""You're an okay Haredi, if all Haredis were like you, everything would look different..." - This is the sentence I've heard the most times in my life.
I would always answer: "All the Haredim are like me, even better than me, you just don't know them!""
It's not just me. Most of my Haredi friends have heard this sentence so many times that it has become an example for me of ignorance, which always leads to the demonization of an entire public.
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It's not just secular people who sin against the ultra-Orthodox. Most right-wing voters have never sat down for a cup of coffee with left-wing voters; most members of the Ashkenazi 'elite' have never gotten to know Mizrahi culture up close; and many straight people have never had the opportunity to meet members of the gay community.
This is one of the reasons why public discourse is so inflammatory and insensitive. The only way to get to know certain communities is through the media. The media, by virtue of its role, only presents the provocative fringes of each group. The fringes make inflammatory statements, the statements make headlines, the headlines anger the other side - and so a cycle of violent, blatant, and out-of-proportion discourse is created.
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In the past week, we have witnessed such discourse: generalizations, incitements, apologies, disavowals, wars between camps - and worst of all: politicians who cynically exploit disasters to gain electoral power.
And in the middle is a huge, sane public that refuses to be swept away in the whirlpool of hatred and tries to seal its soul from containing such large amounts of incitement.
What is especially painful is the extremists' takeover of public discourse. Anyone who tried to calm the mood was met with boos. Anyone who explored the possibility of creating a discourse was pushed out of the mainstream.
The extremists silenced the sane voices, not out of disagreement with their views, but out of fear of losing media momentum. So they interpreted clarification of positions as an apology, and a call for dialogue as surrender.
A true person, confident in the righteousness of his path, is not afraid to sit around a table and talk; someone whose views are strong is not afraid to listen to the views of others.
This reality, in which each side is entrenched in its position and is unwilling to listen to the positions of the other side, does not allow us to build a reformed society. Dialogue does not lead to a waiver of principles, but to an understanding of the other. Sitting around one table does not express recognition and support for the actions of the other, but rather an understanding that even if we do not agree with each other - we can still accommodate each other.
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As a person who belongs to the Haredi community, I have always felt that there is demonization and incitement against my community.
The Haredi community has suffered a lot of hatred due to the inclusion and highlighting of extreme cases in the media, and my feeling has always been that we are not understood, we are not known, and we are not talked to enough.
But once, in a moment of honesty, I asked myself: Am I not guilty of ignorance and lack of understanding of other publics? Do I know enough about the people I disagree with? Doesn't my sectoral media sometimes sin by demonizing and generalizing entire groups in the State of Israel?
How do I demand that I and my needs be recognized, if I am not willing to recognize the needs of others? How do I expect that I will not be included with the extremists, if I always include other groups? After all, it is infuriating to be judged by stigmas, so how do I allow myself to judge others based on prejudice?
Since then, I have taken it upon myself to 'not judge my friends until I reach their place.'.
I became a devotee of discourse, a fan of dialogue. I began to study people, to humanize groups, and to closely observe the complexities of different communities.
I traveled to meetings, participated in panels, and also got to lecture to large audiences about the different shades of Haredi society.
In these encounters, I got to know the unique mosaic that makes up the Jewish people. I was able to 'humanize' the groups I knew through the media, and I created good connections with people who, while they may look different from me, live exactly like me.
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My Haredi brothers, we have stopped surviving, we have established ourselves. We are integrating well into Israeli society and it is time to abandon the terminology of defense and justification and create a real discourse.
We are everywhere: in the military, in academia, in politics, and in business. Only encounters between people can shatter stereotypes, only real communication can have an impact and change the image.
We are Haredi, we are Israelis, and just as we want to be understood, we have the responsibility to understand everyone and create a real dialogue with all levels of society.
It's not difficult, it's not scary. If we believe in the righteousness of our path, we have nothing to fear from the influence of others. If we are confident in our actions, such encounters can only do good for us and those around us. Because only by creating discourse and dialogue will we lead to the creation of a healthier, more understanding, and improved society.
Meet, discuss, argue, don't agree, but talk.
Because if you don't speak, someone else will speak for you, and they will most likely do it less well than you.
