Zebra Shabbat

With cyclical regularity, usually once every two or three years, the Days of Awe come early to the capital. Suddenly in early summer, stormy demonstrations visit the local miasma, which cause "even the fish in the water to tremble," as the "supervisors" at the Lithuanian yeshivas say.

The local journalists on the Haredi beat know it. So do the press photographers, the police officers and the ordinary beat cops, and even the duty judge at the Magistrate's Court lock-up in the Russian Compound. And nevertheless everyone is surprised each time anew.

The day after Shavuot, ostensibly with no warning, the streets are invaded by "zebras" with the robes whose blue lining, everyone knows, is more precious than rubies, and unravel the imaginary status quo between the handful of Haredi communities in the Holy City and the tens of thousands of secular people who live there against their will. The pretext is selected randomly from a "target bank" in the war room at Batei Zupnik, the headquarters of the Eda Haredit: a coed swimming pool, public transport on Shabbat, grave desecrations, archaeological digs, revealing ads on bus stops, movies on Friday nights, soccer games.

This year, it was the turn of the Safra Square parking garage. On Saturday, the musical intro was sounded. A few injured police officer, a few arrests. But this is just the beginning.

The scenario is unchanging and known in advance: The Reb Aralach, the militants and oldtimers of Naturei Karta, will drag after them the "penguins" - the Cossacks of Gur and all the rest of their Agudas brethren. After them come the Shasnikim and the nationalist Haredi "Hardalim," with big upside-down hummus bowls for kippot, and then, bringing up the rear, the young rabble of "Beitar Mishorim" (Mea Shearim) and plain old ordinary good Jews. The whole land will roil, the near-faltering government will reach the end of its road, another "high-level committee" will search for an equitable solution, and eventually the parking garage will be turned into a complex of underground synagogues named "Out of the Depths I Call to You," that the masses will call "the catacombs."

As someone who reported on Haredi affairs in Jerusalem in the 1980s, I believe I can contribute some insights to the discourse that will clarify the underlying motives for the regular outbreak of summer protests.

First, in the summer Shabbat is almost unbearably long, ending only at 8:30 P.M. The Haredi apartments in the steamy "cholent belt" around the Holy City, may it be rebuilt speedily in our days Amen, are small and crowded, the synagogues stiflingly hot, the sermons boring and the young men itching for a little action. Going out into the street is a kind of legitimate outing, for a shpatzer, an urban stroll that is ideological in nature and has the blessing of the great sages of the generation. That is the first reason.

Second, the admorim, the yeshiva heads, the rabbis and the operators are worried about the erosion of their communities' commitment to the Haredi isolationist ideology. The bonds holding together Shlomei Emunei Yisrael have loosened, creating an excellent opportunity to restore social cohesion.

The most important reason of all - the dwindling coffers of Haredi institutions. Haredi budgets are passed on Yom Kippur Eve. In the lobbies of synagogues throughout the Diaspora, dozens of charity boxes await those who seek to atone for their sins. The hearts and wallets of the guilt-plagued, as Jerusalem schnorrers know, will only open if they learn of Zionist, mounted troopers on the rampage, a kind of contemporary version of the Ukrainian pogromchiks, raising their hand against the "eternal Jew," the one who in our generation lives on the front lines of the God-fearers in Jerusalem, which is held captive by the "heretics' state."

One picture is worth a thousand words, a legendary Haredi "operations officers" told me once in a moment of great candor. The real product of the protests are the news photos.

The late Rahamim Mizrachi, a veteran Jerusalem news photographers, once related that the organizers would call him on Thursday to tell him where the clash would occur, and to arrange to meet him on Sunday to buy his best photographs. A color photo of a Haredi man being dragged, bareheaded, by an officer, blood staining his pure, white, Sabbath shirt, could fetch $5,000. Such a photo would be distributed throughout the Jewish world, quickly filling Jerusalem coffers.

"Would a God-fearing Jew send his brother to desecrate the Sabbath?," I wondered aloud to him. "I asked the yeshiva student who commissioned the picture that same question," Mizrachi replied. "And he told me, without smiling, that in his eyes I was a total goy and therefore exempt from the commandment to observe the Sabbath."

Brethren of the House of Israel, a hot summer, rich in photographs, is out there waiting.