustain a subculture; there may not even be enough left to provide a viable gene pool.

And the really tragic thing is that they did it to themselves. They collaborated with the psychopaths, allowing themselves to be convinced they’d gone off the true derech, while the latter alone represented “authentic” Judaism. They let their destruction in by the front door, handing over the keys to the kingdom and willingly embracing their own demise. It’s very sad, and it was all entirely unnecessary.

And yet while all of this continues to go on, while they are both subservient to and reviled by the Haredim, most Modern Orthodox continue to look down upon liberal and secular Jews. They may not like what is happening to their world, but they’d rather throw in their lot with the Haredim than with the “frei yidden”. Both here and in Israel, they’d rather have their kids attend school with the children of Haredi extremists and most likely assimilate their world view than fraternize with the children of “apikorsim”. It’s an entire subculture afflicted with Stockholm Syndrome.

That, Michael, is the reason I say they deserve what is happening to them. Please feel free to show this to your parents.

[Michael]

Jeff,

That was an excellent historical summary of the orthodox world's slide to the right, as well as the failures of modern orthodoxy in many respects to retain members and establish coherent messages. I will take issue with you though, that MO youth grow up confused. Where is the confusion in the Torah u'madah philosophy? Both are important and have value in bettering the world and understanding/imitating God.

Funny you should mention rabbi Hartman- I just finished reading 'The God Who Hates Lies' and I'm still deciding how much I agree with the thrust of this great work.

I also disagree that right wing MO are all but chareidi. After all, they do value secular studies, value work, and support Israel. Those are big differences.

I don't understand how you can say the Rav's legacy is fulfilled by the MO bowing to chareidi mores and values. The Rav was a revolutionary who was often despised in chareidi circles. He had a doctorate, he quoted and loved philosophy, he taught Talmud to women, he radically interpreted Torah, he said hallel on Yom Ha'atzmaut- and was demonized and attacked by the right wing for this! How can you ignore that and say he led to the MO becoming chareidi?

Also, modern orthodoxy does have leaders- Rav Lichtenstein, Rav Amital zt"l, Rav Shachter, Rabbi Broyde, Rabbi Slifkin, . All these leaders are attacked from the right but remain committed to their positions.

Also, have you read Rabbi Haim Solovetchik's famous essay from about 20 years ago in tradition magazine? It's called 'rupture and reconstruction' and its about this very issue regarding the charedization of orthodoxy. He uses shiurim as a classic example of how we are getting more machmir than necessary.

The MO are speaking out, you just have to listen.

[Jeff]

"I don't understand how you can say the Rav's legacy is fulfilled by the MO bowing to chareidi mores and values. The Rav was a revolutionary who was often despised in chareidi circles. He had a doctorate, he quoted and loved philosophy, he taught Talmud to women, he radically interpreted Torah, he said hallel on Yom Ha'atzmaut- and was demonized and attacked by the right wing for this! How can you ignore that and say he led to the MO becoming chareidi?"

As I say, it was not his intention. My point - that is, Hartman's point - is that the internalization of his approach to halakhah led to it. (Isn't it in "The God Who Hates Lies" that he explains this? If not, it's in the other work.)

As to the rest - well, we disagree. Profoundly. You're seeing what you want to see, or what you've been taught to. Perhaps as you get older, you'll come to see more.

[Michael]

Perhaps Rav Solovetchik didn't allow as much flexibility and creativity in Halacha as Rabbi Hartman wished, but he was definitely a modern man who understood the challenges America brought, and did his best to address them. The Rav got a lot of flack from the right and still does post mortem. Therefore, its hard for me to see Rav Solovetchik's followers turning into the people that he fiercely disagreed with. The Rav's legacy was one of celebrating secular knowledge, supporting Israel, and engaging with the world- all values that run directly counter to chareidi ethos.

Also, you say we 'disagree profoundly' as to the rest. Really?? Do you not think the rabbis I mentioned are MO leaders, do you really think chareidim value secular studies, and do you really disagree with Rabbi Haim's essay?

Finally, the internalization and views of halakhah by the Rav might seem primitive to you, but they didn't stop him from reading widely on existentialism, supporting Israel, or doing any of the other things I mentioned. Chareidim don't do those things! Their halachic systems and interpretations are far different than Rav Solovetchik's because their lives were and are so different! Their thought definitely influenced action.

[Suzanne]

It's impossible to predict the future, anything could happen - but, for what it's worth, I'm a believer that things go around in cycles. So perhaps the children and grandchildren of today's present crop of Israeli Haredim might NOT turn out to be be that crazy, after all. These new reforms that the last election brought in ARE very important. Already because of the new changes - it's pretty clear that the lives of these young Haredi are NOT going to be the same as their parents. (Barring a mass and nasty civil battle which they win - that is). Hopefully these new policies will have some real effect on softening the positions of these young people. I also think it's harder and harder now for Haredi leaders to ban things forever such as the internet which DOES give people a window to the outside world. Now, as far as the US goes - things could remain pretty radical here for a while. Here the Haredim ARE more or less successful in maintaining their large families by working on the outside and the more liberal branches of Judaism simply are NOT competing with them demographically. New York is probably the blueprint for how things are - and today most Jewish babies in NY are coming from pretty intense Haredi or Haredi inspired orthodox homes. (You have to give them credit in some ways - they HAVE kept up the birth rate, which, overall, is probably a good for the Jewish people if you look at things in the long run). But, back to the point, even now, there ARE pockets of resistance to the present religious severity among young orthodox Jews. I hear this myself from my own kids who are pretty close to an orthodox crowd. While there are now not a large amount of these "softer orthodox" - it's clear that there ARE at least SOME out there who are openly looking for things to lighten up. I only hope there are enough of them to make a real difference as I think they ARE very much needed today as a moderating force.

[Michael]

And regarding my own personal philosophy, I've been directly taught very little- most of my knowledge and ideas about God, Torah, and the world come from devoting hours to reading books and looking issues up online. This blog, for example, played a key role for me in shaping what I believe the ultimate goals of Judaism are in distinction to how badly Orthodox Jews are currently failing to meet these goals.

[Jeff]

"Finally, the internalization and views of halakhah by the Rav might seem primitive to you"

I mean the internalization of his ideas among the Modern Orthodox.

Michael, I can't communicate with you. Our worldviews are too different.

[Michael]

Jeff,

I'm a true-blue modern orthodox liberal who counts among his friends several atheists, agnostics, and a muslim who I met when my school had an interfaith exchange with an islamic school. Feel free to disagree with me, but don't say it's impossible to communicate, or that we are too different to understand each other. For someone frum I'm incredibly open-minded- give it another shot.