Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Pre-Matan Torah Jews in RBS B

Rafi has an eyewitness account from the woman who was attacked in RBS B.

Charedi sources are reporting accounts that she was a provocateur and that she picked up her shirt when the Avreichim yelled at her. I find that very hard to believe as she is a traditional Sefardic woman (just look at her last name Moshiach), just doing her job putting up posters.

In any case whatever she did there is absolutely no justification for what was done to her. Where in Halacha is there a justification to destroy her property (throwing rocks and damaging her car) no matter how she is dressed? What justification is there to physically assault her? These are serious issurim d'oraysa. It is very sad that there are so called Charedi Jews who believe that this is the behavior that the Torah wants from us. What kind of chinuch creates people who are ready to lynch a woman no matter how she is dressed? The fact is that this woman while wearing pants was not dressed in a revealing manner. The Chazon Ish once commented on the  Kannoim in Yerushalayim that they were pre-matan torah Jews, meaning  that their actions were not guided by torah but by emotion. Unfortunately nothing has changed in 60 years.

The people who did this call themselves kannoim, however the question that needs to be asked is can these people really be called kannoim? Please take a look at this post Who is a real kannoi? for the answer.

4 comments:

Rafi G. said...

not really eye-witness. I met the victim shortly after the attack and she told me some of what happened. I did not actually witness the incident itself

bluke said...

I know that, but you still provided an eyewitness account of the state of mind of the victim which is very important in understanding whether this was a provocation or not.

SF2K01 said...

Because the so called Kanoiim know that no one will stop them, they know they are free to do whatever they wish and act accordingly. The only difference is that the "moderate charedi" who doens't fully agree with what they are doing needs something, literally anything, to divert the blame from the religion. So someone comes up with an excuse that she somehow provoked the attacks, thus rationalizing the whole situation in their minds:

"No it's not okay to attack women, but what can you do? She provoked them, she brought it on herself! If we don't do anything wrong, the kanoiim won't bother us."

JBHoren said...

"kannoim" should be said with a pronounced Scottish accent: "kanno" is really can not; i.e., "kannoim" are those who tell others "you 'kanno' do this", or "you 'kanno' do that" (hence the phrase, "'Scotch' the deal").