Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => The Roundtable => Topic started by: MicroBalrog on July 15, 2009, 08:26:30 AM
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Officer injured as haredim protest arrest of abusive mother
Neturei Karta mother accused of starving her toddler son refuses to cooperate in investigation, while ultra-Orthodox protestors take to streets in her defense. Demonstrators block streets near Shabbat Square, setting trash cans ablaze. Cars, buses damaged by stones; 15 rioters arrested
Efrat Weiss
Dozens of ultra-Orthodox demonstrators torched garbage bins Wednesday in Jerusalem's Shabbat Square in protest against the arrest of the haredi mother accused of starving her three-year-old son.
Police arrived on the spot, and arrested 15 people. A Border Guard officer was injured by a stone thrown at him, and cars and buses were damaged.
Rioters have also taken to the streets in Beit Shemesh. Police are on location.
The allegedly abusive mother was arrested as she left welfare offices. She continues to refuse to cooperate with investigators.
The abuse affair, which was cleared for publication Tuesday, led to mass riots Tuesday in the capital as hundreds of haredi protestors took to the streets, burning trash bins on Bar-Ilan Street and at Shabbat Square.
The woman, who apparently suffers from Munchausen by proxy, allegedly abused her three-year-old son, refusing to feed him until his weight dipped to a mere 7 kilograms (about 15 pounds). The boy was transferred to Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in February and has been there ever since.
It was later revealed that the woman is a member of the Neturei Karta community. She has other children and is currently pregnant.
Police initially asked to arrest the mother at the hospital, but the hospital's management would not allow it. Following pressure from the police, welfare officials were compelled to hand over details of the time and place of the woman's next appointment at their offices. She was eventually detained during a meeting with a social worker.
Rioters broke into the welfare offices near the ultra-Orthodox Mea Shaarim neighborhood in Jerusalem on Sunday and proceeded to wreak havoc on the office, breaking things and shouting, "Nazis! We will burn you." On Monday, unknown rioters arrived at a different welfare office in the city and set one of its doors on fire.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3746998,00.html
More detai about the alleged child abuse found here: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3746520,00.html
Micro Sez:
1. When you are burning trash cans and beating up police, it is not a protest. It is a riot.
2. I don't like welfare offices either. But come on. People are trying to HELP you worthless louts and you're attacking them and burning their offices? REALLY?
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Micro Sez:
1. When you are burning trash cans and beating up police, it is not a protest. It is a riot.
2. I don't like welfare offices either. But come on. People are trying to HELP you worthless louts and you're attacking them and burning their offices? REALLY?
1. Quite correct. And arson (setting the door of the welfare office on fire) is a crime that justifies the use of deadly force.
2. Close the welfare offices and discontinue all welfare services in that area.
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???
I'm dumbfounded. What exactly are they rioting for? The fact of her arrest? The allegations that she abused her child? I'm assuming that they're not trying to argue that starving a three-year-old is okay, so what are they so angry about? I read the article linked about the Neturei Karta, but don't see the connection, or why her membership in that community matters.
It sounds from the article like the kid is doing better now, so that's good, at least.
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???
I'm dumbfounded. What exactly are they rioting for? The fact of her arrest? The allegations that she abused her child? I'm assuming that they're not trying to argue that starving a three-year-old is okay, so what are they so angry about? I read the article linked about the Neturei Karta, but don't see the connection, or why her membership in that community matters.
It sounds from the article like the kid is doing better now, so that's good, at least.
The Prime Directive: Outsiders are not to be involved. No matter what.
Better the child should die than be cared for by chilonim (secular Israelis).
Most would not phrase it that strongly, but I have read plenty of writings from the Holocaust wherein members of similar communities argued that children should be allowed to be starved to death or executed rather than saved in a manner likely to sever their connections with the community. Orthodox Judaism, while strongly encouraging/requiring large numbers of children, does not have the same "for the children!" culture that has developed in the US.
The community is the most important thing. Then the leaders of the community (iow, rabbis and to a lesser degree parents). Then the children.
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Micro, has anyone in Israel ever tried a coordinated effort to penetrate and expose the Haredim to the rest of the more moderate and secular Israeli culture?
Obviously it would be a difficult task, such hyper-orthodox/fundamentalist cultures already see their "culture war" in very defined terms already. They view innocuous activity by the outsiders (like a parking lot operating on the sabbath) as willful transgressions. The reaction to a coordinated effort would be apopolectic, obviously.
It seems like a micrososm or a potential test case of vauge half-formed ideas I have about culture battles in general, and how it applies to other things humanity may be better off without, such as authoritarian liberalisim/leftism, militant Islamisim etc...
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Police initially asked to arrest the mother at the hospital, but the hospital's management would not allow it.
What were they going to do? Shoot the police? I could understand the police respecting the rights of a privately owned hospital to a certain extent, but the woman is a criminal who would be punished by death in an ideal world.
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What were they going to do? Shoot the police? I could understand the police respecting the rights of a privately owned hospital to a certain extent, but the woman is a criminal who would be punished by death in an ideal world.
The hospital probably didn't want their place burned down.
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IIRC, Micro has also said that while the Haredim are a political/social minority, the Israeli style of parlimentary government and the need to form a coalition govt. with them makes it very difficult to pass any laws/legislation against their interests.
What I also find interesting about them, and other similar sub-cultures is that they could not form a functional nation comprised soley of themselves. By their nature, they won't engage in certain businesses, or social roles. They have to live as a parasite/symbiosis with another culture (that the profess to disdain) that serves those larger functions.
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Micro, has anyone in Israel ever tried a coordinated effort to penetrate and expose the Haredim to the rest of the more moderate and secular Israeli culture?
The problem with this is that the haredim have an access to the political machine that's very difficult to understand for a non-American. Except for – I think – one term of office, no government had ever ruled without relying on their support as part of the coalition. While the members of the Shas party will not openly support such rioters, they support massive amounts of funding for the community (although of course, not directly to nutcases like Karta), and creation of administrative offices for them. The government funds most of their [nearly entirely sovereign] school system, allows them control of the divorce courts, the funeral industry (in Israel, there are only two legal ways of burial: religious, with a rabbi, or cremation. There's only one facility for cremation, and they keep trying to shut that down).
Bridgwalker is probably more knowledgeable than I on the Haredi community. There have been some graver examples of this rioting a way back. I believe last year a girl in my town died from malnutrition – so the local Haredi people staged a mini-riot in front of the police station. The police could not of course ignored it, and made with the night-sticks and so forth. When the dust settled it transpired someone had used the occasion to break into the station's morgue and steal the infant's body. It was never found, and no investigation could be held since no autopsy could be conducted.
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I guess I was correct in what I thought then about the parliamentary coalition issue with them.
Maybe I'm going out on a limb here, but I think why this topic (Heredim riots) is so fascinating/surprising for the American APS'ers here, (Bridgewalker excluded, who lived growing up as one...) is that most of us have a particular mental "pigeon hole" for the ultra-orthodox Jew in America.
We tend to see the ultra-orthodox Jews as sort of a cultural affectation for America, a diversity milepost for places like New York City, or anywhere else that sports an ultra-orthodox community. We tend to think of a wizend old shopkeep, and little boys in with peyot ringlets and kippahs/yarmulkes running about.
As a group, I think Americans are also historically conditioned, especially since World War II to think of Jews as victims. Nor do we think much about the issues faced by such insular communities, such as abuse, or things like limited opportunity for women like Bridgewalker suffered. The popular culture tends to associate such things more with the polygamist Mormon sect communities of the American South and central-West, and something that's not really possible in a large city.
So when I hear Micro's news of Haredim riots, burning trash dumpsters, it's just total cognitive dissonance.
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http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3746998,00.html
City suspends services to haredi neighborhoods
Dozens of ultra-Orthodox demonstrators torched garbage bins Wednesday in Jerusalem's Shabbat Square in protest against the arrest of the haredi mother accused of starving her three-year-old son.
Police arrived on the spot, and arrested 15 people. A Border Guard officer was injured by a stone thrown at him, and cars and buses were damaged.
Rioters have also taken to the streets in Beit Shemesh. Police are on location.
Following the riots Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat ordered all city services to the Meah Shearim and Geola haredi neighborhoods suspended "in an attempt to prevent the threat posed to municipal employees in the area".
The Jerusalem Municipality said that the services will not be renewed "until such time that providing them will not entail risking human life." The mayor said he regretted the harm done to those who had not participated in the uprising, and that he hoped services would be renewed soon.
Micro Sez: And that's a good start.
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It's a good start, yes. I still favor the increased application of nightsticks. They call the Israeli police "Nazis"?
I'll be glad to show them "Nazis".
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Hmmm... don't want your kids taken "out of the community"? Don't let members of your community harm them.
Not a real difficult concept...
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Interesting how Jews now refer to other Jews as Nazis when it's convenient for them to make the sound bite...
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Honestly Mike, the way so many make use of the term "Nazi", it's almost enough to make me wish we WOULD have another war like WWII. If for no other reason than to give us a new "villain"...
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Micro, has anyone in Israel ever tried a coordinated effort to penetrate and expose the Haredim to the rest of the more moderate and secular Israeli culture?
Obviously it would be a difficult task, such hyper-orthodox/fundamentalist cultures already see their "culture war" in very defined terms already. They view innocuous activity by the outsiders (like a parking lot operating on the sabbath) as willful transgressions. The reaction to a coordinated effort would be apopolectic, obviously.
Like many such situations, I often want to show them what a REAL culture war would be like, that way when you back off they're a little politer.
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Three more people have been injured today. One of them a municipality worker.
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Rabbis have not done enough to contain ultra-Orthodox riots in Jerusalem over the arrest of a mother who allegedly starved her son, a senior police official said Thursday.
"I have not heard an outcry by rabbis or dignitaries calling for an end to the riots," Jerusalem District Police Commander Major General Aharon Franco said. "There is no sane element in the ultra-Orthodox community that has stood up and spoke out against this phenomenon. Someone needs to wake up because eventually people will get hurt."
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3747936,00.html
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It may be uncivilized of me to suggest, but maybe those rioting to protest the arrest of an unfit mother SHOULD get hurt...
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It may be uncivilized of me to suggest, but maybe those rioting to protest the arrest of an unfit mother for any reason SHOULD get hurt...
FTFY.
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Is haredim rioting particularly common, or are these recent developments?
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Is haredim rioting particularly common, or are these recent developments?
Welcome to Israel. They do this once a year or two. Recently they seem to have become... more agitated.
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Would this be the same group that rioted a couple of weeks ago because of some parking lots being open on the Sabbath?
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Would this be the same group that rioted a couple of weeks ago because of some parking lots being open on the Sabbath?
A subset of the same community. By the way, the parking lot people keep rioting every weekend.
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I dunno if this is true or not, but the accepted reality when I was in Jerusalem was that "Sabbath Square" (the major intersection leading into the Meah Shearim/Geulah neighborhoods where this stuff generally takes place) is so called because of the regular stoning of cars daring to drive through there in Sabbath.
As much as this is allegedly a phenomenon of radical extremists like Neturei Karta, no one in the more mainstream (if you can call anything that isolationist and radical mainstream) Haredi community was ashamed enough or angered enough by the rioting/habitual stoning of drivers to NOT adopt the name for the intersection. In this of course, it doesn't matter if the origin of the name is truth or haredi legend--people still use it, and talk about that as its origin. I was surprised the first time I heard that. There is a certain admiration among the haredi, mixed with faint condemnation, for the whole rioting phenomenon.
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Burning down the house
Haredi residents set the streets on fire while fighting the Zionist state
Ariella Ringel-Hoffman
We see it happening every few months. An amazing Jerusalem ritual; glorious haredi pyromania – burning down the house.
They are quite good at it, especially the residents of the Mea Shearim and Geula neighborhoods, aged 7 to 70, including – on the sidelines, of course, and separately – their modest wives.
In the spectrum of their reactions, burning down the house is the decisive answer; the first and second blow; the beginning and end of the dialogue; a shining negotiations session.
It starts with announcements posted on walls, urging the public to join. This week it was about the starving mother – whose son’s shocking photograph, all skin and bones, was published by Yedioth Ahronoth Thursday.
They say she “treated him with such great devotion that her hands swelled up.” The announcement was signed by the “Association for Curbing the Persecution of the Haredi Public,” a heart-breaking text pertaining to the terrible injustice done to the mother, the result of a blood libel concocted by the welfare department, which along with the medical establishment “experiments on humans.”
The Orthodox public – “a handful of radicals” as some of their functionaries claim – is well practiced. Within minutes, all the garbage in the neighborhood is gathered for the sake of the cause. The skilled youngsters – there is no replacement for experience acquired under fire – turn municipal garbage dumpsters into a glorious arsenal of weapons. A flammable combination of homemade garbage and public waste: Plastic bags, paper bags, cardboard boxes, Styrofoam cups, leftovers from breakfast-lunch-dinner, eggshells and rotten vegetables.
A little drop of fuel and it goes up in flames. The fire of God that blinds everyone.
While doing that, a moment after the police and firefighters and municipal inspectors arrive, we see a little fridge flying down and landing on top of a fire truck, along with leftovers from the Shabbat meal, glass bottles, stones, and fruit that withered in the heavy heat.
So much depression hides there. So much anger, fury, and self-righteous rage that burns anything in its course. Residents of the haredi state hit the streets time after time to desperately fight the Zionist state, by burning its green garbage dumpsters.
'Zionist regime’s persecution'
As it turns out, there is no shortage of reasons. For seven years now, since 2002, they have been setting the streets on fire every summer, ahead of the Jerusalem Pride Parade and during the event.
Meanwhile, they rushed to defend yeshiva student Israel Valas, “a good guy, a distinguished Torah student,” who shook his three-year-old son to death and was convicted in the Zionist court. They also fight anything they perceive as the violation of the status quo in the capital – the opening of a road (Bar-Ilan) or the opening of city parking lots on Shabbat (Safra and Karta.)
When these pretexts run their course, they invent new ones. If at first they burned garbage dumpsters because of the starving mother, later they burned them because city officials said they given them new ones until they calm down.
And so, for five days now, excited and overjoyed like children in a Lag BaOmer party, they dance around the fire. If there’s pain there, and there must be, it is difficult to identify it on the revelers’ faces. Hidden behind plumes of smoke, they prevent any attempt at dialogue; any possibility of reaching the mother’s other children to see whether any of them were also victims of abuse.
They also block, with their flames, the way to other distressed individuals: Victims of domestic violence, incest, and sexual harassment. They set the streets on fire as if those things never happened, and if they did happen, well, it’s as though they didn’t.
And all these maladies are merely the result of the hostile Zionist regime’s persecution, which seeks to falsely accuse young fathers, devoted mothers, righteous men and their sons of committing secular transgressions.
So what are they left with? Burn and dance; dance and burn. What great joy.
Here. (http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3748120,00.html)
Micro Sez:
This editorialist is a bit biased IMO, but she is essentially right.
Although Israel Valas didn't 'shake' his child to death, he threw it against a wall, kicked it and bit it several times. His behavior went beyond the 'accidentally shake the child to death' and into homicidal insanity.
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"I have not heard an outcry by rabbis or dignitaries calling for an end to the riots," Jerusalem District Police Commander Major General Aharon Franco said. "There is no sane element in the ultra-Orthodox community that has stood up and spoke out against this phenomenon. Someone needs to wake up because eventually people will get hurt."
Are there any sane voices among the Chasidic mullahs?
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Are there any sane voices among the Chasidic mullahs?
Define sane.
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"not rioting to protect a child abuser"
Does that definition work for you?
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"not rioting to protect a child abuser"
Does that definition work for you?
By that definition, there are many. However, according to my brother who is still on the inside, the most forward thinking efforts to eradicate child abuse--mostly child sexual abuse in the community--involve letting children know that they are allowed to report anything they are uncomfortable with, but it is absolutely inappropriate to actually discuss sex or sexuality or what exactly the kids might be experiencing and why they feel like it is wrong. Can't do that because it would disrupt the modesty of the community.
So, maybe there are levels to the insanity. One level will riot to protect child abusers. Another level will create policies for child abused prevention that actually make it very unlikely any actual abuse will be prevented, because to talk about abuse is "immodest."
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Honestly Mike, the way so many make use of the term "Nazi", it's almost enough to make me wish we WOULD have another war like WWII. If for no other reason than to give us a new "villain"...
I use "zombie" interchangably with Nazi
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Amazingly, the government now wants to restore welfare services to the neighborhoods they are still rioting in.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3750813,00.html
Furthermore, other idiots are now claiming the event proved "violence works" and that they want to try it, too.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3749968,00.html
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Furthermore, other idiots are now claiming the event proved "violence works" and that they want to try it, too.
Because the settlers used to be known for their peaceful ways...
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Because the settlers used to be known for their peaceful ways...
Clearly they weren't.
And yet caving in to this sort of behavior encourages it.
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And yet caving in to this sort of behavior encourages it.
If I had my way I'd end all services until they came begging.
That could have several end results
1. They eventually get desperate and learn that there's limits on what they can do, and the more moderate types have them by the short and curlies.
2. They learn to do without - bonus, you're a step closer to a balanced budget. Try the tactic elsewhere.
3. They get desperate and instead of cooperating they get (more) violent/criminal. Setting fire to trash and having noisy nasty crowds is one thing, actually burning out stores and such is another. In this case you arrest them then ship them to various different jails/prisons such that they don't have contact with their community.
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Or adopt the old "Rioters will be shot" stance. Nothing says Return to your homes like belt fed weaponry. Aim high so you don't get the kids.
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>Aim high so you don't get the kids.<
They'd probably start carrying the kids on their shoulders for exactly that reason...
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While collecting their welfare checks, do most of them still denounce the secular state of Israel as "illegitimate"?
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>Aim high so you don't get the kids.<
They'd probably start carrying the kids on their shoulders for exactly that reason...
Aim for the chest then...
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While collecting their welfare checks, do most of them still denounce the secular state of Israel as "illegitimate"?
Probably not. We have countless immigrants here who hate everything about this country, except for welfare of course. And our immigration authorities, in their infinite wisdom saw it fit to hand out citizenships like it was candy. So now we have people who claim they will be killed if they go back to Shitholeistan, despite the fact that many of them go back volountarily on vacations. Were it up to me, I'd revoke their citizenships while they were out of the country...
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Probably not.
This is Israel, and they certainly used to.
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This is Israel, and they certainly used to.
They hate it when it's convenient. Or they constantly hate everything except for the welfare.
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Amazingly, the government now wants to restore welfare services to the neighborhoods they are still rioting in.
Easy solution; offer only catfish nuggets and cheeseburgers until they grow up.
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>Aim high so you don't get the kids.<
They'd probably start carrying the kids on their shoulders for exactly that reason...
Get enough of 'em the first time I doubt there'll be a second. Amazing how righteous indignation evaporates after your comrades' head asplodes.
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Easy solution; offer only catfish nuggets and cheeseburgers until they grow up.
Why not SPAM? :laugh: