The sight of wasted food does not sit well with me. Mix reckless waste with gratified displays of idiocy, and you've got me riled up. Such was my reaction to footage of "Ultra-Orthodox" Jews burning packets of children's treats at a rally in Williamsburg last week.
The protest, part of a boycott against Israeli food giant Osem, was organized by a small group of fanatics that support the dismantlement of the Jewish State and the jeopardizing of the security and well-being of their brethren therein.
To be sure, the condemned snacks were kosher, only their packaging displayed support for the Jewish National Fund, an Israeli charity. The only non-kosher thing that day was the behavior of the protesters who in a cheap move dealt an expensive blow to the hungry in their own backyard. Surely instead of exhibiting children hurling snacks into flames, they could have provided some for disadvantaged boys and girls.
I can’t say that I was horrified to watch the behavior of the Neturei Karta, a group that routinely works to jeopardize the security of their own G-d given land. After all, these are people who collaborate with Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and support all causes aimed at delegitimizing the Jewish State. What’s some nosh for people who break bread with terrorists?
Most troubling for me was watching this silliness in the midst of my own organizing a summer project that feeds hungry children in Israel. What joy would such surplus edibles bring to starving kids in the holy land.
I recall the first time encountering the Niturei Karta at an Israel solidarity event on Boston Commons. A band of these diehards bussed in from Brooklyn to capitalize on media attention while numbers eclipsing theirs celebrated Israel. My fellow Yeshiva buddies and I engaged our misguided brothers in rigorous religious debate. Only, the opposition seemed untrained in the art of arguing their cause, referring us instead to one man who “Kent,” knows.
Years later I had the misfortune of observing the “knower” flanked by a handful of colleagues outside AIPAC’s policy conference in Washington D.C. this winter. I can tell you that indeed he is a scholar, only he preyed on secular passersby who are ignorant of his sources. I wonder, why wouldn’t a mind like that devote himself to sharing the beauty of his Judaism with less learned coreligionists? Why put an ugly face on an inherently beautiful faith?
Sane and fair-minded people have trouble understanding the tactics of the Niturei Karta. Even comedian Bill Maher who earns a living poking fun at organized religion couldn't stomach listening to the group’s leader, Yisroel D. Weiss, while interviewing him for “Religulous,” a film mocking religious belief. While the Niturei Karta are a joke, no-one serious enough is laughing.
One of the highest disgraces among religious Jews is what we call “Chilul Hashem,” or the desecration of G-d’s name. What greater dishonor is there to the divine than seemingly devout men who preach the Bible while disgracing its Author. All I could think of while watching them waste perfectly good food while polluting the minds of little children who were encouraged to do the same, was that they might as well be burning G-d in effigy.
