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Last update - 14:18 14/05/2009
Anti-Semitism is rearing its head in Tel Aviv
By Gideon Levy
Tags: Gideon Levy, Israel news 

Anti-Semitism is raising its head. Not in Warsaw, Munich or Paris, and there's no need for the Anti-Defamation League to wave the evidence around. It's right here, in our own home, in verdant Ramat Aviv, the most enlightened suburb of Tel Aviv, our most enlightened city. The entry of a handful of ultra-Orthodox Jews to this lovely, modest and tranquil neighborhood has provoked an unlovely wave of racism, tearing the thin veil of openness and liberality from this seemingly left-wing community. If anyone were to behave this way toward Israeli Arabs, the residents might raise a hue and cry, but when it comes to Haredim the gloves are off because attacking the "blacks" is the fashion.

They stand on street corners - God help us - offering men the opportunity to don tefillin: the scandal. They've rented a few apartments to sleep in, and perhaps even to teach Torah: a disaster. A handful among the neighborhood's secular inhabitants: a takeover, the very image of Beit Shemesh. The jargon of the neighborhood's "action committee" recalls days best forgotten. Its Web site speaks of finding "apartments rented to Haredim in order to apply pressure on landlords."

What kind of pressure, exactly? Why, for God's sake? Why the fear? Don't Haredim, like any minority, have the right to live in the neighborhood? No, not when it comes to Haredim, the punching bag of the left. What nationalist Israelis do to the Arabs, the left does to the ultra-Orthodox. There's no difference. Demonization, dehumanization, scare tactics and the sowing of hatred.
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Hatred of the Other is the same, whether the Other's name is Mohammed or Leibele, whether he wears a kaffiyeh or a shtreimel. It makes no difference whether the racist is an Arab-hating Kahanist or a Haredim-hating leftist: He is still a racist. Imagine such a committee operating in a European city opposing a so-called "Jewish takeover" of a neighborhood. We would sound a battle cry. But there are already "patrols" in Ramat Aviv by "enlightened" celebrity parents, and heartrending testimony. "Seducing Minors" shouts a headline on the Web site, as though denouncing pedophiles. What's the deal? That Haredim tried to persuade a 13-year-old boy to put on tefillin?

This is not a local issue. The attitude to Haredim is nationwide. It is an insular community, conservative and strict, not exactly my cup of tea. Most of them do not serve in the army (in accordance with a law passed by the nonreligious), some of them choose not to work and most live in dire poverty. They "suck the country dry." We can excoriate them to our heart's content without being suspected of racism. And so, they are victims of racism. Most were pushed out of formerly mixed neighborhoods in Tel Aviv, remaining only in the Sheinkin Street area, and how lovely the sight: a parent bringing three children to school on one bicycle, heavily bearded teachers, Yiddish as the language of daily life, mutual aid and other traditional customs alongside secularism at its best. Multiculturalism.

One is not compelled to love them, identify with their odd leaders or admire the political power of their wheeler-dealers. One is compelled to oppose their violence when it occurs, but also to accept them as they are, as long as they obey the law. They are incalculably preferable to the settlers, who are much more violent and who have sown a much worse disaster in our midst, a plague on future generations, yet against whom no such bitter hatred is aimed. You know why? Because the struggle against the settlements and the occupation is not in the consensus and therefore demands courage and a high personal cost.

Hatred of Haredim is in the consensus. There is no cost to attacking them; that is considered normal behavior. And so the people of Ramat Aviv, my dear neighbors, too cowardly to wage more important and just struggles, have established an action committee against the Haredim. But the Ramat Aviv of this committee is not only pretentiously trendy Ramat Aviv. The issue is not simply a single liberal neighborhood. This is Israeli society as a whole. Until we learn to accept those who are different or exceptional, we cannot call ourselves a tolerant and just society. Hatred of Haredim in Ramat Aviv, or Arabs in Safed, is the same disease. Is the cashier in your supermarket wearing hijab? That's heartwarming. Next let's let her wear a hat, or a wig.

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      1.   Headline 06:13  |  Yaakov Stern 14/05/09
      2.   The Habad in Ramat Aviv 06:34  |  Fredy Ross 14/05/09
      3.   haredim 06:35  |  alan 14/05/09
      4.   New Respect for Gideon Levy 06:44  |  James Folan 14/05/09
      5.   Haredims` feelings toward secular is mutual 06:46  |  Joe 14/05/09
      6.   Is it "anti-Semitism"? Here is what it is. 07:02  |  Fortuna Benmayor 14/05/09
      7.   You are eighter left OR racist, you cannot be both! 07:04  |  Kris Lazar 14/05/09
      8.   Remember what they have done the same to seculars in Jerusalem 07:07  |  Dan 14/05/09
      9.   disappointed with Levy 07:13  |  steven 14/05/09
      10.   Subtle lies 07:19  |  Yurochka 14/05/09
      11.   A difficult entangled mess 07:29  |  netsp 14/05/09
      12.   Gideon Levy again proves: "Liberalism is A Mental Disorder" 07:37  |  common sense 14/05/09
      13.   Gideon Levy - Hypocrisy at max 07:39  |  Di 14/05/09
      14.   What nationalist Israelis do to the Arabs, the left does to the u 07:55  |  Colin Wright 14/05/09
      15.   Congratulations 08:08  |  howiej 14/05/09
      16.   They even call the Haredim "Blacks" 08:23  |  Dave 14/05/09
      17.   Haredim are a threat 08:25  |  MarkC 14/05/09
      18.   To Colin 08:37  |  Herzlich 14/05/09
      19.   To #4 and to everybody else 08:51  |  Avraham 14/05/09
      20.   Philip Roth 08:59  |  Student 14/05/09
      21.   Philip Roth 09:01  |  Student 14/05/09
      22.   Haredim in Ramat Aviv 09:08  |  ISSY 14/05/09
      23.   thankyou gidon levy for a kind and sensitive article 09:29  |  eliyahu 14/05/09
      24.   Oh come on, that is just plain fear. 09:37  |  Jo 14/05/09
      25.   Ultra Orthodox 09:38  |  Anon 14/05/09
      26.   "..but also to accept them as they are, as long as they.... 10:01  |  Jew- and Bookburner 14/05/09
      27.   So open minded that their brains fall out! 10:10  |  DG 14/05/09
      28.   Dave - don`t be snide 10:15  |  ChanahS 14/05/09
      29.   About Haredim 10:19  |  Haim 14/05/09
      30.   excuse me steven 10:55  |  Joe 14/05/09
      31.   I agree with the writer 11:28  |  Kev 14/05/09
      32.   Just an event; why such grand generalisation? 11:32  |  S 14/05/09
      33.   #5 reply 11:39  |  observer 14/05/09
      34.   ISSY-#22-What about Neturei Karta? 11:50  |  Daniel Leopold 14/05/09
      35.   Religion`s a pain. It`s in its nature. 11:51  |  Michael 14/05/09
      36.   Were not the Nazi`s "Enlightened"? 11:52  |  Avi 14/05/09
      37.   This is not quite as Gideon Levi writes 11:57  |  Shlomo from Tel-Aviv 14/05/09
      38.   Haredi club on the Hill 12:00  |  ky 14/05/09
      39.   Israel belive everything its oki 12:01  |  Yakov 14/05/09
      40.   A few comments 12:09  |  observer 14/05/09
      41.   Gideon Levy, you have excelled yourself 12:48  |  sh 14/05/09
      42.   Thank you Mr. Levy 12:54  |  Moshe 14/05/09
      43.   Shlomo 12:59  |  sh 14/05/09
      44.   Levy and antisemitism 13:44  |  Moshe Ben Nun 14/05/09
      45.   gideon, is it really you? 13:57  |  vladimir 14/05/09
      46.   OK, Gideon, I see your point... but... 14:28  |  Esther 14/05/09
      47.   Gideon Levy: hypocrite par-excellance! 14:32  |  Ari 14/05/09
      48.   Gideon, I take my hat off!!!!!!! 14:45  |  Abecassis 14/05/09
      49.   Anti-Semitism in Israel 14:53  |  Ralph 14/05/09
      50.   Chabad is a Cult 14:59  |  Jane 14/05/09
      51.   Media`s simple rule - when Pope in Israel 16:39  |  Boris 14/05/09
      52.   I finally agree with Gideon Levy 16:45  |  Max 14/05/09
      53.   Racism?. Nonesense 17:20  |  arik 14/05/09
      54.   There`s now`t stranger than folk 17:36  |  Harvey 14/05/09
      55.   Levy gets it all wrong 21:14  |  Proud Secular Jew 14/05/09
      56.   Anti -semitism in Tel Aviv 01:06  |  Jerry Sherman 15/05/09
      57.   I have seen this open hatred of hareidim... 06:38  |  Axelrod 15/05/09
      58.   Denial of `Live and let live` 09:40  |  Noel 15/05/09
      59.   Strange bed fellows 13:00  |  Ben 15/05/09
      60.   interesting definition 13:29  |  potobac 15/05/09
      61.   Haredim in secular city 16:03  |  Neil 15/05/09
      62.   Bnei Brak = Ultra Orthodox, Ramat Aviv = secular/knitted kippot 21:45  |  Tee Gee 15/05/09
      63.   Reactions of individuals to Chassidim 01:06  |  Nate 16/05/09
      64.   The Pen Having Written Moves On 03:22  |  Reader 16/05/09
      65.   Gideon Levy, I am not surprised... 05:02  |  Dutch 16/05/09
      66.   Religious coersion. 23:51  |  David 16/05/09
      67.   DORIS surprised?? Arabs did a recorded pogrom in Tzefat in 1834 04:22  |  PETER SM 17/05/09
      68.   haredim in ramat aviv 07:22  |  judy 17/05/09
      69.   Levy is half-right 08:24  |  Josh Y 17/05/09
      70.   First time I have ever mostly agreed with Levy 09:51  |  jk 17/05/09
      71.   Antisemitism rearing it`s head in Tel-Aviv 01:25  |  Samir Halabi 19/05/09
      72.   Racism??? 15:38  |  Sean 16/07/09
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