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'Reform scumbags'

November 24, 2016 23:07

The plan to establish a new egalitarian section at the Kotel in Jerusalem was meant to solve a long-running dispute. But the compromise has now precipitated an ugly round of religious polemics as the Charedi political establishment tries to defend the state against the encroachment of the non-Orthodox.

Praying at the Kotel is not the only issue but it has become the most emotive, laying bare Israel’s religious divisions. Israel is different from the diaspora but what goes on there has some impact on Jewish communities abroad.

A few weeks ago I was astonished to read an account of the Kotel controversy in the Anglo-Charedi newspaper, the Jewish Tribune. Astonished because in the continuation of a front page article, “Outcry against Reform”, the paper reported that Shas rabbis had instructed their political leader to “do everything he could to prevent the Reform scumbags from achieving their goals”.

The phrase was not a direct quotation, it was the reporter’s own words. But while the Tribune has always been a staunch opponent of non-Orthodox Judaism, it has always been pretty sober and I have never seen a phrase such as “Reform scumbags” used in a Jewish newspaper here.

The unpleasant phrase may have been a translation from Hebrew, I simply don’t know, which would explain if hardly justify the language. Perhaps it is best to regard it as a one-off lapse of taste.

But it is a reminder how deep are the religious differences running through the Jewish world and their capacity to create discord.

November 24, 2016 23:07

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