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Responding to Readers of “Ultra-Orthodox Jews’ Greatest Strength Has Become Their Greatest Weakness”

[additional-authors]
October 30, 2020
People congregate outside of the Congregation Yetev Lev D’Satmar synagogue on October 19, 2020 in the Williamsburg neighborhood in the Brooklyn borrough of New York City. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

My articles in The New York Times occasionally prompt a large volume of readers’ questions and comments, to which I try to respond at the Jewish Journal (see hereherehereherehere, and here). Sometimes, the volume is so high, that it requires more than one post.

Such is the case of my latest article: Ultra-Orthodox Jews’ Greatest Strength Has Become Their Greatest Weakness. Maybe because it was especially good, maybe because it was especially bad, maybe because it touched a sensitive nerve, the number of responses, via social media and mail, was larger than usual. Some of these responses were laudatory, quite a few were hostile, some were polite, many others were rude. I will disregard the rudeness, but embrace the debate. So, I am going to share some of the reservations penned by my critics, most of whom are ultra-Orthodox, and try to answer them. It will be a two-part post — because one is just not enough.

First things first, I’d urge you to read the NYT article in full. Here is one paragraph, that captures the main argument:

It is time for Haredi leaders to realize that their model of isolation from the larger public is becoming archaic. Not because it failed, but because it succeeded. The Haredi model in Israel and the West over the past century was meant to keep a threatened enclave from being wiped out by a cultural tsunami… it was designed for a weak group attempting to prevent decline. But as a model for a strong and thriving community it is flawed and dangerous… the disobedience of a weak minority can be tolerated. But the disobedience of a strong community — particularly one that could affect the health of the larger public — is more difficult to defend.

Just one more note before we turn to the comments, the questions, and my responses: part of the conversation I had with David Suissa on his Pandemic Times podcast was also about this issue. Listen here.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach called the article “disgusting” and then explained (on Facebook): “He makes Orthodox Jews sound like bullies who deserve to be taken down. He only likes them when they’re weak and straight out of ‘Fiddler on the Roof.’”

My response: Rabbi Shmuley has many admirers and followers, so I am treating him seriously even if his response seems somewhat ill-mannered. Boteach has two main arguments. One, that I paint Orthodox Jews as bullies. Two, that I want them to be weak. On the first one I plead half guilty: It is my belief that during the coronavirus pandemic some ultra-Orthodox leaders (not all Orthodox Jews!) behaved like irresponsible bullies. On the second half I plead not guilty. Hyped language aside, nowhere in the article do I suggest that I want the Orthodox to be “taken down” (because this is not what I want). Nowhere in the article do I suggest that a weak ultra-Orthodox community is better than a strong one. In fact, I say the opposite: it is good to see such thriving community. It is good that ultra-Orthodox Judaism no longer has to worry about its ability to survive.

Boteach (and he is not the only one) read my article backwards: I do not want Haredi Jews to become weaker — I want them to acknowledge their newly found strength and change their attitudes accordingly. Let me make it simple: when an eight year old boy is told that he can no longer slap his sister like he used to do when he was a naughty three, it is not because we want him to be three again, it is because we want him to accept his changed situation and growing strength and alter his behavior accordingly (and please, save me the complains about me comparing Haredi Jews to immature children. This is merely an attempt to explain myself using a simple example).

Seno Bril tweeted the following comment: “@rosnersdomain Uninformed readers may conclude from your article that all Orthodox Jews, dressed in black coats, refuse to comply with Covid-19 measures of social distance and masks. That is a dangerous implication.”

My response: This was a common response, and it is understandable. Being worried about uninformed readers, and even more so about uninformed haters, is not irrational in a world in which such people exist. Such concern has two possible remedies.

One, not to publish anything that could trigger uninformed readers to have even more uninformed views. The question is such case becomes where to draw the line. Do you not write about debates within the scientific community about global warming, fearing that uninformed readers will take it as proof that global warming is a myth? I’m not sure that’s advisable, and even less sure that it’s feasible.

The second option is to be careful, and this, again, could mean two main things. One, use cautious language and be as clear as possible. Two, use venues that lower the prospect of reaching uninformed audience. When it comes to language, I was trying to be careful while remembering that being too careful could mean being less clear or less honest. When it comes to the venue, The New York Times, that’s a serious concern, that needs to be addressed. That’s next.

Steve Reinman tweeted: “you must consider that positing such an outcome – and in the NYT at that – may in fact be tantamount to incitement. It doesn’t take much.” Aedan O’Connor tweeted: “Writing in the NYT implicitly gives goyim permission to support Cuomo singling out the Jews”.

My response: The NYT is not a “Jewish” newspaper, it is a general newspaper. So, if you think that an article such as the one I wrote should only appear in community papers — to make sure it is read only by Jews (whom, we hope, are more informed and have less tendency to be hostile) — you’d be right to argue that my decision to publish in the Times was wrong. I think a reasonable case for such position (no to NYT) could be made.

So why did I decide differently? I’ll mention three reasons. 1. Because I regularly write for the NYT, and once I decided to do it, it’s impossible (and unprofessional) for me to treat this platform as unfit for some of my views (when these views are critical of Israel or of Jews). 2. Because the NYT is in some way a community paper. It is widely read by Jews, it is published in a city of many Jews, it often deals with Jewish affairs. Of course, it is also a paper with a certain ideological outlook — one that many engaged Jews find problematic. Then again, I made a choice to write for it. So, I do, on all matters the paper deems interesting. 3. I find the matter on which I wrote urgent. I wanted this article to ignite a debate (knowing quite well that it is going to make certain people angry with me). The NYT is the right platform for igniting such a debate, and the proof is in the pudding. As my readers know, I love the Jewish Journal and write for it a couple of times a week, but if we are honest, we can safely assume that had I written a similar article here, the volume of discussion would not be the same.

The Orthodox Jewish Public Affairs Council (OJPAC) issued many tweets criticizing the article. Here is one that exemplifies the main theme of these tweets: “Basically, the premise of your article (that Haredim have worse Coronavirus numbers and by their own fault) is false. The worst death rate by ethnicity in NYC is among Latinos. Did the NYT run an op-ed blaming and generalizing Latinos the way you did to Haredim?

My response: Again, my response should refer to several issues, when each of these issues is slightly different. 1. That the situation among Haredi Jews is not as bad as I say. 2. That there are other communities with worse numbers. 3. That by writing about Orthodox Jews rather than other communities I single them out.

Let me take these one by one.

  1. There is nothing as boring as arguing about facts. Haredi Jews have high rate of infections, period (for proof, see here, here, here, here, here, here). Is it the highest? In some places it is, in others it is not. Remember, my article mixes Israel and the United States, and this creates certain problems because some of the things I say are truer in one place than in the other. Nevertheless, I decided to include both communities in the article because the overall theme fits both.
  2. Other communities do not interest me as much as the Israel and the American Jewish community. I am not an expert on Latinos, and hence would let other people write about why the rate of infection among them is high. It might even be an interesting article. The issue with the Haredi community is not just the high rate of infection, it is also the communal response to it. That was the topic of my article.
  3. Does the article single out Jews? There is such danger, and I was aware of it when I wrote “Jews and gentiles must be careful not to single out the ultra-Orthodox, who look different and act different from most of us.” But how does one write about Jews without, in some way, singling out Jews? That’s impossible. I singled them out when I wrote about their “prioritization of compassion over personal success” (for some reason, no one complained about that!). I singled them out when I wrote that they are “well practiced in defying the larger society in which they live.” I singled them out in the same way they single out themselves. They want to be different; they want the world to see that they are different. Hence, saying that they are different is not singling them out, it is describing them as they are.

To be continued….

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