Charedi Newspaper to Arabs: Don’t Stab Us, We Don’t Go to Temple Mount
The Charedi Mishpacha newspaper created a social media firestorm on Thursday after it published an opinion article in which the first paragraph, printed in Arabic and in Hebrew, asked that since members of the Charedi public do not go up to the Temple Mount “could you please stop murdering us.”
The article, written by Mishpacha Magazine deputy editor Aryeh Ehrlich, explained how the Charedi community refrains from going up to the Temple Mount since the Charedi rabbinic leadership prohibits visiting the site.
Almost all leading Charedi rabbis and arbiters of Jewish law rule that Jews may not visit the Temple Mount since they may enter areas that are forbidden to enter without undergoing purification rituals which cannot be conducted today.
“Us, the Charedi community, we have no interest in going up to the Temple Mount in our time,” Ehrlich writes. “We oppose this vehemently. Moreover, Jewish law see this as a severe prohibition – punished by spiritual excommunication.”
“So even if you have solid information on Israeli desires to change the status quo at the Dome of the Rock – something which is incorrect to the best of our knowledge – the Charedi community has no connection to it. So please, stop murdering us.”
In the rest of the article, the Mishpacha deputy editor observed that several victims of the recent spate of terror attacks have been from the Charedi community, and wrote that he was trying to understand why this was the case.
He went on to detail a conversation he had with an Arab worker at a Rami Levi store and he tried to convince him that members of the Charedi public do not go up to the Temple Mount.
Ehrlich was subjected to fierce condemnation on social media once awareness of the article spread.
“How wretched and ghetto like can you be? Is this your version of ‘loving your neighbor as yourself’? Of loving your fellow Jew,?” asked one person on Twitter. “Are you are calling on Arabs not to murder Charedim because they don’t go up to the Temple Mount but insinuating ‘go and murder those who do? Disgusting. What about just calling on them not to murder. It would be more humane and more Jewish.”
One talkbacker on Charedi website B’hadrei Charedim exclaimed “What about other Jews who aren’t haredi, them you should kill?????”
“The Mishpacha newspaper is turning to murderers to ask them not to murder Charedim…everyone else is okay apparently. (He forgot that the pogrom in 1929 was because Jews went to visit the Western Wall),” tweeted far-right former MK Michael Ben-Ari.
Following the outrage prompted by his article, Ehrlich took to Twitter and said that he was trying to explain in his article that the Islamic Movement in Israel was trying to create a religious war and has urged Palestinians to attack people with a religious appearance.
“My article in the Mishpacha Magazine says: This religious war is wild incitement based in imaginary rumors. Most people who observe the religious commandments don’t go to the Temple Mount, if only because of the religious prohibition. The article was trying, naively it must be admitted, to tear the away the mask from the murderous Palestinian aggression which has been going on for decades, and to neutralize the false Islamic incitement.”
Gee, maybe...
Just maybe, it’s not just about the Temple Mount?
Appropriate Quote
“You can’t reason someone out of a position they didn’t reason themselves into.”
– Author unknown
Idiot
What is most despicable about this article is the fact that the author claims to be a Lubavitcher, and the whole content of his dribble goes against everything the Rebbe ever stood for.
1) He’s as divisive as can be by creating a schism between so called religious and not religious Jews, where did he ever hear such words from the Rebbe?
2) He is implying that “chareidi” lives have more value than no-chareidi by telling the Arabs don’t kill us chareidim just kill the others, how shameless and how despicable.
3) He allows for the disgusting narrative which blames those who ascend onto the Har Habayis as some justification for the Arabs to kill Jews, how much dumber and how much crueler can one get?
4) He caters to the left’s dribble which faults those who go up onto the Har Habayis as causing the Arabs to kill us, when he should know better from just a tiny review of basic history like when the Arabs killed the 5 students in Kfar Chabad in 1956 when the Jordanians were fully in control of the Har Habayis and not a single Jew came even close to the Har Habayis for 19 years.
5) Finally, in spite of the fact that the Rebbe was adamant against ascending onto the Har Habayis and the Rebbe even warned against studying the possibility of figuring out the Halachic boundaries as to where a Jew may possibly ascend to certain parts of the Har Habayis, because of Safek Issur Kares, still the Rebbe bemoaned the fact that the Israeli government relinquished control of the Har Habayis to the Arabs and disallowed Jews from ascending the Har Habayis for political reasons (and not for Halachic reasons).
MaidofCH
It’s not just the lack of ahavas Yisroel is abhorrent; it’s the naivete. “If we tell them we’ll be really nice, maybe they’ll leave us alone & not the rest.”
Were the martyrs in the Haf Nof synagogue trespassing on the Mount? To these animals, a Jew is a Jew. In fact, the Charedim make easier targets than the rest because of their appearance. We’re all in this together; no one is entitled to better treatment.
Yes, be nice and ......HAH!
About 14 years ago, I was on a domestic flight, and in the next seat was an African lady. The big news at the time was the “intifada,” so we spoke about it.
At the end of our flight I said,”It seems that the more we give them, the more they hate us!” Mind boggling, isn’t it? She said,”that’s because you are giving back land that G-d promised you.”
On another forum, a blogger wrote that “giving back” is wrong terminology because that, kind of, intimates that the land really belongs to others, and now we are returning something not ours. Rather, you should say,”giving away.” It’s our G-d given right to that land, and now, we gave it away, just like that!
Jerusalem reader
People, please, please read the original article before rushing to judge. What is divisive is the news stories that have been printed on this, which take two paragraphs out of a three-page article totally out of context. The “gimmick” was in the end remarkably ineffective, but Aryeh Ehrlich’s point in this article was actually that the current terrorism obviously isn’t really about Har Habayis as the terrorists want to claim, since the terrorists so often attack charedim, who do not even go up on Har Habayis.The article ends with a call for Jewish unity. Please do the same and do not rush to judge without knowing the real story. The chillul Hashem that has sprung from people taking this out of context is mind-boggling.
Idiot
The chilul hashem isn’t dependant on the intentions of the writer, chilul hashem is measured by how the reader sees it, so nice try but this whole thing stinks.
For the definition of what constitutes chilul hashem (as explained above) see masechet yuma 86,1.
CH mother
Another oddity of that publication is that though it is written primarily for and by women it does not have photos of females past babyhood.