I couldn’t watch more than a couple of minutes of the video of Na’ama Margolese without getting too angry to keep watching. It’s so disgusting that grown men consider it their “religious duty” or some such fucking nonsense to bully and threaten a little girl, call her a slut, and spit on her.
…she was featured in a news broadcast on Israel’s Channel 2 about the ongoing Haredi harassment of the girls who attend the Orot Banot School, and about the problem of extreme Haredi control in Beit Shemesh in general.
Naama spoke on camera of her fears while walking the short distance from her home to her school, after numerous occasions when she was cursed at and even once spit on by the Haredi demonstrators. Israeli viewers watched as her mother, Hadassah, holding her hand, tried to convince her to make the short walk as she cried, whined and protested; it’s a ritual they go through every school day.
…
Members of an extremist Haredi group that have settled there over the past several years have been pushing for the creation of gender-segregated bus lines, designating parts of the city where women and men were directed to separate on public streets, and harassing the girls of Orot Banot on the ground that they did not dress modestly enough.
A Jewish Taliban, in short. Coming soon to a neighborhood near you? A Baptist Taliban, a Mormon Taliban, a Mennonite Taliban? Who knows, but the fashion is disquieting.
Here’s the latest: http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/thousands-of-israelis-protest-gender-segregation-in-beit-shemesh-1.403916
Disturbing that the organisers folded to threats of violence and changed the venue; that’s precisely the point.
I think somewhere in one of the pieces I read one of the Haredi men complaining that people are waking up now to it, when it’s nothing new. I’m afraid he’s right and were it not for the coverage of the “right” little girl, it wouldn’t be happening now.
Like some great man said, religion is toxic. A pox upon them! (How I wish I too had madjic powers.) Oh, and bees pee upon them also. Ramen.
I posted that article in News at ur-B&W, Stewart. For once I saw an item on this before you pointed it out!
Should have checked back. I shortcutted by seeing that it wasn’t one of the links on this post!
The one-upsmanship is of course in a good cause, but I have the unfair advantage that even without looking, I see quite a few things on the FB ticker, as nearly 27% of my FB friends live there.
Watching that video I have to wonder why Jews and Muslims appear to hate each other so. The fundamentalists on both sides seem to want the same, the woman shown in the video as being properly dressed was wearing what looked like muslim apparel.
Well, this is of course the real dead giveaway that religion is about nothing other than a power franchise. All “successful” religions strike more or less the same chords among their adherents and when something really seems to be working well, it needs to be hijacked by a different tribe and tweaked ever so little, in order to claim that the lot from whom the trick was pinched are heretics or worse. It really is almost identical to two crime families running extortion or protection rackets in the same neighbourhood, using techniques that differ only in tiny details, except that the religious version makes a claim about divine mandates that ordinary crime families don’t (though at the level of royal families, it has, of course, been done).
“except that the religious version makes a claim about divine mandates that ordinary crime families don’t”
That’s pretty much the subject of my next Free Inquiry column, due (on short notice, so I’ve been rushing) Friday.
You have a permanent lock on the one-upmanship and that’s a good thing – it’s terrific having a pipeline.
That sounds very interesting. Look forward to reading it.
A Mennonite Taliban can’t be that far off, now that we have an Amish Taliban already operating in Ohio.
I know, that was sort of what I meant. The Amish aren’t as nice as they’re cracked up to be. They’re certainly not all that different from the Taliban.
Isn’t it amazing that holding the belief that god is on one’s side doesn’t always make people nicer?
Grown men being given an excuse to bully a child. The sophisticated theology is escaping me here.
“…isn’t it amazing that holding the belief that god is on one’s side doesn’t always make people nicer?”
It has never made people nicer.
I’m pretty sure my boss lives there; I’ll have to ask him if he knows anything more about it. (I work in the Canadian office of a company with a large office in Jerusalem, and my immediate supervisor is there. I’m not in Israel.) My boss is Orthordox, but not Haredi, and doesn’t seem to have any problems with women generally…
The phrase “Jewish Taliban” was what entered my mind when I became aware of the behavior of the Haredim. Personally, I’m hoping this is going to backfire spectacularly on them, if for no other reason than that the Haredim are quite literally parasites on the rest of Israel. They don’t do anything productive, they happily make use of every exemption from military service they can so they don’t contribute to national defense, they just take a government handout to sit and mentally masturbate over the Torah in their
madrassasyeshivas.Hold on, looks like something’s starting.
There’s already a group of Jewish ‘Taliban Women’. They have groups in Canada too, with forced child marriage, full body coverings, all those wonderful things.
Here’s an article about the Jerusalem branch and their latest stringencies- ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4155339,00.html
So it is news that you never welcome religious zealots into your community or compromise over the secularity of public spaces? You get these bastards – their numerical strength or lack of never matters – trying to run you off the streets and you pretty much deserve it, good people of Beit Shemesh. Better still, your taxes subsidise these thugs’ lifestyles and their multidudes of children. And I have yet to congratulate the good citizens of Beit Shemesh for electing an ultra religious arsehole from the Shas party as mayor. He is airbrushing women from publications and they are (belatedly and stupidly) outraged. Just what the fuck did any of these people expect?
“Just what the fuck did any of these people expect?”
Well religion is a good thing, so…
(Now if their disappointment can just turn into political action.)
Well, but you have to let these people in! After all, religion is about compassion, and good people who devote their lives to prayer are just the sort of people to be especially nice to little girls going to school. They love to see their little faces and give glory to God that He has made such beauty to give us joy. We all know this, and that’s why it is just so wrong of you gnus who moo and bellow at poor religious people. When I think of the comfort that religion brings, and how it is the basis of all morality, and underlies love and kindness and charity — which otherwise would have no foundation!! Surely, is it not perfectly understandable that these poor misunderstood men in their nice hats should be so upset about having their streets taken over by temptresses and whores and schoolgirls? I mean, who are you people to rant about religion, as though it doesn’t bring untold benefits to us all? I mean fair play, and all that. Tolerance, don’t you know? We of the Society of Rights for Christian Lightbulbs fully endorse the brave stand of these good men and true against the invasion of their streets by small but deadly “females”, which can only be regarded as the latest weapon in Satan’s arsenal against the people of the Lord — and aided and abetted by creatures that can only be described as — well, as…as mothers!!!. I am shocked at the intolerance and bigotry shown here, shocked.
And another thing. I was really pleased to see a woman in that video holding a robe to her face as though she were ashamed. And so she should be! How dare she be a woman, how dare she flaunt the fact that she is a woman in the public street where every decent commandment-abiding man can see her? How dare she defile a man’s street with her disgusting and ignominious presence? Walking all over it with her sexy feet beneath her sexy legs beneath her sexy thighs beneath…Thank GOD I am not a woman!!! How dare you show such appalling intolerance for our holy beliefs!!! Christian Lightbulbs RULE, OK? GNU GNU MOO MOO TO YOU!!!!!
Oh shit, mormons are bulletproof.
And another nother thing (last, I promise!). We of the Society for the Enforcement of the Rights of Christian Lightbulbs DECLARE that it is only we religious who show true RESPECT for women. We’ll have nothing to do with your disgusting pornography and bikinis and anorexia. Our women are not seen and not heard and NOT, definitely NOT!!! Except when WE SAY SO!!!
“And the LORD said unto Moses: Shut the fuck up, you stupid bugger, and give ear unto these my words, and stop fucking and whoring unless it be with them that be not of the people, such as verily the Amalekites and the Daughters of Canaan and the women of Philistia and all that know not the Word of the LORD, so help them God, which I won’t because I AM, and that’s why. And for that they be unclean, verily I say unto thee that the Sons of Adam shall be outcast, because of the sin of Eve, and I will visit the sins of Eve upon her daughters for ever and ever amen. And thus say I, the LORD of Boasts. Therefore be ye pure, even as I the LORD am pure, and see that your bodies be verily temples of the Holy Spirit and that your penises be circumcised and washed clean of all impurities and rise not up as doth the serpent in the presence of any Daughter of Eve. And be fruitful and multiply. And honour thy mother, that did bear thee in pain even as I decreed and did give thee suck of her body and did bring thee up, and see thou hate the daughters of Eve and all them that do incite to lust and to fornication, and lust thou not after the daughter of thy neighbour, but wed only with them that be pure and of the people, but the daughters of the ungodly shall alway be available unto thee, as they be thy slaves and thy chattles, yet see that thou defilest not thyself with the bodies of them that be unclean, and as for them that do say ‘Behold, she is but my sister, and worthy of all honour’ to such an one do I say, That she that is sister unto Cain is but a whore unto Abel and a temptation of the flesh to all…flesh, wherefore…….”
So it’s all perfectly clear and you have NO EXCUSE. MOOOOOOOOO!!!!! And fuck your seven-year-old girls, and spit on them for ever and ever amen; it’s what they deserve. And how dare they try to go to school!! Acid is too good for them!!! May the LORD forgive your hatred and intolerance. And next time you think to criticise men in funny hats, do please remember: God is Love.
That sounds worse than the Iran that I knew… and I think is is worse than it is today too.
Wow, Gordon. I can enjoy vitriol, but…
Ah well, I’ve seen pictures of what vitriol can do. Very bad for the eyes, you know. Well, not just the eyes. Anyway, sometimes I get a bit cross.
Well I should hope so.
It’s hard to find enough (verbal) vitriol to describe these guys. They’re adults. Men. “Pious.” They call a very young girl a slut, and shout at her and frighten her, and one spat on her.
What vitriol would be too much?
I really will not put up any longer with simpering cretins who tell us that religion is good, really, when all I ever seem to see is SELFISH DYSFUNCTIONAL MORONS. And a pope who tells us that it is a deeply meaningful spiritual…thing that you can no longer ride a horse into the Church of the Nativity — at least, I gather that’s why the religious barbarians ruined a perfectly good 6th-century arch. Speaking of which, Eric draws our attention to a BBC report:
The BBC headlines the story, “Priests brawl in Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity,” telling us that around 100 priests fought each other with brooms as they cleaned the church in preparation for the celebration of the Orthodox Christmas on the 6th January. Police were called in to quell the rioters, and “Palestinian police armed with batons and shields broke up the clashes.”
It goes on:
“No one was arrested because all those involved were men of God,” (said a please-man).
Ah well, fair play. I suppose some people would say the same if tourists had reported a hundred-odd priests buggering a bunch of altar-boys. Some sort of “mass”, no doubt. Missa puerorum?