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January 27, 2012     Heritage Florida Jewish News
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January 27, 2012


HERITAGE FLORIDA JEWISH NEWS, JANUARY 27, 2012 Work From page 2A now and no one in his family knows he&apos;s working." The ultra-Orthodox dis- dain change. Even their dress of black frock coats and wide-brimmed hats harkens to 19th-century and speak Yiddish, the language of their Europe forbearers. Some econo- mists say their background is so constricted that they can't supply the needs of a modern economy. "A Third World economy can't support a First World army," says Ben-David of the Taub Center. "We need more and more educated people because we are a more ad- vanced society and we need less and less uneducated. What is happening here is perverse because we are enabling a huge portion of society to deprive their kids of what they need when they grow up and to deprive us as a society of the doctors and engineers and everything else that a modern society needs." The Technion, Israel's top engineering school, has been running a program for the past three years to bring in ultra-Orthodox into their civil engineering program. They receive a crash course in core subjects like math, physics and English. "One of the teachers told me it is like teaching the ABCs at the Technion be- cause they know nothing," Muly Dotan, director of the center for pre-university studies, told The Media Line. Out of some 100 candidate discretely recruited from the ultra-Orthodox community some 30 are chosen annually and receive a hefty scholar- ship to cover their four-year degree. The first graduates are expected soon and jobs have been earmarked for them, Dotan said. But Yossi Tamir, executive director of the Tevet employ- ment initiative, counters that despite a lack of formal education, haredi men and women catch on fast. "It's very easy for them," Tamir told The Media Line. "If you are talking about computers, they have a very high ability and capacity of learning those issues. So they can move into technology, computers and mathematics without any problems. Even if they didn't study it when they were in high school. That isn't a barrier." At Mafteah, they are aim- ing lower and direct people to training as bus drivers, nurse's aides, locksmiths and construction workers. "People are not connected to reality because they are cut off. They've never worked and their fathers never worked. They never saw anyone who ever worked and so they don't have any idea what a working man does. But the moment they understand that a man with a job needs to work, they work," Gotlieb said. Still, once they gain a profession, breaking the stigma that they are lazy or untrained is often hard. Itzik Omasky, an electri- cian, said he hasn't had good experience with them. "There aren't many haredi guys in the profession. But my experience with them hasn't been good. I took one from Ramat Beit Sh- emesh and he was awful and split. He ended up quitting because he wasn't used to working so hard," Omasky told The Media Line. "He knew his craft, but he told me he could not work so much and at two o'clock had to stop. He was always wanting to take a break. I told him that this wouldn't work out and he had to work a full day. After 10 days he quit and left me in a lurch." Another barrier to their employment is the growing phenomenon in the haredi world of segregating men and women. But like the phenomenon of shunning labor, the rising gender divide is also a modern phenomenon that has little PAGE 19A basis in Jewish tradition, says Ben-David. He points to the well- known New York electron- ics retailer, B&H, which is owned and operated by ultra-orthodox Jews. "In New York, haredi men serve non-haredi women. B&H doesn't have a marker in the door 'women only'-- 'men only.' It's not part of being haredi. It's not part of being Jewish. What we are seeing here has nothing to do with being Jewish," says Ben- David. "They should get used to what modern society is and not the other way around." But Ben-David admits that there is a change tak- ing place among the haredi community. "At the anecdotal level we see more and more haredim who apparently get it and want to get the skills and go to school. There are now haredi colleges where there were none before and there are now haredim going to the army where there were none before and on the face of it this is a good direction," he says. Unusually for someone in the ultra-Orthodox com- munity, Matan Nitzky is a volunteer for Israel's civil- ian national service as an alternative to the army. He works in the Hatzala emergency medical service, which he hopes will serve as a springboard for a career in medicine. "My father is a doctor, my mother is a nurse and ... it's been my dream to also one day do that. With the civil service I have the option to fulfill my dream and hopefully one day go down that path," he told The Media Line. Israel Edri, the young working haredi father, said that he hopes the stigma that ultra-Orthodox don't want to work will fade. "It's hard to get rid of a stigma," Edri says. "I believe that after a few years this stigma will go away when they see haredim in many more senior positions." Missile From page 2A he feared the Israeli military lacked the resources to carry it out effectively. The official said that U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Pa- netta objected, fearing that it would send Iran a signal that Israel and the United States were wavering. "Panetta's initial reaction was, 'I don't want to take this off the calendar,' " Goldberg quoted the official as saying. Panetta, the official said, was unwilling to cancel the exercise but agreed to a post- ponement. Still, speculation regard- ing the exercise's postpone- ment reflects worries over whether the United States and Israel are on the same page when it comes to Iran. There have been reports that Obama is pressing Ne- tanyahu not to strike Iran-- or at least to notify the United States in advance of such a strike. More recently, the U.S. condemned the recent assassination of an Iranian nuclear scientist, a killing that many commentators suggest was carried out by the Israeli Mossad intelli- gence agency. One theory circulating in the wake of the cancellation of the postponement of the anti-missile exercises is that Israel may be retreating from close defense cooperation, in part because of the U.S. pres- sure to coordinate on Iran. Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the U.S. joint military chiefs of staff, was due to arrive in Israel on Jan. 19 and is expected to again press Israel notto strike Iran. Eitan Barak, an assistant professor of international relations at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, sug- gested that Israel's refusal to commit to notifying the U.S. in advance of any military plans "could be an exercise to employ pressure on the United States to urge it to act against Iran." He said that Israel has in the past ratcheted up its de- fensive posture as a means of pressuring the United States and the West to confront a re- gional threat. He noted that during the first Gulf War, in 1991, Israel pulled its mis- siles out of their silos after suffering a barrage of Iraqi Scud missiles. Israel was sig- naling impatience with the failure of allied forces to take out Scud missile launchers in western Iraq. "Once the U.S. satellites detected the missiles, the United States took Israel se- riously" and started hitting western Iraqi targets, the Hebrew University's Barak said. "It was a clear signal, if you don't do something, we will." Meir Javedanfar, an Ira- nian-born analyst who lives in Israel, said the announce- ment of the decision to delay the anti-missile exercise could as easily be spun as a tale of closer Israel-U.S. cooperation. "The preference here is for a negotiated settlement," Javedanfar said. "Nobody in Israel wants Iran to have a nuclear bomb--this is one of the few nonpartisan issues-- but we are also aware that the war with Iran could have far-reaching consequences, including our relationship with the United States." The decision to postpone a robust U.S.-Israel show of strength could be tied to sig- nals that Iran is softening its position on negotiations over increasing the transparency of its nuclear program, he suggested. Western nations believe the program is aimed at building a bomb, while Iran insists it is peaceful. Iran has invited inspec- tors from the International Atomic Energy Agency to visit its facilities later this month, a key U.S. demand, and the Obama adminis- tration reportedly is con- sidering a Turkish offer to broker new talks on making transparent Iran's nuclear weapons program. "The Israeli way of making Khameini sit with Obama is to make it clear all options are on the table," Javedanfar said, referring to the Islamic Republic's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameini. "The idea is to get Khameini to return to the table with a serious offer." Deja Jew From page 4A interview with the president of France-Israel Association, Gilles-Williarn Goldnadel as- serted that if there will be a new provocation by the Arabs against Israel, with Israel sub- sequently defending itself, not onlywill huge demonstrations in Paris and other European capitals be inevitable, theywill also likely be accompanied by en masse "organized physical violence." Joel Rubinfeld, the well- liked former-president of the Comitg de Coordination des Organisations Juives de Belgique, echoes the above Safe From page 5A a joint effort of top Jewish groups, regularly coordinates with law enforcement to make Jewish institutions safer. Since the Los Angeles Jewish Community Center shooting in 1999 and the Seattle Jewish federation shooting in 2006, nearly all Jewish institutions have added new security mea- sures and protocols (which I hope they're reviewing as we speak). But before we start over- hauling communal policy based on the latest vandal- ism, let's remember what the sentiment and suspects that in Belgium too "there is defi- nitely a potential of physical violence coming against Jews." He recalls an anti-Israel demonstration in Antwerp in April 2002 that was orga- nized by the European-Arab League in which the throngs were shouting "Death to the Jews." Rubinfeld describes how, immediately after the rally, "demonstrators walked in the direction of the Jew- ish neighborhood and broke diamond shop windows." two months later at another anti- Israel rally, the crowd burned the effigy of a religious Jew. Yet, just as there existed righteous gentiles during the Nazi era whose courage and moral decency led them to risk their lives inthe battle against anti-Semitism, so too do there exist equally brave non-Jewish individuals today. One such person is Guy Milli,re, a professor at the University of Paris who, when asked on a televised debate to publicly acknowledge the reality of a "Palestinian Holocaust," responded by saying: "It is surely the strangest holocaust in human history when, dur- ing the so-called period of 'genocide,' the population of a people so dramatically increases." As a result of his steadfast defense of Israel, Millire is perpetually the recipient of death threats. As well as being denounced as "a filthy Jew," a bookstore in Paris that was carrying his latest book discovered that all its copies had been defaced with a swastika emblazoned on the front pages. It is critical to keep in mind that in the end, dgja- vu is a delusion of the mind and as such the events that we are living through today are not synonymouswithwhat went on before, during, and after the Holocaust. Yet, that being said, some things have not changed: anti-Semitism stakes are. It's a question of resources and lifestyles. If we act as if the van- dals represent the tip of an anti-Semitic iceberg, Jews are going to have to accept the kind of security seen in many European synagogues and Jewish centers: armed guards, 24-hour surveillance, garrison architecture. The costs--literal and in a lost sense of well-being--will be enormous. Before we start wearing bulletproof vests to shul, we must continue to work with the government and police to review the tactics that are the most effective in foiling terrorism and anti-Semitic vandalism. How do we deter- mine when ugly, Jew-baiting Internet chatter points to the real potential for violence? Are anti-bullying and pro- tolerance efforts in schools hitting their marks? Are the people best equipped to assure our safety--professionals in law enforcement, the military and in the intelligence servic- es-deploying their resources where they are needed most? In 2009, after four men were arrested in connection with a plot to blow up two Bronx synagogues, Rabbi Brad Hirschfield put the plot and the "Jewish question" in perspective. "Yes, there are real security challengeswhich we face both asAmericans and as Jews, challenges which are bigger and more serious than they were some years back, andwe must be vigilant about them," he wrote on his biog. "But especially as Jews, we are awhole lot safer than we were a generation or two back, even here in America." Andrew Silow-Carroll is editor-in-chief of the New Jersey Jewish News. Between columns you can read his writing at the JustASC blog. in the world is as real now as it was in the 30s and 40s; the lust for Jewish blood by our enemies is as ravenous today as it has ever been; even "passive" Europeans are, once again, the silent collaborators. However, todaywe thankfully have a State of Israel in which Jews from the Netherlands, France, Belgium, Sweden, the UK and elsewhere will always be welcomed. Perhaps then, it's time to say goodbye to "dgja-Jew." This article first appeared in Jerusalem Post Jan. 20, 2012. The writer is the senior rabbi of Congregation Ohev Shalom in Maitland, Fla. (www.ohevsh- In addition to being an activist working on behalf of Israel, he also championed the cause of refuseniks in the former USSR. Rubinger was one of 21 rabbis arrested in NYC protesting outside the UN against lran 's nuclear develop- ment onAprill8, 2007andwas also one of lSAmerican rabbis invited to the White House to discuss "US-Israel Relations" with then chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, and ambassador to the Middle East, Dennis Ross. Sudoku solution from page 7 9461 58327 532764198 718239645 184397256 369512874 257486913 825943761 67 1825439 493671 582