Jewish Taliban go on modesty patrol rampage

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http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,432876,00.html (surprisingly)

JERUSALEM — In Israel's ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, where the rule of law sometimes takes a back seat to the rule of God, zealots are on a campaign to stamp out behavior they consider unchaste.

They hurl stones at women for such "sins" as wearing a red blouse and attack stores selling devices that can access the Internet.

In recent weeks, self-styled "modesty patrols" have been accused of breaking into the apartment of a Jerusalem woman and beating her for allegedly consorting with men. They have torched a store that sells MP4 players, fearing devout Jews would use them to download pornography.

"These breaches of purity and modesty endanger our community," said 38-year-old Elchanan Blau, defending the bearded, black-robed zealots. "If it takes fire to get them to stop, then so be it."

Many ultra-Orthodox Jews are dismayed by the violence, but the enforcers often enjoy quiet approval from rabbis eager to protect their own reputations as guardians of the faith, community members say. And while some welcome anything that keeps secular culture out of their cloistered world, others feel terrorized, knowing that the mere perception of impropriety could ruin their lives.

"There are eyes and ears all over the place, very similar to what you hear about in countries like Iran," says Israeli-American novelist Naomi Ragen, an observant Jew who has chronicled the troubles that confront some women living in the ultra-Orthodox world.

The violence has already deepened the antagonism between the 600,000 haredim, or God-fearing, and the secular majority, which resents having religious rules dictated to them.

Religious vigilantes operate in a society that has granted their community influence well beyond its numbers — partly out of a commitment to revive the great centers of Jewish scholarship destroyed in the Holocaust, but also because the Orthodox are perennial king-makers in Israeli coalition politics.

Thus public transport is grounded for the Jewish Sabbath each Saturday, and the rabbis control all Jewish marriage and divorce in Israel.

In recent years, however, the haredim have eased up on their long campaign to impose their rules on secular areas, and nowadays many restaurants and suburban shopping centers are open on the Sabbath.

These days, most vigilante attacks take place in the zealots' own neighborhoods.

Israel police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the modesty police are not an organized phenomenon, just rogue enforcers carrying out isolated attacks. But Israel's Justice Ministry used the term "modesty patrols" in an indictment against a man accused of assaulting the Jerusalem woman.

The unidentified, 31-year-old woman had left the ultra-Orthodox fold after getting divorced, according to the indictment filed by the Jerusalem district attorney's office. The indictment said her assailant tried to get her to leave her apartment in a haredi neighborhood in Jerusalem by gagging, beating and threatening to kill her. He was paid $2,000 for the attack, it said.

A 17-year-old who moved to Israel from New York five years ago said she was hospitalized after being attacked with pepper spray by a crowd of men outraged that she was walking down a Jerusalem street with boys.

"They can burn in hell," said the girl, who would identify herself only as Rivka.

She lives in Beit Shemesh, a town outside Jerusalem where the vigilantism has been particularly violent. Zealots there have thrown rocks and spat at women, and set fire to trash bins to protest impiety. Walls of the neighborhood are plastered with signs exhorting women to dress modestly — spelled out as closed-necked, long-sleeved blouses and long skirts.

That is ridiculous!

In 2000 years, what has really changed here?

Tell me about it

@slowmutant: Religious extremism will always flourish, till the end of time.

I will never understand people who use religion to condone violence. If they believe they are in the right and the people they are injuring are only damning themselves, why not let them? If I am going to hell, why beat the living crap out of me? I'm going to have eternal torment anyway. Stupid "holier than thou arts" do nothing but piss me off and give the good religious people a bad name.

Isn't that the truth? Some things never change.

These are not jews these are people going to extremes using the word of the lord and sovereign god as a weapon to discriminate and hurt others which is forbidden.

Are you a Jew and a Christian? I don't think it's up to you to say who is a Jew and who isn't.

Beware of the "No True Scottsman" fallacy.

Oh, and as for these gentlemen who fancy themselves as religious cops.... They're just a bunch of cowards who can't pick on anyone their own size. So they target women who can't fight back to feel more powerful.

I'd love for them to come to the U.S. and sign up as police officers. Set them on patrol in a gang-infested neighborhood and we'll see just how "tough" they are.

They're just old geezers with black hats and long curly sideburns. That's all they are.

They are those to whom Jesus said "Let he who has no sin throw the first stone."

If they did not project their own lustfulness onto their victims, they would have no reason to do this. Just like gaybashers are self-loathing homosexuals who "need" to "prove" that they aren't.

NO, I think gaybashers are straight boys who hate gay boys. Gays aren't violent, are they?

Very few people do it. Barely a handful of them. When the media gives them so much attention, one begins to believe the majority of religious people are like that. So not true.

But these handul minority would have you believe they represent the majority. Whoever is too moderate for their liking they denouce as impostors. I've read about moderate Muslims in the Middle East executed by other Muslims because they weren't extreme enough.

(Sorry Khan Sama, I don't mean to insult you as a Muslim.)

Dunno but I once saw a 6ft transvestite smash a man's face off a bar.

I'm gay, and I've been violent before. It's all circumstantial.