Israel – Two groups of ultra-Orthodox Jews came to the Sultan’s Pool in Jerusalem on Tuesday for the Avraham Fried concert. Among those who came to see the Brooklynite Hasidic star was a sea of whole families, wives, children and all, spread out over the many rows of plastic chairs.
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Outside the actual venue a swarm of young married couples and single yeshiva students gathered around a wall blocking the concert area, hoping to see their idol for free via slits in the wall.
Some of the young men climbed the steep path to Mount Zion and watched the show at a safe distance from the stage.
What distinguished the two groups was their willingness, or lack thereof, to pay an average of NIS 180 for tickets, but what brought them together was their love of Fried, despite a campaign being conducted against him by some rabbis.
Everyone had heard about the rabbinical ban on joint performances by Fried and Yaakov Shwekey, who filled the enormous Caesarea amphitheater on Sunday and Monday. They had heard about the threats by Rabbi Mordechai Blau of the ultra-Orthodox group Guardians of Sanctity and Education to send its agents to the concert armed with cameras, and see to it that attendees within the ultra-Orthodox world would be punished severely.
Everyone knew, and they came anyway. The daring bought tickets, and the cautious hid in the bushes.
One of them was a young Hasidic yeshiva student, who found himself a slit in the eastern wall of the Sultan’s Pool venue on Tuesday. “Today,” he said, while keeping one eye on the stage, “there are two types of ultra-Orthodox: the conservatives wouldn’t even consider coming here or were frightened off by Blau’s threats. Just as with the rabbinical ban on the Internet, there is an atmosphere of rebellion against the bans by Blau and his crowd. But there are also those who are not afraid of the rabbis. They are here, but prefer to watch the show for free, and save their money for other things for the [summer break].”
Called the “between times” in Hebrew, the period between yeshiva trimesters, in this case between Tisha B’Av and the start of the Jewish month of Elul (when the pre-High Holiday repentance season begins ) represents the hottest tourist season for the religious public in Israel.
Glatt to be outof yeshiva
Each year the purchasing power of the ultra-Orthodox summer vacationer increases. Rabbi Blau, who maintains a sort of Bnei-Brak based morality police, boasts that dozens of businesses are under his supervision this year, including hotels and inns whose owners are willing to remove televisions from their rooms; nearly 20 water and amusement parks; and this year, for the first time, rafting on the Jordan, which will apportion separate hours for women, men and families.
According to Blau, “Today the ultra-Orthodox are stricter about where they go on vacation. The publicity of modesty organizations is having an impact.”
But the “between times” has always also been a period filled with disturbances, from traffic accidents to spiritual slackness on the part of yeshiva students.
Threatened, some of the yeshivas have adopted the American custom of camps – supervised, centralized vacations, and in recent years some have simply canceled the breaks altogether.
Senior rabbis and heads of ultra-Orthodox yeshivas met three weeks ago for a summit devoted mostly to the vacation period. From a survey of the meeting in the Yated Na’aman paper, it seems that they are preparing themselves this summer for the worst case scenario, especially in light of a letter from Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv to yeshiva principals, in which he praised them for erecting barriers against “the dangers lurking at home and outside.”
The rabbis insist on, among other things, “the duty to study Torah during the between times, the proper dress of a Torah-observant Jew, and caution against remaining idle,” as well as “the great danger, spiritually and concretely, of hitchhiking.”
Rabbi Michel Yehuda Lefkowitz, an important rabbi, warned “walking down the street with a kippa and a jacket on your arm is not the way of the Torah observant.”
Another rabbi protested that yeshiva camps conduct symposia with guests from the outside: “Inviting secular and semi-secular people to symposia brings asses to speak against the Torah observant, a terrible shame,” he said.
Blau, leading the charge, has been relatively successful thus far in the current vacation period. As to the Fried and Shweky concert, he said: “We have the photos in our possession. Here and there are Haredim in lovely pictures, with a woman to their right and one on their left. And then they will come and ask why their children are not accepted into particular schools.”
According to Blau, “We must place stop signs in front of the public in a big way. We aren’t here to jail anyone. We aren’t putting policemen on every corner. The public understands the educational issue, and if they don’t they’ll get into trouble.”
wow that is absurd, Whats next how about you take away recess thats bittul Torah. You shouldn’t even sleep because thats bitul Torah.
I fear that certain ultra-Orthodox jews within our midst or jealous of radical islamists. It’s scary to think that at their birth rates they will run the israeli government, in our lifetime.
Very sad. Walking down the street with a kipa and holding your jacket is not the way a Yeshiva boy walks? I have no words.
Let them be as concerned about smoking.
I wouldn’t worry, hoilier then tou creeps like blau are all the same — just sick some morality police on him, it’ll take a weeks to find hime violating his own decrees.
its very important to have vacation. I which I could go on vacation but I have to work.
Don’t these Rabbeim realize that the more you “force” Torah on children, the more you drive them away from Yiddishkeit? I went to Mesivta in a very prominent Brooklyn yeshiva and I can’t tell you how many of my classmates are frei today because of what they went through there.
There seems to be a fully fledged fundamentalization of Orthodoxy swirling through Eretz Yisroel and to a lesser extent in the United States.
We Yidden must follow the Shulchan Oruch at all times.
There are however Rabbis who go out of their way to place their personal extremist views in the Halachic main-street.
There has developed a competition amongst certain Rabbis; ” who can come out with the most extreme Psak, which will make more and more demands of Men Women Youth and children”.
This approach will eventual backfire.
People will say enough is enough.
We want the Middle Ground.
There will always be those who choose to conduct themselves in accordance with an extreme application of Din and Minhag, for that they should attract the praise of Man and G-d.
However, such an approach is not for every Torah Jew, and those self appointed leaders need to be more careful and diplomatic.
We do not need a frum form of jihad G-d Forbid.
May we all enjoy the Summer Bain Hazmanim in good health both be Ruchnius un be’Gashmius
people need a break. torah study loses all its meaning if it is done all day non stop every day. why should you sit around all day studying the greatness of all Hashem has created and yet chas v’shalom the students are allowed to go out and see it.
I am so depressed.
Overzealous idiots. If they push to hard, attempting to conquer a bochur’s every breathing moment they’ll find out, that in this day and age, they’ll get pushed back a lot harder, and there’ll be nothing they can do about it. Live and let live. The ‘shtetl’ mentality days of yesteryear are long gone.
Before some of you get your hair in a tizzy, keep in mind this was translated from Hebrew which is clear from many of the things that make no sense in english.
Rabbi Michel Yehuda Lefkowitz, an important rabbi, warned “walking down the street with a kippa and a jacket on your arm is not the way of the Torah observant.”
Rav Lefkowitz is NOT an important rabbi since any chashuve rebbe would never have made such a naresh statement. Indeed, even a dullest knife in the drawer in kollel would not have blabbered such nareskeit. The same for Blau. This whole article seems to make all the chareidi rabbonim look like a bunch of clowns which is not the case. Rav Elyashiv and a few others have serious concerns about hashkafah during bain ha’zmanim and frame their arguements within daas torah. Their concerns are worthy of consideration.
Torah study loses its meaning if it is treated as a chore. Yidden should study Torah often, but they should not sit all day all year round studying. Hashem created for us a beautiful world to experience and enjoy. Reading about Hashems greatness is nice, experiencing Hashems wonderful world is necessary.
#1 the answer is what ever starts there will hit us here sooner or later i have friends cin flatbush TV alumni that agree with this even though they are magid shuir here until we stand up to these ayattollers we are on a slippery slope and picking up speed. when ther moslems do it , its non sense when some one in isreal does it its biblical or g-d has spoken to him sorry children still need to be children
#17 you are wrong its not a miss translation its reality go to israel on yom tov meir shearim or bnai brak i have in america i am a rightist what i saw and experiences chol amode was extermism to the enth degree but they wanted our money
my son learnt in israel for several years in a rightist yeshiva and i am proud of his acomplishments and learning in his first year he would spend 14-18 in the bais medrish learnig the rosh yeshiva after many months stopped it for fear of burning out qnd insisted that he spend time with his grand parents (ger chassidim ) on weekends my son still learns several hours a day has a great family and is a highly respected indivdual in the yeshiva world as well as a respected MD with many of the older frum doctors consulting with him. my point is real dos torah that deal with OUR CHILDREN under stand that they need time to decompress just a we do
Another rabbi protested that yeshiva camps conduct symposia with guests from the outside: “Inviting secular and semi-secular people to symposia brings asses to speak against the Torah observant, a terrible shame,” he said.
??????
I can’t believe how easy it became to not accept a yideshe child into a yeshiva just because one thing the parent might have dont. Leachar Ma’ah V’esrim, do they want the bes din shel maalah to tell them that the reason they can’t go into gan eden is because of one thing they did. As we all know the story with leon trotzky who was also not allowed in a yeshiva just because his parents couldn’t pay tuition and I don’t have to tell you if he would have stayed in Yeshiva what he might have become. It’s a huge achroyis, and they just use it as a tool to get their way. I hope Moshiach comes soon.
Says 19,
Rabbeinu Yona says that people should always use most of their free time for learning.
If they need a break they should take it. Many important Roshei Yeshiva insisted that talmidim relax during bein hazmanim. However. a general policy of limiting Torah study is dead wrong.
This is a reason I will not consider moving to Israel until Mashiach comes. There is too much Sheker and not enough reality. This is what living off the govt. does to a person.
Says 18,
Your zilzul of an adam gadol like Rav Lefkowitz notwithstanding, he is an important person and his opinion carries a lot more weight than your very limited daas baal habyis.
I imagine that when Moshiach comes, we will be living a completely different lifestyle than we live now. Our clothes, our entertainment (if any) will be very different from what we are used to. However, I believe that people have to decide for themselves how to dress and act etc. I also believe that not everyone will want to go along with Moshiach because it will cramp their style. (similar to the dor hamidbar, those who complained about how it was better in Mitzrayim. Not everyone who left Mitzrayim got to enter Eretz yisroel and not everyone in this generation will be zocheh to greet Moshiach)
So sad that they object to Avraham Fried. His latest DVD Live in Israel has plenty of kedusha–appropriate songs that are elevating, simchas hachayim, full orchestra of both frum and non-frum men fully involved in producing this masterpiece of avodas Hashem.
Why do you think everyone is rebelling in our times?
Because you don’t let the kids live a little. and have some fun
Shlomo Zalman,
You are the last one who should be judging about krumer hashkafos. Get some straight ones for yourself first.