Chief Rabbi's Family Abducts, Assaults Daughter's Cyberlover
Haaretz reports,
The son, daughter and wife of Chief Sephardi Rabbi Shlomo Amar were arrested last Thursday on suspicion of participation in the kidnapping and beating of a Bnei Brak youth [who was dating the rabbi’s daughter].
[…] The affair, which became public on Friday afternoon following the cancellation of a gag order, began three months ago. The rabbi’s daughter Ayala, who lives in Jerusalem, met an ultra-Orthodox youth from Bnei Brak while surfing on the Internet. After exchanging e-mails for a while, the two became romantically involved and went on a few dates, where they did no more than talk.
And for that he was kidnapped and beaten. Shades of familiarity, anyone? Oh, I’m sorry. That was uncalled for.
Ive really had enough of this chief rabbi. It really upsets me, he is giving us a bad face, giving Judaism a bad face. And you cant overlook it again, its too much.
We need a new rabbi!!!!! He must resign! MUST!! Hes done enough damage and now it needs to be fixed.
Where are all those real Rabbis? Where are the Rabbis that actually follow Jewish Law and ethics?!
WTF is this? This is NOT judaism!!!
This is sickening!
How can he be chief rabbi!!!!!!!???????
Stop giving Orthodoxy a bad name!
SSSSSSSSSSSStop it.
Stop it.
So sad.
You know what, that’s it, I’m fed up. All of you are to report to headquarters tomorrow and turn in your fedoras and tzistzis, you’re done.
I dunno, it’s kind of funny in a sick way.
But from what I understend, the rabbi hasn’t been implicated, just his wife and son. Of course, if he’s marrying and raising violent thugs, it certainly calls his judgment into question.
(Although there was no killing, just intimidation, Mob… I’m yet to hear of a Jewish honor killing… though I don’t think it’s beyond certain elements)
While this is a really sick and resignation-worthy mess, it isn’t honor killing, and does not rate comparison to honor killing. Honor killing is blaming the woman for what some man did, and then leaving her head on the porch of your local mukhtar.
There are a few points in this story that stand out for me:
1. The issue of yihus, or family status. At first it seemed from what I read that Ayala’s beau was not from a high-status family, since the family kept mentioning that the relationship is inappropriate because they are a “respected family.” However, I recently read that the young man is from a well-known Sephardic family so perhaps that is not an issue. (Or perhaps the young man’s family may indeed be high-status, just not high enough.) In any case, this is not the first time a family has tried to interfere in its children’s marriage choices on supposedly religious grounds. I personally know of a case where a well-known high-status rabbi and his wife forced their child to break up with a fine potential spouse because his yihus was not high enough, and in another case ruined the relationship between a parent and his grown child over that same issue. (As for status unconnected with religion, remember the story of Itamar Ben Avi, the son of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, and his beloved Leah.)
2. How ironic that the black sheep of the family, Meir, was the one asked to “deal with the problem.” It’s as though since his hands are already dirty, it was all right to ask him to dirty them a little more for his family’s sake. And it looks like he will take the fall; someone could write quite a post on the complicated family relationships and motivations that may be involved. Reports say that Meir is nearly completely estranged from his family, but it looks as though he is still close enough to them to agree to “protect his sister’s honor” … in other words, to reassert his family’s control over its women. (Ayala was forced to entice her beau to his beating and to be present during part of it. Undoubtedly this was done to teach her a lesson: So shall it be done to any man you choose for yourself without the family’s approval. The kid must be totally traumatized. I wonder whether she’s getting any psychological help.)
3. It’s not about honor. It never is. It’s about power and control, in this case the control of women, particularly young, marriageable women. The family wants to be perceived as strong, powerful and of high status. This involves controlling the women. If an individual woman shows in any way that she is not completely under that control, she is not so much besmirching her own honor as she is undermining her family’s authority, making them look weak, contemptible and ridiculous (in their own perception or in the perception of their culture). This cannot be borne, so the family must regain its status by reasserting control over the woman as quickly, forcefully and demonstratively as possible.
Of course there is a big difference between subjecting a young man to a night of abuse and intimidation and murdering him (or the young woman). But I believe that both actions come from the same need to assert power, authority and control. It’s just expressed differently.
This is outrageous.
This kind of behaviour belongs in the 3rd world, not in a supposedly “western” society.
I get more and more afraid of/for Judaism every time I hear this stuff.
i thought you would refer to the (largely ashkenazi, charedi and “modern”, though almost exclusively in the states) practice of beating up husbands when the wife’s family wants a divorce without any settlement (i dont refer to get blackmail, i refer to no settlement blackmail), vehamevin, yavin