Mothers

Two sordid stories involving chareidim have hit the headlines this week. One, emanating from Australia, is a mind-blowing tale of ongoing molestation of female high-school students by their Israeli principal, Malka Leifer. The second, a local, Israeli one, and even more shocking, is of the tortuous abuse of two toddlers, both hospitalized, one of whom is still unconscious.

The usual arguments will be bandied back and forth: such crimes are not any more rampant in the Chareidi world than elsewhere; Chareidim are just human like everyone else; their abuse incidents are just higher profile because they are scrutinized more closely than other sectors, etc. And the counter lines: It's all because they suppress their emotions and eschew mental health treatment because of the stigma it carries; their youth are naive, ignorant of molestation because of their insular upbringing and as such are easy prey.

I would like to focus on one more counter argument: the fact that Chareidi women are virtually forced, even if only psychologically, to bear children on an annual basis. Many of them do not particularly love children and even if they do, are unequipped to deal with such a deluge of them. I have witnessed neglect first hand in the homes of my Chareidi relatives. Babies left lying on narrow sofas because "nothing will happen"; babies handed to siblings and, "oops", dropped on Israeli stone floors; babies left unattended with full bottles propped up and in their mouths while mother goes out swimming; babies left howling, unconsoled in the pusher while mother, entirely unfazed, carries on chatting with her sisters at a family simcha; babies sent to the swimming pool to be supervised in the water by siblings, children themselves. These are practices that were not concealed because they were deemed perfectly acceptable by the mothers. Heaven only knows what went on behind closed doors.

The women involved in both of this week's breaking news stories were obviously not suited for the lifestyle that was inflicted on them by Chareidi dictates. The lesbian principal should never have married a man. The abusive mother, not financially oppressed by the way, given her upper-class address, should never have had children.

As the devoted mother of a profoundly disabled teen, I am personally incensed by both of these stories. I have always felt that people who cannot appreciate their healthy, sweet, innocent children should not be permitted to raise them. But the perpetrators of the abuses currently grabbing headlines obviously deserve nothing short of long prison terms. Unfortunately, I doubt that justice will be done to them. We can only shudder to ponder how many other children still suffer, silently, helplessly, at the hands of parents and educators like these two.

Beasts of burden in the chareidi world

Secular Israeli journalists tend to wax optimistic when writing about the state of the Israeli Chareidi sector. For several years now, they have insisted that they are growing increasingly more enlightened, progressive and accepting of the non-chareidi world.

Usually the evidence they rely on is the high-tech training and positions that some chareidis have pursued.

But this rosy perception is an illusion. The truth is that the Chareidi sector is building ever more massive walls around their communities. Their Rabbis churn our "new and improved" restrictions on their charges, particularly the women, on a nearly daily basis. The realm of Tzniut (=modesty), a favorite target of theirs, has spawned numerous radical edicts including separate seating on public buses (i.e. women relegated to the rear seats), bans on wigs, on make-up, on arm-swinging; segregated shopping hours; bans on use of the internet; bans on chassidic song festivals despite segregated entrances and seating; and the list continues.

Haaretz columnist Avirama Golan exposes the purported evidence of enlightenment - the chareidi foray into high-tech - for what it is: a means of entrenching chareidi men yet deeper in their non-working lifestyle.

The companies that hire chareidi women are paid 1,000 shekels/month for every ultra-Orthodix woman hired. These employees, ever the beast-of-burden in their sector, have proven to be far more reliable and hard-working than their Indian counter-parts.

Golan quotes an engineer in one such firm: "[The women] asked the rabbis it it was permitted to go out for a few minutes to pray, and they were reprimanded and told that it wasn't. Nor are they allowed to rest for a moment for fear of 'stealing' [their employer's time], and they do not argue or complain."

For 5,000 shekels or less per month they work from 7am to 4pm.

Golan wonders why the government - I would extend that to the secular media - still insists on claiming the enlistment of chareidi women into high-tech as an achievement. The answer is probably fear. The secular sector sees the demographic writing on the wall and dreads the inevitable day when they are out-numbered by the ultra-orthodox. To allay those fears they delude themselves with the myth that the walls between the two sectors are crumbling.

Can it be that the Rabbis are not entirely sincere? That they don't issue edicts, as they claim, for the spiritual benefit of their followers? They they relish the control they exercise over their followers?

While I am sure, as a halachic-abiding Jew myself, that there are genuine G-d-fearing men among them, I have no doubt that some are self-centered narcissists. As someone who enjoys the privilege of having revered Rabbis for close relatives, I can confidently state that there are among them some who are certifiably nasty and callous.

Yet to come: why haven't the Rabbis publicly denounced the nascent but growing sartorial trend among women of wearing dozens of layers of clothing over every part of their bodies, faces included. Without a word from them, could Burqas in Bnei Brak be far off?