[xerxes]

Very interesting article from Der Spiegel

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,808252,00.html

Quote:

Advance of the Zealots
The Growing Influence of the Ultra-Orthodox in Israel

By Juliane von Mittelstaedt

Veiled women, radical rabbis and gender segregation: Israel is facing a rise in the influence of ultra-Orthodox Jews. Their efforts to impose a strictly conservative worldview have led to growing tensions with the country's secular society. A resolution to the conflict is vital for Israel's future.
Info

Outside is the Judean Wilderness, the Dead Sea shimmers in the distance. Naomi Machfud is sitting inside the self-built house, dreaming about making the world disappear. She wants to cover up her face with a veil, she says, her mouth, her nose and her eyes. A black veil, without even a vision slit, one that swallows every glance and submerges the world in darkness. The veil is the pinnacle of zniut, or modesty, the closest a person can get to God. But, she says with a sigh, "unfortunately I'm not that far yet."

But Machfud, a 30-year-old woman with six children, has already created an insulating layer of material between herself and the outside world. She is wearing a wool robe, an apron, a blouse, three floor-length corduroy skirts, a black skirt and trousers. She has a piece of black wool material wrapped loosely around her head. Underneath it is a tight, black veil, and underneath that is a pale pink veil. Not a single hair is visible. She is wearing a pair of earrings, but she takes them off when she leaves the house.

Machfud is a Jewish woman married to a Jewish man. They live in a settlement in the West Bank, but she dresses as if she lived in Afghanistan. In Israel, the veiled women are referred to as the "Taliban," while they refer to themselves as women of the shawl. Machfud claims that there are thousands of women like her, but it is more likely that they number in the hundreds. They are usually seen in Jerusalem's ultra-orthodox Me'ah She'arim neighborhood, black, shapeless figures, holding the hands of their daughters, who look like miniature versions of their mothers.

One could call these women crazy. Or one could see them as the product of a religious community that is becoming more and more extremist.

Gender Separation in Public

The ultra-religious are gaining power throughout the Middle East, including in Israel, where radical rabbis are expanding their influence. This is especially clear when it comes to women. Ironically, it is in Israel, a country that was already being run by a woman, Golda Meïr, in the 1970s, and where women fly fighter jets, that Jewish fundamentalists are trying to bring about gender separation in public -- in elections, on buses and in the street -- all in the name of a morality that is supposedly agreeable to God. Until now, this trend has been most noticeable in Jerusalem, in Beit Shemesh and in Bnei Brak near Tel Aviv, the country's ultra-orthodox strongholds. But increasingly it is becoming apparent in places where secular Israelis live.

Even a former head of the Mossad, Israel's foreign intelligence agency, is now warning that the ultra-orthodox are a bigger threat to the country than the Iranian nuclear program. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said recently that the conditions in Jerusalem remind her of Iran.

The odd coexistence of religion and democracy in the Jewish state was long unproblematic. But now the consequences are becoming clear, the signs of fatigue of an overstressed country, a country that is both a democracy and an occupying power, a high-tech nation in which a portion of the population still lives as if it were the 19th century, and a country that accepts immigrants from around the world, provided they are Jews, while at the same time mercilessly deporting refugees. As such, the settlers are, on the one hand, increasingly exhibiting a Messianic nationalism while, on the other hand, the ultra-orthodox pursue a fundamentalism hostile to the state.

[andyt]

Yep. Wonder how much longer they can keep it up. I think they have to figure out which way to jump - Jewish homeland or democratic state. But trying to keep it a democratic state, without reference to the Jewish "Volk" means they'd be swamped by all the Muslims around them. OTOH, there seem to be enough Jewish nutbars bent on creating a state that doesn't look any different than the Muslim states around them to be a worry.

[Thanos]

I heard that some of the Orthodox are exempted from the mandatory two-years military service all other Israelis are required to do. If I was a secular Israeli I'd be damned pissed off that some fundamentalist cranks got an exemption while I had to serve to protect their rights, especially when the Orthodox fundies want to turn Israel into a theocracy and basically altogether eliminate the rights of anyone who isn't a fundamentalist. Yeah, I want to get shot at by terrorists in Gaza or Lebanon just so some bearded assholes back home can spit on my "inappropriately-clad" daughter as she's going to school.

Christian, Jew, or Muslim. It doesn't matter. Religious fundamentalism is the oldest and the very worst of all the banes that have ever afflicted the human race.

[sandorski]

Religion is poison of the Mind.

[Mr_Canada]

Isn't it 2012 or something..?

[martin14]

Thanos wrote:

I heard that some of the Orthodox are exempted from the mandatory two-years military service all other Israelis are required to do.

They are.



They also wield a high proportion of power in gov't, you may remember the last elections;

Bibi got in with help from the Orthodox parties.




Whenever someone starts whining about PR representation, this is why
we shouldn't do it.

[ShepherdsDog]

snicker ....spend some time there with the average Israelis and you'll see that these people are just a tiny. but vocal minority. Hell the fundie Christians wield more power in the US. The influence of the religious political parties in Israeli government should be fair warning to the numbnuts out there who advocate proportional representation as a good system.

[xerxes]

Quote:

Whenever someone starts whining about PR representation, this is why
we shouldn't do it.

It only works this way in Israel because in a country of only a few million, the threshold for a party to gain representation is really low. It used to be really low in the 80's if I remember right and it's been raised to ensure parties with really esoteric and narrow agendas aren't power brokers in the government. Obviously, it's not working too well.

To get back to the article at hand...I have two observations off the of my head. This is yet another example of how, no matter the religion, the zealots make women the source of all sin and immorality while men are innocent.

It's also interesting that while Israel wages a shadow war against Iran, an increasing segment of Israel's population has more in common with the Mullahs in Tehran and Qom.

[andyt]

Ultra-orthodox are about 10% of the population, so not an insignificant number. Even without pr they would likely get attention from some party or another, because they represent a committed voting bloc. Works the same way in Canada with some Asian immigrants.

[Proculation]

xerxes wrote:

Quote:

Whenever someone starts whining about PR representation, this is why
we shouldn't do it.

It only works this way in Israel because in a country of only a few million, the threshold for a party to gain representation is really low. It used to be really low in the 80's if I remember right and it's been raised to ensure parties with really esoteric and narrow agendas aren't power brokers in the government. Obviously, it's not working too well.

To get back to the article at hand...I have two observations off the of my head. This is yet another example of how, no matter the religion, the zealots make women the source of all sin and immorality while men are innocent.

It's also interesting that while Israel wages a shadow war against Iran, an increasing segment of Israel's population has more in common with the Mullahs in Tehran and Qom.

The big difference is that the mullahs and other fundamentalists are in power in Iran while in Israel, the fundamentalists are condemned by the politicians. Two very opposing views of democracy and liberty.

[andyt]

Proculation wrote:

The big difference is that the mullahs and other fundamentalists are in power in Iran while in Israel, the fundamentalists are condemned by the politicians. Two very opposing views of democracy and liberty.

condemned while they pander to them to stay in power. Note the title: The growing... So where are they heading?

[xerxes]

Quote:

The big difference is that the mullahs and other fundamentalists are in power in Iran while in Israel, the fundamentalists are condemned by the politicians. Two very opposing views of democracy and liberty.

True, but the fundamentalists in Israel are the power brokers in the Israeli parliament so they are not without power. And like the one guy says in hte article, their numbers are growing, while the secularists numbers are stagnating if not dwindling. The zealots numbers will grow and then things are eventually going to come to a head as to what Irsael really wants to be. A Jewish, yet secular democracy or a Jewish theocratic state.

[andyt]

I don't think you can be a (insert name of religion here) democracy. Democracy requires separation of church and state. If you define yourself by one religion, that's not democratic.

[DanSC]

andyt wrote:

I don't think you can be a (insert name of religion here) democracy. Democracy requires separation of church and state. If you define yourself by one religion, that's not democratic.

I agree with you in principle, but the British and Norwegians are still pretty democratic while still having official state religions.

[andyt]

Neither country vets it's immigrants by religion. Neither country makes special allowances for the official religion that I know about. I admit I don't know everything about the govt in either country, but I have the impression that religion is the same as the monarchy in both coutries - a ceremonial institution. I believe that Britain has or will soon abolish the requirement for the monarch to belong to the church of England.

And then you get into the whole thing that Judaism isn't just a religion but also an ethnicity. Can't think about too many democracies that are built around one ethnicity. Japan maybe.