MV: “All of these events recently took place in a Middle Eastern city:”

Just a few updates and corrections, if you don’t mind, Marco…

MV: “- City residents violently protested that opening of a parking lot because it was mandated to stay open on their holy day, when the residents demand that everything be closed.”

Yes, and I could never see the logic of their actions… a group of supposedly deeply religious people protesting the desecration of their Sabbath by… desecrating their Sabbath. Am I the only one who sees the hypocrisy of their actions? It’s even more hypocritical when you consider that they’re protesting against the Jerusalem municipality leaving the parking lot open (for free, mind you—there are no parking attendants and the barriers are left up), so there’s no violation of doing business on the Sabbath.

MV: “- City officials are debating whether to open a sex-segregated bus service so that religious men need not be offended by having to sit too close to women.”

Not quite true. A decision handed down last year by the High Court of Justice (our equivalent of the Supreme Court) determined that any segregated bus lines would have to be privately owned, operated and distinctively marked as “Private Bus” lines. The court prohibited the public bus companies from participating in these lines. Any segregated bus lines will have to be operated by the ultra-Orthodox community at their own expense. The present debate is about whether to grant the community a permit to run those bus lines at all.

MV: “- A religious student ran over a female parking attendant causing her brain damage because she demanded he pay his parking fee. The attendant refuse, ran her over and was actually escaped jail time because his community rallied around him and stated that he was a promising student and jail would undermine his studies.”

The High Court of Justice reversed this decision just last week; the lower court judge who made the original ruling is now under investigation. (Just for accuracy, the parking lot attendant did not have “brain damage”, but a mild concussion among other minor to medium injuries.) The original ruling was made due to a plea that the student would not be able to become a rabbinical judge if he had a criminal record… I for one would not want this person to become any kind of judge for anything, in light of his behavior (it turns out that he was also driving while his license was suspended and he was caught several days later trying to steal a cartload of groceries from a supermarket—this is NOT the kind of person who should be a judge over a sandlot softball game, let alone any kind of court). There have also been questions raised about his behavior from another aspect—whether he would have done the same thing if the parking attendant had not been a) Ethiopian; and b) a woman. The ultra-ultra-Orthodox do have a history of racism and discrimination against women. At any rate, now that he has a criminal record, he will never be a judge.

MV: “- A religious mother was starving her three year old child and denying him medical care. The boy is down to 15 pounds and upon police taking the child into care and arresting the mother for abuse, the local community, instead of condemning the mother, rally to her defense and declare the police to be enemies and violently throw stones at them and burn hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of state property.”

This is still sub-judice, but the mother has undergone a psychiatric evaluation that is also under fire… US medical guidelines specify that psychiatrists are not qualified to evaluate suspected cases of “Munchausen by Proxy Syndrome”, and there are questions about the court-appointed psychiatrist’s objectivity (he was fired last year for “improper conduct” by the same hospital that lodged the initial complaint). The case continues and we’ll have to see what develops.

To me it’s sad that the “justification” for the protests had nothing to do with the good of the child, but only with their insistence that “the state had no right to interfere in their private affairs”. It’s pathetic when some group, any group, thinks their religion and customs take priority over the health and well-being of a human being—and it’s also against Judaic principles, where “pikuah nefesh” (saving a soul) is supposed to be a primary concern, outweighing all others.

Many of these “demonstrators” have been arrested and will have to appear in court.

MV: “Guess which city and country this all took place in? Not Saudi Arabia. All this was a week’s events in Israel’s West Jerusalem. All these acts involve Ultra-Orthodox Jews.

“And all of this news while front page in Israel has been non-existent in the U.S. press. Why do you suppose that? It is not that the New York Times can claim ignorance. Both their correspondents live in West Jerusalem.”

“Israel’s Ultra-Orthodox community is so misogynistic that the even edit women out of photos.”

That’s not all they “edit out”. More about that later… and they’re NOT “ultra-Orthodox”, but “ultra-ultra-Orthodox”—more about that later, too.

MV: “There is a reason you have not heard about this in the American media. It is because their journalists are mostly biased toward Israel. If Muslims and Arabs were behind these acts, they would not hesitate to not only report on them but do so in a manner that maligns all Arabs and all Muslims. But when Israelis exhibit barbarity, U.S. journalists are too busy to be bothered. That is because they are not real journalists but instead propagandists committed to defending the image of Israel. They know such reporting would make Israel less appealing to Americans. So they do not report the bad in an effort to protect Israel’s image.”

All the incidents you describe above come from the Neturai Karta, Satmar, Toldot Aharon, Hasidei Ger, Eidah Haredit and similar sects. They are not “ultra-Orthodox”, but a more extreme variety that we term “ultra-ultra-Orthodox”. These are the same Jews that you yourself approved of so fervently when they participated in Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Holocaust denial conference last year, Marco. Don’t you recognize them?

Last year, you were so full of approval for them, this year you condemn them as barbarians…

They are neither Israelis nor Zionists; in fact, they are deeply anti-Zionist, with each sect insisting that only they are “true Jews” and that “the Land of Israel must be created by the hand of God, not the hand of man”. Not one of them considers themselves “Israeli” and they have, to a person, formally refused Israeli citizenship.

To even hint to one of them that they are “Zionists” is an invitation for grievous bodily harm at their hands.

Barbarians? They certainly are; just as barbaric as any Christian or Islamic fundamentalist who thinks that only their brand of religion is the “True Word of God”. If I had my way, their residency visas (once again, they refuse to accept Israeli citizenship from the “Zionist state”) would be revoked and they would all be deported to their countries of origin as Persona Non Grata—AFTER they served the appropriate jail time for their disturbances and paid for the damages they caused.

“If this was any majority Arab city [Jerusalem is already an Arab city] this would be front page news for days. But backward Israeli cities get no mention.”

Ever since the Ottoman census of 1840, Jerusalem has had a solid Jewish majority. One would think that makes it a “Jewish city”, not an “Arab city”. In truth, it’s a mixed city, with all residents benefitting from the massive tourism income generated by tourists of all three Abrahamic faiths (something East Jerusalemites never had under Jordan’s discriminating and dismissive policies). Ask any merchant in the Old City’s souk—they admit they never had it so good.