Orot Banot

Well, it’s reached me.  I tried to keep quiet about it, tried to watch from a distance, but it’s all the rage at the park these days and lord knows I ain’t one to let a good point go unheard.

Orot Banot – by now the best-known school in Beit Shemesh – has made its mark on little old me, who never heard of it and still doesn’t know where it is.

Some self-hating Jews found it and seem to hate it.  Loudly and obnoxiously, they’ve let their point be heard and now I have to respond.

But not to people who can’t hear.  I have no nothing to say to, or about, a group of people hell-bent on bitter fighting.  I have nothing to say to people who terrorize children and swarm the streets, dispensing their twisted views oh too freely.

The truth is, there is nothing anyone can say to them, or about them, that they haven’t already said.  This is a group of people who have been around for years.  Discussions were held, points were made, voices were lost in the intensity of the disagreements………..and no progress was made.

So stop expecting people who don’t agree with them, don’t want to be associated with them, and do not want to engage them in any form of conversation to speak up about them.

I will spell it out because talking in tongues never seems to give the right impressions.  The Dati Leumi community is asking the Chareidi community to condemn the actions of a mixed group of people in the same league as the wackos who shake hands with our enemies.

Now tell me, is that necessary?  Do you really need the Chareidim to state the obvious?  Or do you have such a horrible opinion of Chareidim that you don’t trust that they’ve come to the same logical conclusions about people who are certifiably insane?

Let me tell you something about Chareidim.  I am not Chareidi.  I am actually anti a lot of their hashkafos and have deliberately chosen not to live amongst them because of those hashkafos.  I only know that I do not want to be Chareidi because I tried to be Chareidi once.  And so I can say without a doubt that there is nothing Chareidi about this.  The Chareidim should not break their teeth reiterating that they don’t agree with this.  They should not put themselves in a position to defend the Chareidi world, because any sane person should be able to deduce that a small group of men shouting pathetically outside an elementary school for girls is not a proper representation of the Chareidi world.

There is nothing to say to a group of people that make their own rules, as there is no one who can make a difference with any sort of proclamation.

The girls need to be protected because there are people who are dangerous outside their school.  Do what needs to be done.  Put them first.  Try to get this to be over using the tools available.  Don’t make this into a civil war.

Let’s protect all the children.  Maybe we should start by leaving this sort of discussion outside the park.  I moved here so that my children could be raised in an environment of tolerance and acceptance.  That my children could be accepted, and that they could accept others, is dependent on what they hear at home, in school, and in the park.