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SMUDGED LENSES Just about two years ago, on February 28, 1999, 40,000 Orthodox Jews packed
more than a mile of 4-lane wide Water Street in lower Manhattan in a
bone-chilling rain to pray and recite Psalms. They were there to beseech
God en masse to guide the hearts of Israel's leaders to preserve the Jewish
State's Jewish character. While the immediate impetus for the gathering had
been a series of Israeli Supreme Court rulings threatening the state's
"religious status quo," there were no speeches and no slogan-chanting - only
traditional Jewish prayers and verses.
The following day, The New York Times acknowledged the unusual event by
publishing a photo in its Metro section with the caption: "20,000 Vent Anger
Against Israeli Court." The newspaper might be forgiven for disregarding
the official police estimate and undercounting the crowd by half. But
"anger" was nowhere evident at the gathering. I was there. Not a single
word spoken by the event's organizers or by any of the rabbis who led the
crowd in fervent prayer, could have remotely been characterized as angry.
The crowd itself was serene and serious, and they prayed in what any
observer would have described as a heartfelt manner.
But they were visibly Orthodox Jews and the issue that had brought them
together was a controversial one, so anger was, even if unwitnessed,
presumed.
That photo and caption came to mind recently when several newspapers,
including the Times, ran another photograph of Orthodox Jews, on February 9,
along with a similar caption, both provided by the news agency Reuters.
The photograph, of a small part of a large crowd that gathered shortly after
a car bomb exploded in a heavily haredi, or "ultra-Orthodox," neighborhood
in the heart of Jerusalem, showed a number of local residents. No one had
been killed or even seriously injured by the powerful explosion, though the
street where it took place is often filled with students from a large nearby
yeshiva and needy Jerusalemites visiting a soup kitchen at the site.
Numerous personal accounts poured in to American friends and relatives of
some of those present in the crowd that day, describing the jubilant and
spiritual mood of those who had gathered, and how they sang thanks to God
for frustrating the plans of the bombers to kill and maim.
In the published photo, a boy is holding up a piece of wreckage from the
bomb-laden car; a smiling young man has his arm thrust upward; and, in the
foreground, a pair of hands is clasped together in what seems a gesture of
celebration.
The caption, in its entirety, reads: "A crowd of Israelis chanting anti-Arab
slogans in Jerusalem yesterday as one held a piece of jagged metal from the
explosion of a car bomb."
It was indeed reported by the Israeli paper Ha'aretz that a group of
supporters of the outlawed anti-Arab Israeli Kach movement had joined the
mostly haredi crowd, in fact that the very religious Jews had "clashed" with
the ultra-nationalists.
It is conceivable that some haredim may have joined in anti-Arab chants.
After all, though the overwhelming majority of haredim are neither very
nationalistic nor "anti-Arab," Palestinian actions over recent months have
certainly served to heighten fears of Arabs across all segments of the
Israeli populace.
Perhaps the particular handful of men depicted in the Reuters photograph
were even, against the odds, among such presumed haredi chanters. If they
were, though, they were clearly not representative of the large haredi
majority at the scene. Yet the caption (or choice of photo, if the caption
is accurate) misled millions of readers into thinking that the gathering had
been one of hatred, not thanksgiving.
It is highly unlikely that anti-Semitism or anti-Orthodoxy thrives in the
Western media. But what is clearly alive and well in the hearts of some
reporters - and, sadly, in one or another way within most of us - is the
more subtle but still dangerous evil of stereotyping.
The Orthodox Jewish community is not perfect, but neither is it what the
press and public so often assume. If Orthodox Jews gather to pray, it does
not mean they are angry. If they celebrate, it does not mean they are
hateful. If (to digress in a personal vein) they dare to raise important
Jewish issues, it does not mean they are motivated by lack of love for
fellow Jews.
Isn't it time haredim were viewed with true objectivity rather than through
the smudged lens of stereotype?
[Rabbi Avi Shafran serves as director of public affairs for Agudath Israel of America and as American director of Am Echad] |