Watch out for the secular guy

April 17, 2009 - 1:45 PM by · 1 Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, coexistence, General, Israeliness, Life 

haredimIf there’s one thing Israelis like to do, it’s categorizing people. Not that we’re prejudiced, but it’s second nature when describing someone that’s not like you to use a term like ‘haredim’ (Ultra-Orthodox), “Roosim’ (Russian), or ‘Aravim’ (Arab).

And it’s not only religion or nationality, it can also describe behavior or cultural bents – someone can be a ‘freche’ (Israeli version of a Jewish American Princess), an ‘Arse’ (a male JAP), or a Tzfon Tel Avivi (beourgouise, Left-wing Tel Aviv resident).

But did you ever think that those same people you’re labelling with the greatest of ease are also stereotyping you?

I was walking to work yesterday afternoon through a Jerusalem neighborhood inhabited mostly by devoutly religious Jews who generally dress in black and sport peyot around their ears. There, how’s that for political correctness?

Three boys, around nine or 10 years old, were playing in the street when a car drove by slowing down by them. After passing the first two boys, the driver stopped at the last one and appeared to be asking him a question.

The first two boys looked on excitedly. “Hey, he’s talking to Yediya,” one of them said.

“Who is he, an Arab?” asked the second boy.

“No, I don’t think so. He looks hiloni (secular),” was the first boy’s response.

I cracked up. To them, this perfectly normal looking guy, who I would describe as a middle-aged white male, was to these haredi youth, a non-religious outsider. To them, he was as exotic and foreign as an Arab or an Ethiopian is to a white, Ashkenazi, secular Israeli.

No moral to the story here, it’s just interesting to once in a while look at things from the other guy’s point of view. And maybe if we stopped labelling everyone we saw, we might all be a little better off.

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Foto Friday – Yuval Nadel

January 16, 2009 - 4:15 PM by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Art, Foto Friday, General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Religion 

The world of haredi observant Jews is one that most secular Israelis never get a chance to see – and if they do, they find it alien, even threatening. Photographer Yuval Nadel, an Israeli-born Jew with a secular up-bringing, became familiar with and learned to appreciate and respect the people who lead a religious lifestyle.

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In a collection of photographs called “Custom, Prayer and Ceremony – The Jews of the Land of Israel”, he documents that meeting between secular and religious without trying to explain the lifestyle or Jewish customs. “As a photographer, it was important for me to show the religious experiences of Israeli Jews from my personal point of view,” he says.

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The photographs presented in Nadel’s book were taken over four cycles of holidays and intermittent days between 2004 and 2008. Nadel writes that his journey began at the annual festive Lag B’Omer commemoration at Mount Meron. “I was captivated. Over the next four years, I traveled around the country to the various outposts and locations where Jews perform their mitzvot (commandments), ceremonies and prayers… I arrived to these places as a photographer, as a bystander observer and yet as someone participating in the experience. It was so, because that’s how I was received…”

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While most such books “fall prey to the sin of anthropology… based, at worst, on patronizing voyeurism and at best, on intellectual curiosity,” writes Israeli journalist Kobi Arieli, an observant Jew, “Yuval Nadel’s approach arises out of a positive attitude that is nurtured and grows with each image… This book is a story about love and light, which is why it is both good and enjoyable.”

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For his part, Nadel says, “If these photographs can contribute even slightly to help unite Jews through exposing a beautiful side of the world of observant Jews in Israel, I will have reaped my reward.”

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Juuuust behind the times

July 31, 2008 - 4:50 PM by · 6 Comments
Filed under: Pop Culture, Religion 

Haredim walk the streetsIsrael’s Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) community values tradition over progress, believing that anything new is inherently suspect. With the community’s impoverished state, the internet age has opened many avenues of telecommuting income for Haredi families, so the rabbinical leadership has treated computers and telecommunications with kid gloves. The result is a grey area for a sector of Israel’s population not known for being allowed much room for individual thought.

Sure, many Haredim have secret TVs behind closed doors (even if they decide for themselves that it’s okay, their neighbors might not understand), and even more watch moving images on their computers. There’s a mega-earning Haredi film industry, with CD-ROMs containing movies that have zero actresses and Torah-friendly messages:

The plots are usually convoluted melodramas, most of them tear-jerkers that are loaded with edifying messages and Haredi cliches: There will always be a goy (or a secular Jew) who discovers his Judaism; and twins separated at birth, one of whom grew up with goyim (or secular Jews) and returns to his origins. And an ancient copy of Psalms will always find its way to its owner.

But even this scene is banned by many rabbis, its key players operating semi-secretly – even though it’s known that families often own computers just to watch these productions.

During a recent visit to a used cellphone retailer near Jerusalem’s Davidka Square, a corner that’s situated on the border between the super-black Makor Baruch neighborhood and the spaghetti-strapped downtown, I overheard a Haredi man asking the salesman which of the phones he offers are “kosher.” Puzzled, I asked him if he intended to eat his phone, whereupon it was explained to me that some phones allow for streaming video (which might be lewd) and some do not (rendering them kosher).

Video is clearly a point of contention. A recent Haredi ban differentiates between mp3 players (good, because they can be used for Torah study) and mp4 players (evil, because, they are capable of displaying video, which may lead to sin):

Even though MP4s are sold at several stores in Jerusalem’s ultra-Orthodox Geula neighborhood, the anger was directed at this particular store because it dared advertise its wares in a Haredi newspaper. Unsigned posters reading “Prepare for the great campaign to stop the corruption” have appeared throughout the neighborhood in recent weeks, denouncing the store for openly advertising “reviled devices that drag all who touch them toward danger.”

These types of verdicts are strangely almost keeping up with the times, only confirming their reactive grounding – simply not based on any guiding doctrines, but rather trying to maintain control over the ever-elusive buffer zone between mankind and our temptations.

The old adage that “guns don’t kill people; people do” comes to mind: Technology doesn’t unto itself cause people to enjoy sinful modes of entertainment, but it makes it a whole lot easier. In these parts of Israeli society, morality isn’t meant to be a matter of individual but rather what’s pronounced from above – in public anyway.

Flickr photo by whodisan215.

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