Ultra-Orthodox / Haredi
According to the ultra-Orthodox narrative, modernity has nothing of value to add to one’s life or religious quest. On the contrary, a pious Jew must be “hared,” literally fearful, not only of God but also of all innovations that might lead one away from God and God’s commandments as represented in traditional Judaism. Hatam Sofer (Rabbi Moses Sofer, 1762–1839) expanded the Mishnaic dictum “the new is forbidden by the Torah” (which referred specifically to “old” versus “new” flour) into a popular motto that to this day encapsulates the ideology of ultra-Orthodox Judaism.
After the Holocaust the Haredi community intensified its self-imposed isolation from the world. The new ideal model was the Haredi Jew who cuts himself off completely from the outside world and devotes his life to Torah scholarship.
The word “Haredim” in Hebrew has two meanings: it is applied to the population of 500,000 Israelis who lead a closed life and observe the laws of the Torah with great devotion. The literal meaning is “those who tremble with fear” - with the “fear of God”. But the Haredim fear the modern world surrounding them. This minority group is afraid of assimilation and loss of identity. The Emancipation threw open the doors of modern culture to Eastern European Jews. After many generations confined to ghetto and shtetl, where the Jewish religion was preserved in its traditional forms, many Jews began the journey toward secularism.
Kimmy Caplan noted that "Haredi society is a product of Orthodox Judaism. Its formation is most closely identified with the persona of Rabbi Moses Sofer, the Hatam Sofer (1762–1839) of Hungary. While this society regards itself as the natural, authentic, and legitimate continuation of traditional Judaism, scholars have defined it as a modern phenomenon in which the dissimilarities from traditional Judaism outweigh the similarities. According to this approach, Orthodoxy came into being in response to the decline of traditional Jewish society and the ascendancy of various movements and approaches — such as the Haskala, Reform Judaism, and, later, Zionism and Conservative Judaism — that, each in its own way, laid claim to religious truth and the requisite platform on which to tackle the challenges of modernity.
Haredi society is a mosaic of dozens of groups and subgroups representing diverse currents, approaches, theological and ideological attitudes, and ways of life. These groups maintain complex and tense love-hate relations, proximity and distance, and accord and discord. Haredi society, like any minority society that considers itself a subculture or counterculture to the majority society, is constantly in a state of tension between the wish to be seen outwardly as unified and cohesive and an awareness of the decisive importance of expressing its variance and its numerous complexions."
Within the Orthodox or dati category one can distinguish between the ultra-Orthodox or haredi, and the "modern" or "neo-Orthodox." Among the minority of the religious who were the most extreme in their adherence to Judaism -- the haredi -- the very existence of Israel as a self-proclaimed Jewish state was anathema because Israel is for them (ironically, as it is for many Arabs) a wholly illegitimate entity.
The contemporary Hasidim, or "pious ones" in Hebrew, belong to a special movement within Orthodox Judaism. Each Hasidic group is centered on the teachings of a particular Rebbe, or charismatic spiritual master. Hasidic sects are usually named after the town where the Rebbe was from. Some Hasidim wear distinctive clothing. Hasidim may also be (and usually are) ultra-Orthodox and rigorously observant of Jewish law. Haredim (literally, "those who tremble" [i.e. from fear of God]) are ultra-Orthodox in belief and stringently observant in their fulfillment of Jewish law. There are Hasidim and Haredim both inside and outside Israel, and while superficially similar, they are in fact quite different. Some non-Hasidic Haredim are among the fiercest and most hostile critics of Hasidim, generally opposing the Rebbe-centric approach of Hasidim, as well as what they view as some Hasidic innovations or deviations from traditional Jewish law.
At the very extreme, the ultra-Orthodox consists of groups such as the Neturei Karta, a small fringe group of anti-Zionist extremists, who reject Israel and view it as a heretical entity. They want nothing to do with the state and live in enclaves (Mea Shearim in Jerusalem and towns such as Bene Beraq), where they shut out the secular modern world as much as possible. Nevertheless, among the ultra-Orthodox one can also count some of the adherents of the Agudat Israel Party, who accept the state, although not its messianic pretensions, and work within many of its institutions. These adherents are exempt from compulsory military service and do not volunteer for police work, yet they demand that the state protect their way of life, a political arrangement known as the "preservation of the status quo". In practice, they live in the same neighborhoods as the more extreme haredi and maintain their own schools, rabbinical courts, charitable institutions, and so on. The state has not only committed itself to protecting the separate institutions of different Orthodox Jewish groups but also, especially since 1977, to their financial subvention.
Relations between the ultra-Orthodox and the neo-Orthodox have been complicated and not always cordial. Nevertheless, the neo-Orthodox have tended to look to the ultra-Orthodox for legitimacy on religious matters, and the ultra-Orthodox have managed to maintain their virtual monopoly on the training and certification of rabbis (including neo-Orthodox ones) in Israel. (The neo-Orthodox university, Bar-Ilan, as part of the parliamentary legislation that enabled it, was prohibited from ordaining rabbis.) Thus ultra-Orthodoxy has an aura of ultimate authenticity, a special connection to tradition that has been difficult for others to overcome. Even a staunch secularist such as David Ben-Gurion lamented during a confrontation that the ultra-Orthodox "look like our grandfathers. How can you slap your grandfather into jail, even if he throws stones at you?"
Besides Christian, Muslim, and Druze courts, there was yet another system of Orthodox Jewish courts that ran parallel to, and independently of, the rabbinate courts. These courts served the ultra-Orthodox (non-Zionist Agudat Israel as well as anti-Zionist Neturei Karta and other groups) because the ultra-Orthodox had never accepted the authority or even the legitimacy of the official, state-sponsored (pro-Zionist, neo-Orthodox) rabbinate and the Ministry of Religious Affairs. In place of the rabbinate and Rabbinical Council, Agudat Israel and the community it represented were guided by a Council of Torah Sages, which functioned also as the highest rabbinical court for the ultra-Orthodox. The members of this council represent the pinnacle of religious learning (rather than political connections, as was alleged for the rabbinate) in the ultra-Orthodox community. The council also oversaw for its community inspectors of kashrut, ritual slaughterers, ritual baths, and schools--all independent of the rabbinate and the Ministry of Religious Affairs.
While Israel law authorizes the Chief Rabbinate to determine what is kosher in Israel, the Chief Rabbinate's word is respected, but not sufficient for a growing number of orthodox and ultra-orthodox consumers. In particular, some are reluctant to accept the "regular" local rabbinate supervision of Israeli manufacturers and eating establishments, and see positive religious value in seeking out more exacting kosher supervision, known as Kosher l'mehadrin. The variety of these special ultra-kosher certifications are as diverse as the large number of religious sects that compose the ultra-orthodox community, including the Badatz of Jerusalem, the Hatam Sofer organizations, the Belz Hassidic organization, Agudat Israel and at least a dozen other highly respected rabbinical certifications in Israel.
For the most part, these voluntary Israeli certifications from Israeli rabbis are available only to Israeli manufacturers. With some exceptions, such as products which are not available at all in Israel and for which the ultra-orthodox community has a special need, most Israeli ultra-orthodox authorities are not eager to certify products produced abroad. However, parallels to these ultra-orthodox kosher supervisions do exist in the United States (and Europe) as well, where certain communities seek the certification of specific rabbis for their kosher concerns. And some of these foreign ultra-orthodox kosher certifications are known and highly respected by the ultra-orthodox in Israel.
Thousands of Israelis gathered near Jerusalem on Tuesday 27 December 2011 to protest a Jewish sect that is trying to impose its strict lifestyle on others. President Shimon Peres urged the public to attend the protest. Opposition leader Tzipi Livni, head of the Kadima Party said "We are struggling over Israel's character not only in Beit Shemesh and not only over the exclusion of women but against all the extremists who have come out of the woodwork to try and impose their worldview on us." Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had called on the Israel Police to act against violence aimed at women, saying that "The exclusion of women goes against the tradition of the Bible and the principles of Judaism.”
The protest came after an 8-year-old schoolgirl told a local TV station that she was afraid to walk to school after members of the ultra-Orthodox sect spit at her and cursed her. They claimed the girl, herself an Orthodox Jew, was not dressed properly. Marcy Oster reported December 27, 2011 that "Some haredi residents of Beit Shemesh, a suburb of some 80,000 people, are upset about the opening in September of a new Modern Orthodox girls’ school, Orot, across the street from their neighborhood. Confrontations between haredi Orthodox activists and Modern Orthodox opposite the school have waxed and waned since the beginning of the school year, and often resulted in violence."
Anshel Pfeffer noted 08 March 2024 that "Israeli governments, since the state's foundation, ignored what was happening in the Haredi autonomy (as well as to a large degree the Arab-Israeli autonomy). They forsook hundreds of thousands of young Haredi men when they didn't insist that their schools teach a full national curriculum and prepare their graduates for the workplace. They abandoned tens of thousands of women to the mercy of the rabbinical courts by giving the Rabbinate a monopoly over weddings and divorce. Likud governments only enhanced this after the 1977 election when they started also funding, with taxpayers' money, the Haredi schools. And then they gradually began awarding the Haredi parties wider powers over the lives of all Israelis.
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