Poll: Haredim most hated group in Israel

[Poll_Blind]

From JPost (emphasis mine):

A significant 37 percent of Israelis consider the haredim the most hated group in Israel, according to a new study conducted ahead of the memorial day for the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin by the Gesher organization.

Some 15% said the same of new immigrants from countries of the former Soviet Union, while about 13% said that settlers in the West Bank and the former Gaza Strip settlements were the most hated.
The respondents were asked to say who they believed to be hated, not whom they personally hated. The numbers therefore reflect not only the opinions of Israelis who dislike certain groups, but also those of Israelis who feel disliked.

--snip--

"Many believe that the leadership of the haredi world is happy about this," Rose told The Jerusalem Post following the publication of the study on Tuesday. "According to this view, the perception of being hated helps them to keep their society separate from the general culture."

As proof, Rose pointed to the fact that "haredi media loves to quote incessantly those few who truly hate them. It makes it easier to keep the kids inside haredi society."

--snip--

  If you can, please read the whole article before replying. Four paragraphs only begins to cover the haredi angle on this, twoard the end of the article there are other interesting statistics on perception about what events most influenced the polarization of Israeli society.

PB

[pelsar]

1. i hadnt realized that we were "polarized"

I'll have to remind the diverse people i work with from haridi jews, to jews for jesus, to druz, to muslim arabs to the secular....that were "polarized"-i bet they dont know it either.

[John Gauger]

2. Wow. That's so horrible.

This article and its comments bring about so many things that need to be said. I'm amazed by these people. I don't even know who the Haredim are, but I know that they do not deserve such hate. I cannot write all the things I feel about this article, but I will say that I am disturbed by those who condemn the overly high intermarriage rate. It's like something out of the Jim Crow South.

[v osk]

3. Haredim

the haredim are baically the ultra-orthodox. they certainly condemn intermarriage, even with other jews. i think you should find out more about situation before talking about the "jim crow south"

[John Gauger]

4. It seems like a valid comparison to me.

Those commentors spoke of intermarriage as a threat to the Jewish people. I don't need to know who the Haredim are in order to see a similarity between that and the Jim Crow South. I'll aggree that I need to know more about Israel. I want to live there for a while and work towards peace. But I feel that the comparison was rather reserved. I might draw comparisons between them and the Amish, but that would require wild speculation on my part. In my mind, I was being reserved.

[v osk]

5. haredim again

i'm sorry, i dont want to be rude, but it is not a valid comparison. the haredim live separately because they consider themselves more observant than other jews, not because they are being segregated. in an unrelated matter, traditional jewish opposition to intermarriage - which, as a product of intermarriage, i disagree with - is not a form of jim crow; it is a requirement to marry within a religion, so as to maintain a jewish home, not demand to marry within a racial group, or to exclude anyone from society as African-Americans were in the south.

i do find it interesting that poll blind and pelsar, who both might be in position to know, seem to disagree not about what is polarizing israeli society but even whether it is polarized. from the outside, it does seem very poarized, and most of the factors cited in the article seem like the same argument in different times. can either one of you shed any further light on this?

[John Gauger]

8. I don't think you're being rude at all.

I don't know the situation, so correcting me is only proper. I understand the reasoning for a desire to keep marriages 'unmixed,' even if as you also do I disagree with the idea. I certainly don't think that their aim is the same as in the Old South - to systematically demean and degrade an entire portion of society, which if you read about in detail was really quite diabolical in its execution. I realize now how offensive such a comparison can be. I don't think I was looking at it in the same way as you. I'm sorry; that really was not a nice thing to say of Israeli society. I was just thinking that some of those comments on that article struck me as overly hateful. I did not mean for the comparison to go any further than that. I find it interesting that you should say that Israel is not polarized. If you had not said that, I would of course have believed it because I read it in the news. Isn't it funny how the media do that? They just take an idea and present it regardless of merit. I have no idea how polarized Israeli society is, but I would have gone on thinking that it was.

[pelsar]

14. israel is a complex society....

i call it a magnet for all the "weirdos"..but thats just a personal observation. However, more seriously, its a very liberal society (gay parades, gay couples can adopt, etc...as well as religious restrictions like limited civil marriage..which is a result of the muslim arabs leaders and religious jews, druz all "ganging up politically and restricting it". There is no law preventing intermarriage nor are their any restrictions outside of the customs and traditions and narrow mindedness of those who are against it within their own little "cult." Socially it may be difficult depending upon who is marrying who and where they are living...but no more than that.


As in all societies groups tend to live with their own, so you'll find neighborhoods of religious jews with local laws or customs that keep out the non religious..as you find with arab villages....and then you'll find that all are working together during their day jobs....not very polarized.

the news simply needs something to write about, and writing about everyday stuff is rather boring...but its no worse nor better than what i've seen in the states...

[bemildred]

6. I find it interesting that the Arabs are not mentioned.

Not good, not bad, just not considered hate-worthy at all.

[John Gauger]

7. I noticed that myself.

I should think that they would be in there somewhere. They are a group in Israel and therefore someone must hate them, even without any knowledge of the situation over there. It occurred to me that perhaps the poll questioned only which Jewish groups are hated, which seems horribly bigoted to me. "Which group of Jews do you self-hating Jews self-hate the most?" Of course, I'm not Israeli and maybe there is no problem with that question at all.

[bemildred]

9. That was my line of thought too.

They are disliked by some, Lieberman finds them offensive for one, but the subject never came up in this poll, and one would like to know why.

[John Gauger]

10. Wait, which Lieberman?

The moron from Connecticut that we all hate or the Russian-Israeli minister that is pushing for the elimination of the Arabs? I don't really know much about the latter - I just read about him in CounterPunch last week.

[bemildred]

11. Avigdor Lieberman, Vice Premier of Israel, or whatever it is, now.

He is on record as feeling that Israeli Arabs are not to be trusted and ought to be moved somewhere else.

[v osk]

12. info

He means avigdor leiberman of israel.
btw, are you getting a large percentage of your information about israel from counterpunch? you might want to try something more balanced.

[John Gauger]

13. No. I was just checking out the site.

It was recommended to me by a political group that I joined last week. I have very little experience with CounterPunch. I just know that they have a very good expose of Al Gore from a while back. I get my info on Israel here and there. I should probably ask a friend of mine about Israel - he has been there before and his parents live there now. His father is an Arabic professor and has a job over there, presumably something involving the Arabic language. He has only ever mentioned it in passing. I think I asked him something about the Palestinians and he said that they were the most hospitable people he had ever encountered. He says that the Israelis also treated him extremely hospitably, but that something resonated with him in the Palestinians. Now that I think about it, they were probably Gazans; my friend lived for a few years in Egypt, so that's probably why they were so friendly. We plan to live together in Israel in the future - we want to work towards peace and understanding. SInce he knows about the Palestinians, I guess I should be learning about the Israelis. What would you recomend I look at?

[union_maid]

15. sources

a couple of suggestions among many possibles:
for current events, ynet(in english) is very user-friendly. it is politically moderate. Ha'aretz is more reliably liberal, but i find their website much less accessible.
there are a lot of books, Howard Sachar's "A History of Israel" is long but good.

[Lithos]

17. A couple of good news sources

Are Ha'aretz and the Guardian.

L-

[Scurrilous]

16. Jerusalem: Orthodox riot against pride parade, again

Another night of protests in the capital: Some hundred Orthodox burn trash cans, block streets in Mea Shearim. Police forced to rescue taxi, bus. Jerusalem police chief consults on legal possibilities of cancelling Jerusalem parade

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3322619,00.html

<snip>

"As the date of the gay pride parade in Jerusalem nears, on Wednesday evening dozens of members of the Orthodox sector took to the capital’s streets once again in protest of the event. Police had to escort a bus out of the area and detained two people on suspicion of attacking a taxi driver from the scene.

Meanwhile, the Jerusalem District police chief held consultations will state legal experts on the matter of the parade in order to examine the possibility of cancelling it.

A little before 9:00 p.m., some 100 Orthodox congregated in the streets of Mea Shearim, set fire to trash cans and blocked traffic. An city bus driving through the area had to be rescued by police forces. No one was hurt.

The protestors continued to block the street for roughly an hour and occasionally threw stones at police officers stationed at the intersections to keep an eye on the events. A cab driver driving through the area was attacked by the demonstrators and police forces had to rescue him as well. He was unharmed.

This was the second night in a row in which the Orthodox community protested in Jerusalem against the upcoming gay pride parade, slated to take place on November 10. Earlier Wednesday, police released eight people detained during protests Tuesday and issued restraining orders barring them from entering Jerusalem for 15 days. Six more Orthodox under arrest were kept under police custody."

[pelsar]

18. you gotta admit...nothing like demcracy in action....

a gay parade in Tel Aviv would hardly even raise an eyebrow.....liberal values are simply part of the fabric...but pulling off a gay parade in the "heart of darkeness" and intolerence that we call religion...well thats what its all about.

Like the ACLU defending nazis...a gay parade in jerusalem....

(of course we wouldn want to try that in gaza, iran or even in parts of america....(stay away from parts of ohio)