The haredi columnist ‘quotes’ a nonexistent CNN interview with a Hamas representative in which that Hamas representative allegedly claimed that Hamas rockets are extremely accurate and that “80%” of the rockets Hamas fires are diverted to uninhabited areas by the god of Jews and cites this as proof that God – not the Iron Dome, not the IDF – is really saving Israel from harm.
Editorial: God, Not The IDF, Not The Iron Dome, Is Saving Israel From Hamas Rockets Haredi Columnist Says
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com
Marty Bluke reports that haredi columnist Chain Cohen wrote a column on the haredi news website Kikar HaShabbat about Israel’s US-funded Iron Dome missile defense system.
Cohen doesn’t like all the widespread praise for the anti-missile system, which has shot down many rockets and missile fired from Gaza at Israeli population centers.
Why?
Because, Cohen insists, the Iron Dome isn’t really saving Jews from harm.
Instead, Cohen insists that it is the merit of haredi Torah learning and fulfillment of mitzvot (Torah commandments) that causes God to save us from harm. The Iron Dome in Cohen’s mind is essentially superfluous.
Cohen ‘quotes’ a nonexistent CNN interview with a Hamas representative in which that Hamas representative allegedly claimed that Hamas rockets are extremely accurate and that “80%” of the rockets Hamas fires are diverted to uninhabited areas by the god of Jews.
In other words, Cohen either made up that CNN interview out of whole cloth or someone else did and Cohen – evidently no rocket scientist himself – believed it or knowingly chose to spread a lie.
The premise of Cohen’s ridiculous and offensive column is to justify haredi refusal to serve in the IDF and help protect Israel and to justify haredi refusal to properly educate their children in math and science (or in any other secular subjects, for that matter) so they could actually contribute to the country economically and, in some cases, militarily by developing high tech defense systems.
Cohen and his ilk – which, sadly, includes pretty much every haredi rabbi of note in the country and many outside it – can’t acknowledge that it is the blood, sweat, money and tears of non-haredi Israelis that defends the country and allows space for haredim to live in their own Dark Age.
It is overwhelmingly non-haredi Israelis who are risking – and, sadly, sometimes giving – their lives in Gaza, just as it is overwhelmingly non-haredi Israelis who pay the taxes that fund the various welfare programs and stipends that most haredim choose to live off of.
The burden of protecting life and the burden of paying for everything from the roads, the buses, the welfare, the hospitals, the schools and the IDF itself rests disproportionately and almost exclusively on non-haredim.
Cohen cannot admit this, not because the facts are wrong but because admitting it would make his bizarre haredi theological world collapse around him, and he can’t have that. The cognitive dissonance is too great.
So he adopts the insane haredi notion that haredi Torah study and mitzvot are the reason any of this technology works. It’s also the only reason the IDF is successful.
The Iron Dome? IDF training? The Mossad and Shin Bet operatives who risk their lives to gather intelligence?
Without haredi Torah study and mitzvot, in Cohen’s mind and in the mind of haredi rabbi, all those things would amount to nothing.
In that way, haredim become the true protecters of Israel because they are the true soldiers of God.
The problem is, besides all of the evident logical problems with this theology, the Torah supports none of this.
In the Torah’s mind, every male of military age, scholar or not, goes out to war when the country is threatened. There are no yeshiva exemptions in the Torah, no preferences given to men with dusty black hats and shiny pants seats.
Indeed, the haredi theology of their importance to protecting Jews is essentially made up out of whole cloth by haredi rabbis.
Cohen is a highly offensive person who previously wrote a column blaming the kidnapping and eventual murder of the three Israeli teens on the West Bank in June on the government’s reduction in funding to haredi yeshivas.
This is the insanity haredi media feeds haredim.
At any rate, lets test this haredi theology. Let Israel transfer every haredi man to Sederot in southern Israel near the Gaza Strip, and transfer all non haredim out of the city.
Then, remove the Iron Dome used to protect it.
If haredi Torah study and mitzvot are the key to protecting Israel, and if God diverted 80% of Hamas’ rockets (how did he miss the other 20%? not enough Torah study to keep Him awake?), haredim Sederot should be perfectly safe while the non-haredi slackers outside the city should be in big trouble.
We’ve already had a version of this test, though.
When Hamas rocket fire on the south increased two weeks ago, haredi yeshivas and their students fled north.
Zionist Orthodox yeshivas, however, stayed put in the south as did almost every other resident.
This special haredi-induced divine protection only seems to work – if it works at all – after everyone else risks their lives, works their tails off and spends huge amounts of money. And even then, the minute things get tough, haredim run away.
Haven’t we all had enough, already?
Isn’t it time to say that haredism is not Judaism and cut these ungrateful, hateful and selfish people off from the Jewish people?
There are many who argue that it is long past the time we should have done so, and frankly, I’m beginning to agree.