Comments on: The Five – State Solution

By: Lilly Nussbaum Tobin

Lilly Nussbaum Tobin — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 04:53:40 +0000

I was unpleasantly surprised by your unmistakably hostile tone and attitude tTIf chawards the Charedim. After all, they endured the progroms the Arabs were incited to act out before there was a Jewish state. In 1948, when Arab bombs and armies laid siege to Jerusalem, it was they who died and the rest were forcefully chased out of the Jewish sector of the city. They lived there because of their profound love of the land and the Holy City and their desire to serve G’d. If their dress and way of life offends you – that is your prerogotive. But to characterize them as you did is almost sacrilegious. They live in unbelievable poverty and contributions to them has always come from orthodox and traditional Jews of other countries around the world, NOT from
Reform Jews. The Reform movement had its origin in Germany – it was a stepping stone towards assimilation, the emasculation of Judaism,and eventual conversion and acceptance by the host society. And you know what happened to the German Jews.

By: Dovid

Dovid — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 21:28:38 +0000

This article typifies what has become common among many secular Israeli’s today: scape goating. Secular Israel today faces a severe identity crisis, therefore they lash out in jelousy at those that have the strongest identity: The Charedim. The use of such derogatory and vile terms to describe fellow Jews is simply a way of diverting any introspection towards the problems of secular Israel and blaming it on others.

By: Eli

Eli — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 16:16:06 +0000

What about the 6th country – “New Sudan”? Made of the tens of thousands of Africans who are allowed in unimpeded? They’re already a mojority in south Tel Aviv, and growing all the time.

By: Laura

Laura — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 10:01:05 +0000

Mr. Gordis,
While I certainly do not understand the Haradi way of life or the actions they take as a community, we are all of the Jewish nation. To spew the hatred that you feel only makes Am Israel weaker, just what our enemies pry on. To think of you as an educated man, I would have liked to have read some sort of solution to finding at least one comonality between “us and them”. After all, when the next war comes, the bombs won’t differentiate any Jew living in Eretz Israel.

By: Yoni

Yoni — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 08:33:51 +0000

I think that many people have missed the point. I understand, at least I’m pretty sure I understand, that this ‘solution’ is offered tongue-in-cheek. Dr. Gordis is not really advocating a five state solution of this sort, nor does he think it could ever happen — a state made up of a few neighborhoods in Jerusalem, and then some a few dozen miles away?
He is merely calling attention to the unfortunate state of affairs whereby it seems that separation – an untenable and impossible solution – is making itself seem all the more necessary. What was so captivating to me about this article – from the author of a book about how to win an unwinnable war – was that it seems to reflect my own despair, and I was hoping for a ray of light instead. I know that every generation looks back at ‘the good old days’ and sees their present as the end of days, but I’m really not sure were we’re all headed in this case. It seems like with Hamas, with the PA, with the Charedim…even with the Israeli Arabs, or Palestinian Israelis, as they call themselves — we have no one to talk to. Frankly — who are we, anyway? Do we have anyone to talk on our behalf Maybe the problem is that Israel is a country crying out for an ethos like that of the United States – a melting pot of immigrants who must join the narrative of freedom to be real Americans — when we are instead trying to hold onto an ethos of ‘one nation, one religion, one family’, and the exceptions to those, or the groups who wish to become exceptions, are becoming to numerous and too strong to ignore or absorb. Our narrative, of the Jewish people and Zionism, is accepted by a smaller and smaller proportion of our population every day.

By: Glenn Tamir

Glenn Tamir — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 23:11:55 +0000

Unfortunately, the Haredim are beyond reasoning with. One cannot reach compromise with those who refuse to see more than one side.

Comparing what Daniel Gordis writes to Nazi anti-semitic writing is completely ridiculous.

By: David Jacobowitz

David Jacobowitz — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 21:27:01 +0000

Daniel has characterized Haredim in the same terms that the Nazis used against us and this serves no useful purpose, rather it increases sinat chinam. We need to find ways to help charedim become a more meaningful part of the enterprise of Israel-building, as is demonstrated in the suprisingly successful Nachal Charedi. But calling them cancerous is out of bounds and such words lead us to a bad place.

By: Noach

Noach — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 19:18:04 +0000

This is vile, Jew-hating bigotry. When a Jew demonizes other Jews as being a cancer on Israel, he is no different than an Amalekite who demonizes Jews as being a cancer on the Fatherland.

I’ve noticed a trend: The world-at-large often demonstrates a knee-jerk condemnation of Israel despite the facts (e.g. the flotilla). The Chiloni (secular) condemnation of the Chareidim parallels this exactly. It’s the same phenomenon. The bitter condemnation given to Chareidim, particularly WRT the Emmanuel case, is completely removed from reality.

By: Dovid Zalkin

Dovid Zalkin — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 10:14:03 +0000

“their tendency toward violence (when irked, they attack city workers, police officers and even the haredi rabbi who urged the Sephardi parents to go to the Supreme Court)”

This is a deplorable example of generalizing. Their is a small minority of charedim who react violently – there were no reports of violence at the demonstration about Emanuel.

By: Howie Kahn

Howie Kahn — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 20:07:07 +0000

Behold the three quotations below:

“This cancer (Haredim) threatens to destroy everything we have built.”

“Israel is a cancer and the Jews are like a disease like AIDS?”

“The Jews are like a disease, we lock them in concentration camps so that they can not infect the German population.”

The first quote is from your article “The Five State Solution.” The second one is from an ant-Israel forum on the web while the third is a quote of a Nazi official made during the Second World War.

As much as I admire your writing including a lot of the other good points you make even in this article, there is never room for this kind of rhetoric. It’s not a good sign when the comparisons you are making have already been used by people who are clearly racists and bigots.

Please be careful when comparing any people to “cancer.” What are we supposed to do? Should we kill them or just remove them from our midst?

You yourself wrote, “Yes, that�s a harsh metaphor, but it�s apt.” It’s not apt, it’s just completely inappropriate.

Looking forward to future articles.

Shavua Tov!

Howie