My friend Professor A.A. You sent me photos of your relatives fighting fiercely in Gaza, noting the fact that it was necessary for the Haredim, the yeshiva students, to look at the photos every morning and realize that in Gaza, young people their age are now fighting for their lives.
But in truth, dear Professor, quite a few young Haredi people are experiencing a huge amount of embarrassment in these turbulent times.
For the young Haredi man is interested in serving, fighting, and defending his country, his family, his wife, and his children, no less than his secular companion. He also wants his mother to give tearful interviews to the media and say that she doesn't sleep at night, he also wants to physically protect those dearest to him, and he would also be happy to return tired and covered in dust at the end of the battles and say: We did it, we showed them.
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The Haredi is also a human being. He also wants to be productive in this just war. He would also like to talk to his comrades and talk about those who will not return, compare the wars in which he participated and mix up words like "amalhim", "pazmiim", "katmar", and "masul", and not just listen embarrassed and ashamed from the sidelines.
In short, he would also like to feel like he is taking part.
A significant, if not overwhelming, portion of the young Haredi community feels anger and frustration over the fact that the Haredi public has not allowed them to contribute, physically, to the Israeli collective, to the campaign for the homeland. True, they do not deny the spiritual axiom that Torah study also protects and saves, but they know that a significant segment of yeshiva students, not necessarily the elite among them, could certainly donate a few of their free hours to the benefit of the community.
What they also know - in moments of internal dialogue with themselves - is that they belonged in the past, and certainly in the present, to this inconsiderable group.
They have difficulty finding the address for anger, shame, and especially frustration. Who is to blame for this, their parents, the teacher at Haidar, the supervisor at the yeshiva who didn't recognize that Rabbi Shach or the next Rabbi Ovadia is not hiding in front of him? It's difficult or even impossible to say.
Ultimately, the Haredi public is faced with a norm, a pattern of behavior, from which it is almost impossible to deviate: enlisting in the army or in civilian service at the age of conscription, before marriage, is a variable that clearly and causally predicts exclusion from the community, irreparable harm to matchmaking, and a significant blow to the status of the rest of the family members.
I assume that not everyone, not even in the secular public, can meet such a task.
Trying to be part in every way
So what do the ultra-Orthodox do anyway? How do the young people of the sector - who do not belong to the bubble milieu of Yated Ne'eman and its friends - who seek to find ways into the bleeding heart of the Israeli mainstream these days?
Ironically, I will tell you, esteemed professor, that the independent sector press, as well as the Haredi websites, cover the fallen and the IDF with an empathy that is unmatched, and for the most part surpasses, their secular colleagues. Is there only identification here, or is there a distinct function of terrible embarrassment here?
For example, the Walla website reported that in the Haredi newspaper "Family," the editors chose, as a precedent, to publish the photos of the fallen, alongside personal words of appreciation, despite the fear that this would create an inappropriate identification with the army among readers.
""We want to cherish, commemorate, embrace in our own ways," explained the newspaper, which also bothered to publish a main article with the hero, the kippah-wearing Givati Brigade Commander.
Even on the Haredi websites, every injury and fall of an IDF soldier receives prominent mention. Last night, three soldiers fell as a result of a booby-trapped house. On Ynet and Mako, the news about this received a secondary headline. Perhaps because of the adaptation to the terrible deaths of IDF soldiers.
On ultra-Orthodox websites, the headline announced this for hours.
We also have Orly Weinerman
And finally, how can we do without our 'Orly Weinerman', which receives harder ricochets than the original one.
A group of crazy, inhuman hooligans attacked an IDF soldier who came to pray in their synagogue in the city of Beit Shemesh. Instead of understanding that this is a dying group trying to create a kind of public relations, just like the original, by the way, the leaders of the Haredi public, like the columnists, chose to attack them with a boycott. Needless to say, the story is hardly covered in the secular media.
''Murderers,' 'criminals,' and even 'a hand raised against an IDF soldier will be cut off,' said Shas Chairman Aryeh Deri, no less. Only the esteemed chairman, as well as the shocked MK Litzman, forgot that this is exactly what they are asking for. Physical contact. Violence. Recognition. And even a discussion.
In normal times, it would have been appropriate to isolate them, cut off all contact, and confine them in a historical hole cut off from civilization, and like any black hole, they would have swallowed themselves up.
But these days, all the Haredim [dream of being] Ofer Winter, all the young people [dream of themselves as] Rasan Alian, and who would raise a hand against our heroes?.
Hence the common calls of the youth of the sector along the lines of: 'Gaza needs to be wiped out,' 'The territory needs to be leveled,' and also 'They are animals, they don't care about dying. We need to help them.'.
After all, we are all soldiers, we are all warriors, we are all Golani. In our hearts. From afar.
