The Changing Face of the Eternal City
The Los Angeles Times today features an article entitled “Clashing Values Alter A City’s Face”, the latest commentary on the changing demographics of Jerusalem.
Secular and “less devout” residents are moving out, black hats are moving in.
However, as I show on thisisbabylon.net, such assessments, and especially vis-a-vis the sentiments of the secular people leaving the city, overlook another major fact.
The haredi community itself is fragmenting, and a radicalized public is beginning to take form against the will of the haredi leadership, and often, against the will of the majority of the haredi community itself.
Many of the things mentioned in the LA Times piece are unique to ultra-heimish places like Brooklyn’s Williamsburg or Meah Shearim. And their eschewing of entertainment and recreational activities enjoyed by other Torah-observant Jews works beautifully for those in such a traditional framework.
Except now, increasingly, all haredim are supposed to fit into these paradigms. And the “four cubits of halacha” begins to shrink to a painfully restrictive (and quite monolithic and Ashkenazi) square inch.
Full article.
they wouldnt sell your album in j’lem cause it had BEATBOXING? WTF?
that’s just lame. seriously.
but really, they are probably gonna have to end up partioning the city into two. I can’t really think of any other plausible scenario.
I guess this post counts since it’s on Jerusalem, but seriously Jewlicious: SIX DAY WAR. Sort of a momentous anniversary, and it’s like crickets over here.
A good topic might be the RAMPANT anti-Israel “commemorative” press pieces running in every major paper in the world, including outright revisionist falsehood re: the war.
For French speakers who are interested, Le Monde’s suite of articles on the subejct is particularly egregious.
EDIT: JEWSCHOOL. Both of y’all are ignoring it. (Weird since the other guys are supposedly some fire-eating right-wing Zionists right?)
Y-Love:
your piece is predicated on an erroneous assumption. you contrast jerusalem “haredi” with NY “haredi” assuming that they are similar. you couldn’t be more wrong. israeli-haredi is so extreme that american-haredi would be considered modern orthodox in comparison. for example: israeli-haredi forbids women from driving. it is considered not tzanua. do you know a single bais yaacov girl (in the US) who didn’t get her license (on principle. not cuz she failed)?
there are a slew of other example that illustrate how deep the chasm is. (and that’s aside from the attitude towards working. in the US, if you don’t have zitzfleish, so you go work. it’s not the end of the world. here – fuggedaboutit (b/c of the whole army issue). you’re not a learner, or at least benchwarmer? there goes the shidduch, there goes everything.) to compare israeli vs. american haredi is unfair b/c they really are totally diff. ideologies.