A Modern Orthodox guy drives with his family through a haredi neighborhood in Jerusalem 20 minutes after Shabbat has ended. Haredi kids try to wreck the car by stringing rope across the street. (Remember the Burt Reynolds movie, The Longest Yard? Remember the very tall guy who played Lurch the butler on the Addams Family t.v. show? He clotheslines a guy in the Longest Yard, and then happily says, "I think I broke his f**king neck!" That is what these haredim tried to do to this MO guy's car.)
The MO guy sees the rope in time and narrowly averts impact. Then, a few days later on motzoie Shavuot, a few minutes after the holiday is over, the MO guy and his family drive through the same haredi neighborhood, down the same street. This time the haredi kids stone the car, breaking a window and narrowly missing one of the family.
A co-worker tells MO guy that the previous motzoie Shabbat, he drove that same route, did not see the rope in time, and damaged his car.
MO guy points out that the government closes that street, Rehov Yirmiyahu, at great inconvenience to the secular population, every Shabbat and holidays. This is what the haredim wanted. They got it. Why the rocks after Shabbos when the street has already been reopened to traffic? Why the clothesline? Where are these kids' parents? Their rabbis? Their neighbors and families?
What do you think? For my part, I think that much of the haredi world views non-haredim as somehow less Jewish, even as not Jewish at all. I've heard Jerusalem haredim actually say this about secular Jews, and I think this belief has become almost widespread in that community during the last few years as the community has radicalized even further in reaction to modernity pressing in on them from all sides. And non-Jews are little more than animals to some (note the word here: "some") of these haredim. That attitude is becoming even more pervasive.
It used to be rocks were thrown to "defend" Shabbos. Now they are thrown to "attack" "goyyim." The change in attitude may be subtle, but that change does not bode well for our future.
Jews who "defend" Shabbos by throwing rocks may not hate secular Jews. Jews who throw rocks to stake out turf, to push around "the goyyim," do hate other Jews.
What can be done about this? I really don't know. Do you? Do you have any suggestions? Readers?