Lonely men in Jaffa (Part 1)

The cat's out of the bag. The horse is out of the barn. The ketchup's outta the bottle. The secret is out. Nobody REALLY cares. Which means they never REALLY did. They did it back in the 50s and 60s and 70s for all kinds of reasons, and even then it was half hearted, since it was not in their neighborhood. They were afraid not to do, they were pressured into it, or maybe there's was some shock value way back then. But since then they were either bought out or were sold on the ideology. All that's left is a handful of the unemployed and the elderly. Every else cannot be bothered. So what if human remains are being unceremoniously removed and hauled away for research purposes? People are tired of the fighting and don't wanna be perceived as radicals from Iran. They want their Hiloni brethren to like them, so they won't demonstrate and won't burn garbage bins and block traffic. The "zebras" don't really care who they offend, although in person they're the absolute nicest and kindest people, which is weird. You're all scratching your heads trying to figure out where I'm coming from, what I'm talking about and if I'm at all serious or not. So please, let me explain.

Here's the story in a nutshell. In Ashkelon and in Yaffo human remains were found when they were doing renovations/expansions/building. In Ashkelon they were found when they were expanding a local hospital. MK Litzman - who's also deputy Minister of Health - tried to talk them, but they wouldn't listen. They decided that they'd remove the remains and build anyway. The Asra Kasdisha people - and the Eda HaCharedis people in general - have a general issue with removing human remains. The issue always used to be that they're removing remains of Kedoshim, Tanaim and Amoraim, no matter if that was the case or not. Asra Kadisha always assumed they were Jewish remains, and the Archeologists always said they were Byzantines or early Christians. After all, there were plenty of Gentiles living in Israel over the years, and many of the burial grounds were of goyim. Then, when they realized that often times they were Gentile remains, they changed their approach, and told the masses that the problem was that if the Israeli Gov't allows the excavations of remains in Israel, then when they try and stop Governments in Chutz LeAretz to stop excavating cemeteries in Europe and elsewhere they'll point to Israel and use that as an excuse. Take it or leave it. The end result is that their excavating remains, whether we like it or not, and only a handful of people seem to care, or at least seem to want to go out there and fight the cops or get hauled off to jail.

Litzman tried his best using diplomatic channels. Some people in Ashkelon - which has a large Charedi population - threatened and promised not to use Barzilai Hospital ever again, since the new ER is built on top of those kevarim. Those of you old enough will remember that the same thing happened in the 80s with Bank Leumi, that most frumme boycotted BL, since they were the ones who were responsible (I'm not sure how) for the excavations in T'verya. But for the most part these handful of "kanoyim" are the only ones that either seem to care or at least wanna show the world that they do. Why is that, is the question. I can understand that burning garbage bins and blocking traffic is horrible and counterproductive, but why not go out there and do some good ol' fashioned passive resistance? כאמור לעיל, and based on the general consensus both on the street and in the Charedi Israeli press, the frumme in Israel are for the most part tired of looking bad in the eyes of the press and the general Israeli populace. Many of them have daily contact with the irreligious - whether at work or otherwise - (yes, some Israelis do work...) The Eda HaCharedis likes to go both ways; They officially, unofficially don't officially endorse the violence, but they do. But somehow they get away with the incitement, which is interesting. I guess that's Israeli society for you.

Continued tomorrow, IY"H. (We'll discuss Lubavitch then too...)