1.
I'll start from the end.
This was truly one of the more successful years in terms of organizing the Lag BaOmer celebration in Meron, and I have been there for years. Including in the year of the disaster,
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When the task was assigned to Minister Meir Porush, I was a bit skeptical. After all, it's not easy to manage this complicated business in the small moshav, which is crowded with hundreds of thousands for one long day. Last year, I sat for over an hour with the then-projector, Zvi Tesler, a kind and talented guy, who explained and told and described. I had high hopes, but the business was shattered. It doesn't matter whose fault it is at the moment (probably the police, but I'm not an investigative committee).
I remember how Matan Kahana, the minister at the time, concluded with an apology and graciously admitted failure. We can also praise him for bothering to come this year and thank Meir Porush for his success, with heartfelt praise. Quite rare in political circles where man is a wolf to man and jealousy eats up every good share.
So really, kudos to the extended Porush family, who worked tirelessly, to the professionals, to the projector Yossi Deitch who jumped at this daunting task and took on the role, to the dedicated and talented speaker Shneor Rosen, and to everyone who did the job. Thanks also to the police who didn't interfere, who arrived en masse, but stood by without intervening.
Over the loudspeakers, I heard posters in juicy Yiddish about men on this side, women on that side, and modesty, and take responsibility, and keep yourselves to yourselves, and many more words and slogans that an ultra-Orthodox ear connects to.
Truly, good words are coming. People there were biting their nails in anxiety every minute of the day. Even before, "Pray that we will succeed," with humility, with awe, while saying, "Nothing is yet self-evident," until the warning end.
So far, the order of the Tzalshim.
2.
And here comes the big 'sorrow'.
I more than respect the 'right' that the Rebbe of Bayan has to light the lamp on the roof of the Zion Rashbi, at the opening of the Lag BaOmer events on Mount Meron. The project manager who worked on behalf of the government of change also maintained this 'right' and granted the Hasidic community the right to light the lamp - which was the only one on the mountain.
But, yes, lighting, control of the place? Absolutely not!
Someone needs to put an end to this practice, which is very jarring in the Israel of 2023.
You and I, all of us, pay from our tax dollars for the organization in Meron - and that's a good thing. I have no problem with that. Secular people also pay, by the way, but to the same extent, the state finances Eurovision and shows without modesty, and those that include singing about counting the Omer, and more, from my tax dollars. In the Jewish state, we are all one people, even if we disagree with each other and our views are different.
But from here to granting one Hasidic courtyard, not a very large one, to decide who they want to enter a public space in Meron and who not? It doesn't make sense.
I saw with my own eyes police officers trying to block a side entrance to the compound, informing the congregants that no one was entering, that this was not an official entrance, and then a Bayan follower emerged, stood up, looked at the gathering, recognized associates - and shouted: 'You, you, you, you, you, are entering.' While the commander on the ground threw up his hands.
How do I know? Because I was standing there. Not to check or supervise, just because I thought it would be more modest to enter through this side entrance, pass through a piece of empty ground that leads to the raised media platform, and avoid entering the king's road that leads to it, a road that is heavily trafficked with men. Makes sense, doesn't it?
Very logical. The police officers on site also thought I was making a logical argument. No one suspected me of intending to enter the lighting area from there, which was entirely full of Hasidim, men.
Only to whom did it not make sense? To a few Hasidim, who stood like ladies, and repeatedly said, 'Fly away from here,' 'Go away.'.
A nice policeman, who tried to help me, explained to them: She's standing on the side, she wants to take a side path to the media platform.
But try talking to the ceiling, that listening.
Then they started pushing. A fairly old, modern-day Hasid, who had probably left his home in fear of God and Shtreimel, in order to ascend spiritually and pour out his whispered anguish before his Father in Heaven, while watching his Rebbe light the fire, but in between, what does it mean to him to humiliate a woman or push her.
No, I'm not generalizing at all. There were a lot of righteous Hasidim inside. But as always, the troublemakers, the businessmen, the gentlemen - ruin it for all of us.
When a policeman says, "It's crowded here, no one comes in through this entrance," and a follower simultaneously locates those close to him and indifferently mutters, "You, you, you, you," and the policeman, who was asked not to intervene this year, looks on with wide eyes and is unable to do anything, except try to create a barrier with his body just before someone crushes me to death, simply because I'm not 'connected' to the thugs in the yard - I know that someone needs to pick up the gauntlet and put an end to this shameful phenomenon.
'"Moishe, Moishe," the crowd shouted to the Hasid who had become the selector, while pushing away anyone who got in their way. And the policeman, who had just a moment earlier said, "No one is coming in," could only stare blankly at Moishe, who happily let in whoever he wanted.
So next year's projector, please: Bayan Hasidism has the 'power' to ignite. But, decent people will stand at the gate, those who admit according to organized, transparent, predetermined criteria.
Not those who only put in 'unzare'!
In the photo above - the area I wanted to enter, on my way to the media stage. In the video below - a view from the media stage of the crowd of men through whom I had to pass to get to the media stage, only because the Bayan selector did not like me entering from the side.
