In the wake of recent Jewish terror attacks on gays, Christians and a sleeping Palestinian family – attacks that killed two children and wounded more than eight other people – the haredi and Zionist Orthodox communities maintain they are opposed to violence, and some in those communities, maybe even most, may be. But the real question that should be asked is, are the haredi and Zionist Orthodox communities opposed to the results those terror attacks got?
In the wake of recent Jewish terror attacks on gays, Christians and a sleeping Palestinian family – attacks that killed two children and wounded more than eight other people – the haredi and Zionist Orthodox communities maintain they are opposed to violence, and some in those communities, maybe even most, may be. But the real question that should be asked is, are the haredi and Zionist Orthodox communities opposed to the results those terror attacks got?
In other words, do these Orthodox Jews oppose the means – violence – but not the end results?
A very perceptive longtime reader pointed out to me last night that the haredi community always rushes to say tehillim (psalms) for gravely ill or injured Jews, and its various news websites frequently post the Hebrew names of some ill person and ask people to say tehillim for their speedy recovery. Kids who get hit by cars or fall off buildings, people in major car accidents or Israeli Jews hurt in terror attacks frequently get this treatment.
But, the reader did not see similar calls for psalm-saying for the Jewish victims of the haredi Gay Pride March terrorist, and while there may have been some, they were not made prominent or emphasized like would normally be the case of the terrorist had been an Arab.
There were no haredi prayer gatherings or asifas for these Gay Pride attack victims just like there were none for the Arab family so gravely injured in the Douma attack that killed their 18-month-old baby. And other than some very liberal left-leaning Zionist Orthodox rabbis, the mainstream of the Zionist Orthodox rabbinate in Israel and in the Diaspora made no effort to urge introspection or even to have their followers pray for the victims' recovery.
Is this blatant silence, this failure to loudly, clearly and publicly ask the God they say they believe in to heal the gay and Arab victims of these Jewish terror attacks proof that while they may really disapprove of Jewish terror attacks – the means – they're not strongly opposed, or perhaps not even opposed at all, to the injuries and deaths – the ends – these Jewish terror attacks caused? After all, the Torah punishes male homosexuality with stoning and endorses and even appears to command collective punishment (the commandment to wipe out Amalek, for example, and the Torah's rules of war as understood by many rabbis). Is this the reason for the silence?
The reader thinks it is.
I do, too, but with one caveat. Orthodox Judaism tends to view non-Jews as the Other, as something very different, lower, and less worthy than Jews. In its eyes, non-Jews are idolators, impure, act only out of selfishness and can never really be fully trusted. Being immersed in that belief system from birth makes it very difficult to see past it as an adult. It isn't just a few rabbis who are morally wrong here – it is the religion itself.