Jerusalem – At a bus stop the other day a woman wearing a large button proclaiming “A Woman Needs a Man Like a Fish Needs Tefillin” looked me over and asked me if I thought women can be Orthodox rabbis. When I politely answered no, she proceeded to stomp on my toes with her heavy boots and then tried to asphyxiate me with her purse-strap.
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Just kidding. Never happened. I’ve been on the receiving end of some sneers here and there but the attack described above didn’t take place.
What would have happened, though, had I taken my “account” to the media?
Surely I would have likely been asked if I could produce any witnesses to the alleged assault, any record of medical treatment for my injuries and trauma, any corroboration at all for my claim. And if I couldn’t, the press, understandably, would have wished me a good day and moved on.
Consider, then, what in fact transpired a few weeks ago when an Israeli woman, Noa Raz, claimed that she had been viciously attacked on a weekday morning in a public place, Beersheva’s Central Bus Station, by an Orthodox man who asked her if the marks on her arm were from tefillin. When she responded in the affirmative, she told police when she decided to file a report the next day, the man screamed “women are an abomination” and “began to kick and strangle” her.
Ms. Raz, a social activist who is a social activist and a member of the feminist group Women of the Wall, may have been telling the truth. There are certainly crazies in Israel, as elsewhere, and violent acts have been perpetrated on both sides of the haredi/feminist divide.
Still, considering the dearth of any corroboration, one might be forgiven for wondering if Ms. Raz’s account is entirely factual or perhaps exaggerated, maybe even fabricated.
Not that it makes any real difference. What is outrageous here is the reportage. No responsible journalist outside the Arab world and North Korea would ever dare report an unsupported allegation as fact. Yet the Jewish Telegraphic Agency’s headline read “Woman attacked for tefillin imprint.” And although a careful reading of the report eventually yielded the fact that the sole source of the story was Ms. Raz herself, not only did the headline omit that fact but the story itself opened with the words: “A Jewish woman was attacked in Beersheva…” Eventually (almost three weeks later), the news service corrected the headline and first sentence on its website, but of course by then the original version had long been published far and wide.
Over at the Forward’s website, a blog called “The Sisterhood” continues to report the allegation as fact, and includes the alleged victim’s urging of Jews to “keep supporting… the Conservative movement and the Reform movement, all the hard work we do to try to create a better society [in Israel].”
Whether that hard work includes making less than truthful claims is nothing anyone but Ms. Raz can really know. But, again, the veracity of the story, while an intriguing question, is not the main one. That would be the Jewish media’s attitude toward haredim.
The JTA story in its original form and Reform movement press releases reporting Ms. Raz’s claim as fact were reproduced as news stories in scores of Jewish newspapers and on countless websites and blogs, with predictable results. One individual’s unsupported claim, in other words, was nonchalantly presented as truth to countless readers, fanning the flames of hatred for haredim far and wide.
Leave aside that the claimant has a record of pre-existing animus for Orthodox Jews and in her account referred to her alleged attacker as a “black” – a pejorative for haredim. Leave aside her assertion that as he moved in close she could “smell him.” Note only the aroma of the reportage itself. Were a Journalism 101 student to present a less than disinterested individual’s claim as fact, a failing grade would quickly follow. Precisely the grade deserved by many Jewish media here.
Their greatest sin, though, is not abject journalism; it’s assuming the worst about other Jews and fomenting hatred for them. “The disrespect shown by the haredim to women… is intolerable,” pronounced an ARZA press release, reproduced in temple newsletters nationwide. “We must… insist that the Government of Israel not be held hostage by those who claim to be the only ‘legitimate Jews’…”
And a Conservative rabbi, Gerald Skolnik, writing in the New York Jewish Week about how Ms. Raz “was physically assaulted” (“This really happened” he sagely adds), characterizes haredim as “feeling that violence against Jews who are different from them is… warranted.” The spiritual leader goes on to juxtapose a comment allegedly made by an unnamed haredi Jew to words of Adolf Hitler, yimach shemo.
Recent days have shown us how malignant the world media can be when their biases show. But our own Jewish media, too, harbor ugly prejudices of their own.
Whether or not some unbalanced haredi in Beersheva is guilty of a hate crime remains an open question. But that the crime of spreading hatred was recently committed in the Jewish world seems painfully clear.
Avrohom Yitzchok (Avi) Shafran is a Haredi rabbi who serves as the Director of Public Affairs for Agudath Israel of America, in New York an organization established to meet the needs and viewpoint of many Haredi Jews in the United States.
Of course. No one is ever believed when they claim they were attacked. This is how we know that child molestation charges can’t be believed. What are we going to do, believe a child? Rapes have to happen in public places to be believable.
Sadly, the presence of Tznius Squads, rioting by chareidim , brawling by the feuding Satmars give credibility to such accusations.
the sarcasm is misplaced, rape, by definition, is a private act, assault often takes place in public
great article!
Of course, if you said that a skinhead attacked you, few people would question it.
Why? Because there is a history of skinheads attacking Jews.
And there is sadly a history of Charedim attacking people whose dress or behavior they disapprove of.
I wonder how many of you reading these articles that criticize Charaidim, are also pointed at you. Each and everyone of you sitting in Flatbush on your computers are by and large considered Charaidim.
I agree with you, the story is almost certainly unlikely to be true.
But you do Klal Yisroel a great disservice when you mock the report and ignore the fact that there is a reason people are so ready to believe even the craziest stories about Charedi behavior: Too many of the “unbelievable” stories were true!
Between the crimes, the “talking fish”-type of story, the Jerusalem riots, the abuse scandals, the Neturei Karta public behaviors, the atmosphere has become one that is ready to accept any craziness. And the blame for that rests only with the criminals AND THOSE THAT DEFEND THEM.
A statement decrying the abuses and the chilul Hashems that resulted in this fallen opinion of Jews would do far more to serve the public than mocking the silly story.
That is why we must have a conglomeration of Orthodox Jews with good PR skills to formulate responses for these bilbuls by the vindictive liars.If it is true, we should publicly disassociate ourselves s from these acts such as the violent protests.
Many of you do not seem to have read the posting. The writer is not saying that the woman is lying (though she may be and he doubts her story). His point — and he says this several times — is that the press had no business taking her word for what she said when there were no witnesses or evidence of a crime.
You are looking for justice from a person that asks such questions this is Medinas israel if you want to see justis look whats going on whit Elior Chein because he is chareide no proof whatsoever they dont let him out and they cant indite him no proof at all………….
“But you are wrong, Israel is a democracy and people can dress and walk where they want.”
Whether or not Israel is a democracy or not is irrelevant. The secular government does not have any rightful power to allow anyone to enter my neighborhood and do anything that the majority of my neighborhood’s residents don’t want.
The attack in the bus station was witnessed by several people who did nothing but they did see it.
Sorry to bust your bubble.
The truth is, there are a lot of haredim who commit hilulei hashem daily.
Especially by VIN readers, anything on chareidem flyes, but for a good wod,
U know what: we don’t care, we know all these hater do it cuz they have a guilty concious!!
A community does have the right to establish a dress code. In one beach community, women objected since they were not allowed to walk around topless in public. They said it discriminated against women. Now men are also not allowed to walk around topless there.
Is it illegal to walk around in a muslim area with a drawing of an arab captioned “Mohammed”? I doubt it. But besides the bodily harm you would doubtless be subsequently subjecting yourself to, it is a social faux pas that is so insensitive that no moral person could justify it. While not completely analagous to a secular jew walking through meah shearim in immodest clothing (as chances are they are merely walking through the neighborhood in their normal attire, whereas the mohammed picture purely an actively spiteful display,) it still shows a glaring insensitivity on the part of the secular to the locals. That being said, legally the residents of such neighborhoods have no right (that I’m aware of) to restrict such people from entering their neighborhood, and certainly not to take any action against the offender. But in 999 cases out of 1000, it is the secular jew who is the guilty party by not taking into account the sensitivities of the local residents, which should be a basic part of human decency.
Secular jews are not “offended” by the chareidi mode of dress — they merely have a “there goes the neighborhood” paranoia associated with minorities moving in in America.
This article is such nonsense. First of all we often believe the uncorroborated story of a victim. When was the last time R. Shafran wrote an article complaining that the media took a person’s claim of an anti-Semitic incident at face value? No, R. Shafran only complains when his sacred Chareidi cow is being gored..
Anyone who lives near or among Chareidim knows that, while most Chareidim are fine people, there are enough of these types of incedents that they can easily accept what happened in Be’er Sheva at face value.
Further, by obfuscating the issue in defending this nutcase R. Shafran lends his good name to perpetuating the real problem.