chasing out the hareidim

There was an article in ynet about a hareidi family being chased out of a park in a secular neighborhood in Bet Hakerem in Jerusalem. Rafi G has also blogged about the story.

At first I felt badly for the poor family that just wanted to play in the park and got chased away by "self-hating jews", the classical term for Jews who don't like hareidim. But on second thought, this is what has been coming to the hareidi community for quite some time. We are talking about a community that ostracizes anyone who does not fit their mold. A yeshiva boy who stops wearing a hat or doesn't talk yeshivish, or wears a colored shirt is considered having gone to tarbus ra, bad culture. A non chareidi person, whether secular or dati leumi is considered to be impinging on the sensitivities of the community if they walk in a chareidi neighborhood.

The infamous tznius patrol, which has been arrested recently, has been going around destroying all non-hareidi things, even though the gedolei hador say that it is inappropriate to do that.

Hareidim can walk into any dati leumi shul and be comfortable davening there - that is unless they can't handle the tooma. On the other hand, a friend of mine walked into a toldos aaron in bet shemesh with a kippa sruga and they wouldn't daven until he left. One boy came over to him and said "we don't pray with Zionists."

Now I'm not going to comment on the hareidi family that this happened to, for all I know they are a very welcoming family and full of gemilas chesed. But the community has been asking for this for a long time.

I recently spoke to a friend who is thinking of leaving the yeshiva world and getting a job. I suggested that he check out dati leumi neighborhoods instead of chareidi ones. He was uncomfortable with the idea.