Eek! Chareidim! Run!

On both the laughable and the outright despicable lens through which this group is viewed.

Ploinus Almoinus opened an interesting conversation on why the chareidim do like they do.

And after reading through the article and comments and not seeing anything that looks or tastes or even closely relates to chareidim as I've come to know them, I gripped my quill firmly, unrolled a fresh yard of parchment and prepared to squander even more superfluous ink.

But before I make my mess, isn't it fascinating how nearly everyone is ready to characterize and judge chareidim as if they were a single, monolithic amorphous blob?

And to ascribe to them, as a bloc, pathologies and personality disorders and neuroses and guilt complexes much in the manner that Ford's International Jew and Hitler's Mein Kampf did? Yimach shemam v’zichram.

So much subtlety and careful analysis.

So much ahavat Yisrael!

Incredible.

And preposterous.

The chareidi world is at least as varied and nuanced and fractured as any other segment of Israeli society — if not more.

That said, the condemnation, ridicule and even derision of the chareidi universe is issued with such a smug, self-satisfied sense of assurance, that one wonders if the detractors ever ventured that world at all, or if their cartoonish understanding of so rich and vibrant a sector of Judaism was purchased via the scan of a weekend Jerusalem Post, or a scroll through Arutz 7.

In short, so ignorant (and in some cases malign) is the criticism, that we believe it requires immediate disqualification of the critic himself and a short note placed beside one’s computer indicating, in red, the vanity of ever again taking that writer seriously.

Does that mean one can't generalize about chareidim?

No, sir.

But certainly not in so vulgar a manner.

So, let’s give it a whirl!

The one item, in our view, that epitomizes chareidim is their willingness to take on the greatest enemy that Jews face today, the Erev Rav. There are others who are willing to face them down, too, like the Hilltop Youth and other Kahane types, but what unites nearly all chareidim and what distinguishes them from the rest of Israeli Jewry is their recognition of that particular evil embodied at the core of the zionist enterprise.

And anyone with any historical perspective knows precisely what that evil is — a desire to destroy Torah and remove G-d completely from the Israeli reality, chas v’shalom.

Now, again, not all chareidim are of this view, as we stated above. There are those who are stronger in their outlook, like the Peleg Yerushalmi and the Eida Chareidit, who are willing to be moser nefesh til the end on the matter.

While at the other end of the spectrum are those who are willing to join the army or police or whatever other state institution might offer reasonable employment benefits and a pension.

And that last is not hypocrisy, by the way. In a socialist country like Israel your ‘opt-out’ options are limited. You can’t run from Bituach Leumi or the kupot cholim or the electric utility monopoly — unless you want to die, go bankrupt or be imprisoned.

As well, collaborating with any of those institutions doesn’t bring a Jew to any safek of tumah; that is, you’re not going to lose your olam haba because you were forced to pay a monthly premium to Meuchedet or because you accepted your kitzbat yeladim.

But army service is different.

TzaHaL today remains more an experiment in social engineering than a genuine army — the last year and a half’s appearances to the contrary.

It’s goal is clearly to create zionists, erase religiosity and help the nation march hand-in-LGBT-hand toward a secular, Miami-on-the-Med reality.

And that’s where most chareidim draw the line.

When it’s clear that the goal is shmad, why participate?

More to the point, why not resist with all one’s might?

Particularly when no one else is doing it (with the earlier-mentioned exceptions of the Kahanists and the Hilltop Youth).

As far as the chareidim are concerned, the greatest enemy of the Jewish people is the Erev Rav, not the Arabs. And methinks they’re right.

The Erev Rav has already done a wicked number on the mamlachti, tapu-chip kippa sruga cohort, who are happy to fight and die for the regime while the army strives (mostly successfully) to strip them of all outward traces of their Judaism.

Why should the chareidim do the same?

They have a G-d.

And their hands are already full with a different fight.

You take the Arabs… We’ll take the zionists.

A proper division of labor, you might call it, an enemy for the dati leumi and another for the chareidim.

Let the entire country can stand up and yell “but we bear the burden!”

In the Arab arena, maybe.

But against the cruelest of all foes…?

Only chareidim.

And as for those who point fingers and issue diagnoses of the only unified body resisting both passively and actively the Erev Rav murderers who rule over us, please consider…

That to the extent you oppose these people and their lifestyle and the battle they’ve chosen to wage — you simultaneously reveal yourself to be in possession of a very particular form of kefira.

One that draws from the well of the Mityavnim.

One that desires to break from the old-world ostjuden, the better to acculturate into Berlin, with its ‘new’ Judaism, its modern, rational sensibility and its proud, statist temperament.

Those who opt for such an outlook should know — they make of the state a golden calf and confer legitimacy upon the zionist Amalekites.

And they damn themselves and the rest of us to ruin.

Dean Maughvet