A one way street

In his weekly Mishpacha magazine column Yonasan Rosenblum told the following story.

He was in South Africa for the first Sinai Indaba and he had a debate with R' Moshe Taragin a Rebbe from Gush (a product of YU and R' Lichtenstein and a big Talmid Chacham) on the Charedi vs Dati Leumi perspective. He writes that he was impressed that R' Taragin was very fair in the debate and even praised the Charedi community. A few weeks ago R' Taragin invited him to Gush to speak to the American Talmidim about the Charedi community given what was going on. The next day R' Taragin sent him a 9 minute video detailing all of the chesed work done by the Charedi community as a response to the media storm from the events in Bet Shemesh.

Now we come to a very interesting admission by Yonasan Rosenblum and I quote:

I was deeply touched by the gesture. But it also forced me to ask myself a question. Had the national religious community been under a similar assault in the secular press as it frequently is, would I have spent any time looking for videos highlighting the wonderful aspects of that community in order to lessen the public outcry? And if not why not?

I think the answer to his question is very clear. The YU/R' Lichtenstein world has never delegitimized the Charedi world. They have very clear ideological differences the role of secular studies and the significance of the State of Israel and other issues), but they have always said that while we may disagree on those we agree on so many other things, namely, limud hatorah and kiyum hamitzvos. They have never called the Charedi leaders kofrim or mocked them. People in the YU world give money to Charedi causes and go to hear shiurim from Charedi Rabbis.

However, the same can not be said for the Charedi world. There is a general attitude in the Charedi world of thoroughly delegitimizing all those who do not follow the one true Charedi way, and having no respect for such people. It is found in the leadership, in the charedi media, and in the street. The Charedi world insists that it has the one true path and everyone else is wrong. They delegitimize everything else. R' Shach made the statement that it is a disgrace to call Hesder yeshivos, yeshivos, he made a similar statement about Maarava. The Charedi world would mock RYBS and did not give him the respect that he deserves. RHS would never be invited to speak at a Charedi event. At the recent Aguda convention Modern Orthodox were compared to misyavnim.

So IMHO the answer to his question is very clear, he would not search for videos because that would legitimize the Dati Leumi position in some way and that cannot be done by a true Charedi.