Religious extremism emanating from Israel

Not content to exert their influence within the Haredi community, fundamentalist religious leaders and their sponsors have taken to attacking the Modern Orthodoxy community, which extols the virtues of Torah together with modernity and secular education.

20/10/2017 00:01

Tags: Religious fundamentalism · Eric Yoffie · Shlomo Yehuda Rechnitz

An ultra-Orthodox Jew in NYC, source: Wikipedia

The trend is clear.

As Rabbi Eric Yoffie writes in a recent article [link], "In a report issued last month, Young Advocates for Fair Education (YAFFED)... demonstrated that the virus of radical separatism and fear of modernity, so prevalent in Israel, has also infected the Haredi community in New York City.

According to the report, many of the 57,000 students – and nearly all of the boys – in New York’s Hasidic yeshivas will graduate from high school completely unprepared to support themselves.

Since the boys’ education will mainly consist of Yiddish language religious studies, most will speak little English and have no math skills or knowledge of history or science. The result will be that they will possess few if any marketable skills and will depend heavily on various forms of public assistance. The report noted that this assistance has increased dramatically in the last decade, and 43% of Hasidic families are poor."

"Extremism in the cauldron of the Israeli Haredi world foments extremism elsewhere," writes Rabbi Yoffie, [and] "as secular education in the yeshivas has deteriorated, the New York State and City education departments have looked the other way, despite laws mandating adequate education for all children in the New York City system... Children must be given an adequate education so that they will have the tools that they need to make a living."

As Rabbi Yoffie points out, "According to the Pew Research Center survey of U.S. Jewry, more than 60% of American Orthodox Jews now identify as Haredi" and are therefore potentially subject to this extremist influence emanating from Israel, where the state budget for yeshivas and yeshiva students has now hit an all-time, historic high [link]. This spreading of fundamentalism throughout Jewish communities across the globe is threatening in its own right.

However, the problem is much more profound than that.

As the Haredi community grows in size and in political clout, the broadside attacks against liberal Orthodoxy and its leaders increase. The voices of fundamentalism are growing louder in their triumphalism.

Not content to exert their influence within the Haredi community, fundamentalist religious leaders and their sponsors have taken to attacking the Modern Orthodoxy community, which extols the virtues of Torah together with modernity and secular education. As the Haredi community grows in size and in political clout, the broadside attacks against liberal Orthodoxy and its leaders increase. The voices of fundamentalism are growing louder in their triumphalism.

Just last week, Shlomo Yehuda Rechnitz, a leading Haredi donor from Los Angeles spoke at the Mir Yeshiva in Jerusalem.

As reported in the Jerusalem Post [link], Rechnitz proclaimed, “The greatest threat to Klal Yisrael today is a group called ‘liberal orthodoxy’ because they took our name and our definition... Call it whatever you want, but this new religion is best defined in the famous words of the president of the United States: Fake Jews. It’s all fake. This idea is dangerous and should be eliminated as a malignancy.”

Rechnitz is an exceptional personality: a well-known figure linked to all policymakers, from the leaders of the ultra-Orthodox world to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He is not afraid to express his opinion in matters of hashkafa, or haredi ideology.

As Hiddush has noted many times, the battle for religious freedom in Israel is not between Orthodox and non-Orthodox Jews. Rather, it is between lovers of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state and religious extremists who aim to turn Israel into a theocratic Torah state. The same rabbinic and political leaders who publicly assail Diaspora Jewry and non-Orthodox Judaism do not hesitate to turn their fire on Modern Orthodox Jews, full throttle. It is nothing less than a travesty that these hateful forces hold such sway over Israel’s very own government.