Anti-Semitism, Not Flag Waving, Was the Cause of the Recent Unrest in Jerusalem

On Sunday, in honor of Jerusalem Day, thousands of Jews participated in the annual Flag March through the Old City, which predictably resulted in some violent outbursts. In the Israeli public sphere, there continues to be an ongoing debate about whether police should change the route of the march to avoid Arab neighborhoods, or prevent it from taking place at all. Ben-Dror Yemini believes that such arguments miss something more fundamental:

The claim that the Jerusalem Day Flag March in the capital serves as the catalyst for violence among Muslims in general and the Palestinians in particular is simply outrageous. All the more so considering this sentiment is often echoed by highly educated and well-informed individuals. Yes, the Palestinians are fuming, but they did not need the march to get there. In a stark contrast to years prior, the Muslim world had remained mostly indifferent to the march this year—apart from Jordan’s condemnation and Al Jazeera’s usual attempt to incite the region.

This specific brand of incitement and hate is nothing new. It began way before the flag march ever existed, and even well before the Six-Day War in 1967. . . . Going even further back, we will find that Jerusalem was one of the most neglected cities in the Muslim world. It is true that it is the third most holy city in Islam—and yet, for centuries they thought nothing of it and paid it very little attention. The eyes of the Muslim world fell on Jerusalem only after the Jews—who were persecuted everywhere, even in Muslim countries—demanded a national home to call their own.

And yet, we must remember that there are Muslims—both inside and outside Israel—who do not partake in [this] murderous ideology. We also cannot ignore the groups of Jewish hooligans, such as La Familia, who attend flag marches in order to encourage violence. However, [the two phenomena] are not the same. Among the Palestinians, there are religious leaders who encourage bloodshed. Among the Jews, there are marginal groups.

The Arab world is on its way of undergoing a process of rehabilitation from anti-Semitism. But that way is long and winding.

Read more at Ynet

More about: Anti-Semitism, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Jerusalem

It’s Time for Haredi Jews to Become Part of Israel’s Story

Unless the Supreme Court grants an extension from a recent ruling, on Monday the Israeli government will be required to withhold state funds from all yeshivas whose students don’t enlist in the IDF. The issue of draft exemptions for Haredim was already becoming more contentious than ever last year; it grew even more urgent after the beginning of the war, as the army for the first time in decades found itself suffering from a manpower crunch. Yehoshua Pfeffer, a haredi rabbi and writer, argues that haredi opposition to army service has become entirely disconnected from its original rationale:

The old imperative of “those outside of full-time Torah study must go to the army” was all but forgotten. . . . The fact that we do not enlist, all of us, regardless of how deeply we might be immersed in the sea of Torah, brings the wrath of Israeli society upon us, gives a bad name to all of haredi society, and desecrates the Name of Heaven. It might still bring harsh decrees upon the yeshiva world. It is time for us to engage in damage limitation.

In Pfeffer’s analysis, today’s haredi leaders, by declaring that they will fight the draft tooth and nail, are violating the explicit teachings of the very rabbis who created and supported the exemptions. He finds the current attempts by haredi publications to justify the status quo not only unconvincing but insincere. At the heart of the matter, according to Pfeffer, is a lack of haredi identification with Israel as a whole, a lack of feeling that the Israeli story is also the haredi story:

Today, it is high time we changed our tune. The new response to the demand for enlistment needs to state, first and foremost to ourselves, that this is our story. On the one hand, it is crucial to maintain and even strengthen our isolation from secular values and culture. . . . On the other hand, this cultural isolationism must not create alienation from our shared story with our fellow brethren living in the Holy Land. Participation in the army is one crucial element of this belonging.

Read more at Tzarich Iyun

More about: Haredim, IDF, Israeli society