“Die situation ist verzweifelt, aber nicht ernst.”
This Viennese slogan from a century ago was on my mind during my recent trip to Israel. “The situation is desperate, but not serious.” That is, the matzav (situation) is serious, but people do not act as if they were in a serious matzav.
Things are not looking great in the Middle East for Israel. Well, perhaps they never are, but it looks to me worse than usual. As I landed, Hamas was shooting rockets into the South, including Beersheva as well as Ashkelon and Ashdod, where my cousins from Russia live, and the rockets they are importing are getting deadlier and more accurate all the time. The chareidim I encountered do not read secular newspapers, or frum newspapers either, but they are fully au courant with the latest piguim (attacks), and with the ceaseless twists and turns in the matzav. The Iranian bomb is chugging along, and no one is going to do anything to stop it. The Turks have turned on a dime, and are making themselves Israel’s most dangerous foe. And Hizbollah has 50,000 rockets. And the PA is probably going to get statehood from the UN. And…and…
It’s a far cry from my younger days, when tzahal, the Israeli army, still occupied Gaza, the PLO was a terrorist group in exile in Tunisia, and Iran and Turkey were Israel’s friends. Die situation ist verzweifelt – but not serious, as far as I could see in people’s behavior. Rather, the usual combination of the petty and the grand, the ridiculous and the sublime.
* * *
The petty and the grand? Well, the quarrels between the frum and non-frum are baruch Hashem as robust as ever. All the frum people I encounter complain about discrimination against them, but of course they are just fine with discrimination that works in their favor. I interacted with quite a few young couples in Yerushalayim who, because of the housing scarcity in chareidi neighborhoods, are living in apartments in non-chareidi neighborhoods, supremely confident that their presence will be so obnoxious to their non-chareidi neighbors, the latter will move out, “ve-hashechuna titchared,” the neighborhood will turn chareidi.
And indeed, neighborhoods are changing in remarkable ways. The chasana I attended was in Geulah, at least I think of it as part of Geulah, on Rechov Straus. Rechov Straus is named after a famous American Reform Jew from New York, Nathan Strauss, who was a philanthropist and donated money for a Hadassah medical clinic in Geulah (a modern neighborhood at the time) back in the 1920s on Rechov Chancellor. (Oh, I forgot to throw in my Jewish geography. Nathan Straus owned Macy’s.)
Rechov Chancellor? Well, Sir John Chancellor was the British High Commissioner at the time, and I guess the Jews wanted to flatter him by naming a street in the Jewish neighborhood for him. Didn’t help, though. When the Arabs rioted and killed Jews in 1929 (Chevron massacre, remember, the pogrom at the Chevron yeshiva, etc.), Chancellor sided with the Arabs and shut-down all aliyah to Eretz Yisrael, until Zionist lobbying got the London government to reverse this decision a year or so later. So Sir John Chancellor was not too popular with the Jews there, and when Israel gained its independence, it was not surprising that they changed the name to Rechov Straus, after the guy who gave the money for the clinic there.
Neither Chancellor nor Strauss was an Orthodox Jew, of course, but Straus was at least a sincerely religious Jew. Let me explain: A hundred years ago, Reform Judaism was as fiercely anti-Zionist as Satmar (though for different reasons, obviously). However, there were some exceptions. A number of rich American Reform Jews at that time adopted the attitude that they were opposed to Zionism but not to Eretz Yisrael. They wanted to help build Jewish things in Eretz Yisrael, but they did not want them to be “political” – hospitals, schools, farms, that sort of thing. Of course, you and I know there is nothing unpolitical in Eretz Yisrael, ever. But they did not see it that way. So guys like Straus did travel (in millionaire style, of course1) to Palestine to tour Jewish settlements and act as Jewish Santa Clauses whenever the spirit moved them. Some important contributions to the Yishuv were made in this fashion.
In 1912, Nathan, his brother Isidor, and Isidor’s wife visited Palestine on one of these jaunts. Nathan really got the “Eretz Yisrael bug,” fell in love with the country, etc. When the trip concluded, Isidor and his wife hurried back to Europe to return to America in time for the Fall balls and operas. Nathan decided to stay longer and see more, so Isidor and his wife went back by themselves to London to catch the boat to New York.
The name of the boat was the Titanic…
When Nathan heard about the deaths of his brother and sister-in-law, he was distraught. He realized that had he not decided to remain in Eretz Yisrael a little longer….
As I said, Nathan was a real old-school German-American Classical Reform Jew of a century ago. But he refused to attribute his escape from death to mere coincidence. He never became frum, but he did resolve to give two-thirds of his vast private fortune to charitable causes, mostly Jewish, a lot of it in Eretz Yisrael. That is why they named a city after him, Netanya (kind of feels like Paul Harvey, doesn’t it?)
So Rechov Straus is not named for an Orthodox Jew, but not for an alienated one, either.
Now, you may object that there is no wedding hall on Rechov Straus. Well, there is one now. It is the old, large Histadrut building. Do you remember this building? Have you noticed it before? It’s a large rectangular leftover from the Ben Gurion era, when the Mapai party ruled Israel, and the Histadrut, the nation’s socialist labor-union, ruled the Mapai. A different country, long ago. The ruling party was Marxist, though not Communist. The other big Marxist-Zionist party of those days, Mapam, was indeed communist, or close-to-communist; in those days Mapam kibbutzim flew the red communist flag (not the Israeli flag) and worshiped Stalin. It was a Marxist religion, though that god eventually died and took the religion down with him. To be fair, these same Mapamniks fought like lions in Israel’s War of Independence, but if they would have had the power, they would have closed down every shul, every cheder, and every yeshiva.2
In those days the country was dominated by a small group of men (plus Golda Meir) who controlled the government and the economy. I guess there was certain kind of political stability in those days, with the same people holding office election after election. (I write these words the day before the Baltimore primaries: no comment.) As Marxists, they were in principle committed to atheism, to regarding religion as the “opiate of the masses,” in the words of Reb Karl. They gave their best shot at trying to completely secularize the State of Israel and its population, but the task proved too much for them. They had too narrow a window of time, about 25 years (1948 to 1973). After the Yom Kippur War, the air went out of the Mapai-Mapam balloon, and they have never been able (if I may be permitted to mix metaphors) to put Humpty-Dumpty together again. I doubt if younger readers even know what I am talking about, so long has it been since the petira of the socialist ideal, both in Israel and abroad.
But 50 to 60 years ago, things were different. A relative of mine married the granddaughter of a rosh yeshiva in Bnei Brak, an old-timer who learned there in the time of the Chazon Ish. This rosh yeshiva is not only a big talmid chacham but a wonderful down-to-earth human being. He once told me a story from when he was a bachur. When he would travel from Petach Tikva (I think) to Bnei Brak, and people would ask him what he did, he was so ashamed to say he was learning full time that he would lie and say that he was an oved chakla’i, an agricultural worker in the orchards. A worker in the fields and orchards enjoyed far greater esteem and respect than a bank kvetcher (bench warmer), as yeshiva bachurim were contemptuously referred to by others, including quite a few observant Jews.
Another reason for trying to stamp out religion was politics, pure electoral politics. After 1948, religious parties competed with Mapai for votes for Knesset seats. Every Jew who was frum was a voter who would not vote for Mapai. Therefore Mapai felt like the tribe of Menashe, who complained about Tzlafchad’s daughters long ago, “They are taking away from our portion and giving it to other tribes.” Mapai reasoned that every child educated in a secular school was not going to vote religious when he grew up, and was a potential Mapai voter. Hence the pressure in those days on Sefardic olim in particular, and on parents in general not to send their kids to religious schools; hence the battles of Chinuch Atzma’i and Pe’eylim upon which my generation was raised at those assemblies in the old TA auditorium on Cottage Avenue long ago.
Now, the government at that time could not formally practice discrimination, but the Histadrut could…and did. They controlled whether you got a job, health-insurance, housing, everything – unless you were independently wealthy. The Histadrut was the organizational personification of power, and the large rectangular buildings they erected all over the country were architectural symbols of this power and solidity. The main Histadrut headquarters in Tel Aviv was called “the Kremlin.” The very architecture of protektsia.
And now, it has become a chareidi wedding hall. Old timers told me they remember the basketball courts that used to be inside the building. No more; ball-playing is not exactly welcomed in Geulah. The large rooms now house the smorgasbords which are the gastronomical symbol of chareidi culture in our era.
Not that Israeli smorgs are like the American ones we are used to. Unlike many of our readers, I do not attend many Israeli weddings; this is my second or third, I think. There is none of the formality of the modern American frum wedding, which is a movie script with which everyone is familiar. It is only the actors who constantly change; the roles remain the same. Fashion and habit hold undisputed sway in our society, every chasan and kallah knows what is expected of them; they have dreamed and planned it for a long time. Same with every parent, in-law, mesader kiddushin, etc. Like classical music, the piece is familiar, the only question is, how well will he/she perform the piece.
I am not complaining or condemning. I was no different. And anyway, some of my best friends are caterers, photographers, and musicians.
The wedding I attended was somewhat different, with a studied contempt for formality and even aesthetics, at least on the male side of the chasana; I can assure you I have absolutely no idea what was happening on the distaff side. Even the aufruf dinner I attended, where everyone was family, was separated by a big mechitza.
But the males? Well, one fellow went over to the simple but elegantly-carved fruits and vegetables at the smorg and deliberately messed them up, saying in Yiddish, “This all looks too neat and fancy!”
The procession of chasan and kallah is a deliberate balagan, no procession at all, just a chaotic squeezing-and-bumping-your-way-to-the-chupa somehow, with the mesader kiddushin and other principals in the midst of the mob, blithely indifferent to the noise and disorder. The chupa was a creaky little metal platform attached to a truck in the Histadrut parking lot. In the middle of the ceremony, another truck pulled out for some reason, so our truck and its bima chupa had to be evacuated temporarily to make room, and the principals and surrounding crowd had to move and revert to tohu vavohu before the mise-en-scene could be reformed.
But none of this mattered to chasan and kallah, who were supremely happy and religiously exalted (they really were), so who cares?
The kallah is of German-Jewish decent, but her family has gone the way of so many and Litvishized, or more accurately (as the late Rabbi Poliakof would insist), yeshivishized. Worse, the relatives of the kallah have converted – judging by garb – to chasidism: Satmar, Vishnitz, and Belz. Oh well, sic transit Gloria Germaniae. But then, when the chupa is over (in this wedding they broke the glass earlier, before the sheva brachos), all the “chasidim” assemble behind the creaking platform and sing “Shir Hama’alos”; indeed, they insisted on singing “Shir Hama’alaus.”
As they say in America, “You can take Robert E. Lee out of Virginia, but you can’t take Virginia out of Robert E. Lee.”
* * *
In the ridiculous-and-sublime department, I had occasion to have dinner in Ramat Beit Shemesh, where I got an earful, more than I wanted to know, about the whole ugly business with the Mizrachi girls school near the chareidi neighborhood and the daily protests and harassment. My hosts thought that it was perfectly fine to have the little girls screamed at by these big chareidi guys from Ramat Beit Shemesh every morning on their way to school, etc., and that if the end is the evacuation of the school and its transformation into a branch of Reb Arele, or whomever, great: hashechuna mitchared. These very nice Israelis could not understand how I could disagree with them – yet another case of the Israel-America divide. We all oppose chilul Hashems and favor Kiddush Hashems, but we differ over how exactly to classify specific situations and attitudes.
Military historians often speak of the “fog of war,” the miscommunications and misunderstandings that characterize the chaotic reality of military battlefields everywhere. The same is often true of ideological battlefields. A friend of mine here in Baltimore told me his granddaughter is one of those little girls harassed every morning so viciously that the cops have to be present. He sent me a You Tube of the scene, with these big chasidim standing there (or sometimes invading the school building) screaming at the top of their voices “Pritzus!” and “Shiksas!” so loudly that you can say “Kol ha’am ro’im es hakolos.”
Yes, I know you’re patur bedinei adam, but what about bedinei Shamayim (Choshen Mishpat 420:32)? Thing is, the little girl doesn’t understand what they are shouting; after all, she does not know Yiddish. “Ima, why are these chasidim shouting ‘pizzas!’ and ‘schnitzels!’ every morning? And anyway, isn’t it milchig and fleishig?”
Nu, are you supposed to laugh or to cry?
Now, there are no coincidences, and just as I write these lines, someone has sent me an online piece by Yonasan Rosenblum, also complaining about the Beit Shemesh bullies. Included in the article is the following:
I don’t expect the “zealots” to be convinced by anything I write: They don’t listen to Rabbi Elyashiv, why would they listen to me? The zealots listen to no rabbinic authority. Rabbi Aharon Feldman, today the Rosh Yeshiva of Ner Israel in Baltimore, once told me how 30 years ago, he and a group of some of Jerusalem’s most distinguished younger talmidei chachamim tried to convince a group of kids throwing stones on the Ramot Road on Shabbos to stop. The kids just laughed at them.
Nothing for me to add. But apparently some other Americans feel the same. A Baltimore friend living in Ramat Beit Shemesh tells me that a small group of American chareidim living in in the town have visited the school to demonstrate their sympathies with the yellees, as opposed to the yellers. Now, another source tells me some American frum ladies there brought flowers to the school girls for Shabbos. Crazy Americans – that’s what my hosts would say, shaking their heads and clucking their tongues.
* * *
Well, enough of the ridiculous. I promised some sublime. Here it is:
Walking to a chasidishe shul in Ramot one morning, I espied a wall poster. As everyone knows, posters are the Israeli-chareidi contribution to modern architecture. As far as I can tell, they generally fall into three categories. First, there are the advertisements for new sefarim, etc. Then there are the pasquinades, a French word corrupted 150 years ago in Hebrew to “pasquille” and more recently corrupted to “pashkville.” These are the well-known political posters decrying and attacking everyone and everything. It’s got to be really scandalous to attract anything more than the most momentary notice from jaded passersby. Finally there are the death notices, which announce the passing of whomever in grandiloquent terms, and sometimes provide practical information for those who want to visit the aveilim. Usually the nusachs are similar: “The crown has fallen!” “The Jewish people are widowed now that the great so-and-so has passed!” etc., etc. Like everyone else, I absentmindedly skim them to make sure it is not anyone I know. If not, they do not hold my attention.
This morning, I stare at a death notice about someone I never heard of or knew but whose nusach rivets. In addition to identifying the niftar, the public is urged to accede to the niftar’s last request: lerachem, levater, la’azor – to show rachmanus (compassion) to others, to give in to others (in arguments), and to help others. “Veha’ikar lo litz’ok al af yehudi.” The main thing the niftar requested was never scream at another Jew. “Nisached yachad kol beis Yisrael – let all of us Jews unite together.”
Wow. Who was this guy? I really wanted a copy of this poster, but I could not just tear it off the wall, could I? (My Israeli hosts ask, why not?) Later in the day, I saw the sign all over Geulah, Meah Shearim, and Bar Ilan, along with the other, standard, posters. This is the antithesis of all this divisive junk, I thought. The only possible hint of the niftar’s motivation I could discern was his identification as the son of Reb So-and-So, Hashem yinkom damav (may Hashem avenge his blood), which probably denotes a Holocaust survivor. In other words, some Yid who made it to Israel but whose father perished in the Shoah. Anyone whose family went through that is probably grateful we have an Israel, warts and all, and realizes our biggest asset as Jews is achdus (unity) to the maximum degree possible, given our differences, and that our greatest flaw is all this non-achdus I have been chronicling. Don’t we have enough enemies?
I thought to myself, “Gee, I’d really like this for the Where What When, but I can’t really tear it off the wall, can I?
Well, my last morning in Ramot I went to daven Shacharis. On my way out, new signs had replaced the old ones. “My” poster had just been torn off and thrown on the ground, waiting for someone to pick it up and throw it in the trash. Providential! I grabbed it and packed it.
The rest is history. The message is timeless.
1 My favorite story along these lines is when Baron Edmond Rothschild of Paris, the foremost philanthropist, who poured zillions into Eretz Yisrael while insisting he opposed Zionism, visited Palestine in those years, he came on a super-fancy large yacht, with two separate kitchens, one kosher, one not. You see, the Paris Rothschilds like Edmond were not observant, though in a weird French way nominally Orthodox (too complex to explain here). Edmond’s wife, on the other hand, was a Frankfurt Rothschild, fully shomer mitzva. Her father, Baron Wilhelm Rothschild, was super-frum, actually, wore gloves not to directly shake the hands of ladies, etc. When they got married, they agreed to respect her kashrus requirements without limiting his Gallic gourmandize requirements. When you are rich, everything is possible…
Since Sukkos is around the corner, another Rothschild tale, from Edmond’s English cousins. The London Rothschilds were in between Paris and Frankfurt, not so frum as Frankfurt, not so frei as Paris. When the English Rothschild built a huge palace in England, he invited Queen Victoria for the chanukas habayis. It was all in the papers: Victoria planted a tree, Rothschild affixed a silver mezuzah to the front door, etc. It was Sukkos, so he invited the Queen to be his guest for a dinner. Now, you can just imagine the sukkah of Rothschild: gold, silver, diamonds everywhere, etc. etc. And if the guest was the Queen, kal vachomer. As she entered and beheld the extraordinary opulence, the Queen asked Rothschild, “What exactly is the meaning of this outdoor dining-room?” Assuming an appropriate air of piety and quiet modesty, Rothschild answered, “You Majesty, this is how our ancestors wandered 40 years in the desert at the time of Moses.”
With a look of astonishment, the Queen, after surveying the million-dollar sukkah, responded, “They travelled like this?!”
2 Which is why it was a big story a few years ago when the grandson of one of the Mapam leaders, Aharon Zisling, became frum and made a siyum for his grandfather’s yahrtzeit. Where? At Kibbutz Ein Harod, the main Mapam kibbutz, the place about which the Ponovezher Rov long ago said, “Print a lot of tehilims for Ein Harod. One day they will want them and use them there.” (Update: I just googled and saw that Aharon Zisling’s grandson is a rosh yeshiva in a kipa sruga yeshiva near Haifa.)
