Source: The Guardian

By Giles Fraser

The walled neighbourhood of Mea Shearim is just a few minutes’ walk from the old city of Jerusalem. Built in 1874, it is home to Jerusalem’s Haredi or ultra-orthodox community – though that description is sometimes used as a term of abuse. The word Haredi is taken from the book of Isaiah and refers to those who tremble before God. A bit like the Quakers.

The Haredi regard themselves as no-compromise, Torah-faithful Jews, living out the word of God as best they can, until the coming of the messiah. The people who live here wear long black frock coats and broad-rimmed hats. Posters put up at the various entrances to the area demand modesty from visitors: long dresses and sleeves. Another poster declares: “No entry to Zionists”. Mea Shearim is home to some of the most fervently anti-Zionist Jews in the world.

Addressing the whole leftwing antisemitism/anti-Zionism elision, Ephraim Mirvis, the chief rabbi of the UK, wrote recently in the Telegraph that Zionism “is a noble and integral part of Judaism” and that anyone suggesting otherwise is being “deeply insulting” to the Jewish community. There is a problem here. Where does this leave many of the Haredim?

Haredi theology began as a reaction to the 18th century Jewish enlightenment, the Haskalah, a movement that aimed at the modernisation of Jewish culture in Europe. Whereas the Haskalah wanted to end Jewish segregation and encourage greater engagement with modern ideas and secular society, traditionalists saw this as a threat to Jewish religious identity. Thus the Haredim stuck resolutely to their traditional clothes and ways. They would chat in Yiddish and only pray in Hebrew, too holy a language for social intercourse. And when the secular movement of modern Zionism started to take shape, they opposed this too: only God could bring about the new Israel, they argued. Trying to pre-empt God’s action through secular nationalism was a heresy. Judaism is fundamentally a religious community, they argued, and modern notions of race and nationhood are alien to it. Thus, for many Haredim, the state of Israel remains almost sacrilegious.

Read more