If you needed social services from New York’s fervently pro-Israel mainstream Jewish community, would you organize a tremendous anti-Israel rally in its backyard?Here we go again, as the Satmar deny any connections between the Torah and Zionism. They can blabber all they like in defense of their abominable tirades, but it's clear that they are as anti-Israel as they come.
Despite assurances that it wasn’t their intention to do so, that appears to be exactly what the Satmar Hasidic community did on June 9, when they gathered a reported 30,000 men in lower Manhattan to protest Israeli efforts to draft thousands of ultra-Orthodox men into the army.
Satmar Hasidim are known for their anti-Zionist theology, but organizers insisted before the protest that they would focus specifically on the Israeli draft. Yet despite a strictly enforced ban on anti-Israel placards, speakers addressing the crowd in Yiddish voiced anti-Zionist sentiment.
“Today’s rally is a declaration of war against the enemies of God and the enemies of religion,” said the Monsey, N.Y.-based Rabbi Yaakov Weiss, who was the protest’s opening and closing speaker. “We hope the evil Zionists will not be successful in destroying our holy Torah studies.”
Speakers used the Yiddish word reshoim, or evil people, to describe Israeli politicians specifically and Zionists generally. And Rabbi Nachman Stauber, who leads a Satmar yeshiva in Queens, made a comparison in his address between Zionists and Amalek, the biblical Jews’ greatest enemy.
Interestingly, a poster that promoted army enlistment was taken down in Williamsburg after the fact was discovered:
“Shall your brothers go into battle while you remain here?” the poster screamed in large red print, encouraging Charedim in New York to take to the streets in support of the struggle faced by their brothers in Israel. Taken from the bible, the words are spoken by Moses as he chastises the tribes of Reuben and Gad both of which propose settling in Transjordan rather than Israel, and imply that they do not wish to take up arms for the conquest of Israel. The bible story takes place right as the Israelites are about to enter Israel after fleeing slavery in Egypt. Moses subsequently commands the tribes that they must fight for Israel.Proof they don't respect the Torah, nor Moses. What right have they to be calling themselves Haredis anyway? Those who live in Israel should definitely not be relying on our tax shekels.
The source noted that this biblical phrase wherein Moses commands the tribes who wish to opt out of military service to in fact take up arms for Israel, would appear to promote IDF enlistment rather than reject it. The source said that the posters were on “every street pole” but that the Charedim in the area seemed to wise up soon after, as they were taken down not too long after the error was spotted.
Update: they don't respect passersby who aren't Haredi either: Gothamist got a letter from a guy who'd passed through the rally who said:
I was stuck in a cab with my fiancé for about 20 minutes. We decided to walk once we realized that we wouldn't be going anywhere soon.Gross. And not only do they not respect the Torah, they don't respect ladies either. This is just why isolationist mindsets can be harmful.
We got out and started waking straight through the crowds since that was the fastest way downtown. They looked like they wanted to tear us apart. My fiancé was wearing summer shorts and we just got back from volunteering for the Big Apple BBQ wearing Big Bob Gibson's t-shirts covered in pork logos. It's like they could smell it on us.
I wish I was making this up, but we were scared for our lives. The main part of the rally was thousands deep and no one would make room for us to walk through. Many men sneered at my lady and crossed their arms at me in disgust, spit in our paths as we made our way upstream.
I saw a half dozen men synchronize-peeing on a wall, three others peeing in a phone booth, and a couple of kids scattered about peeing on the curbside of their mini vans.
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