rejection 513
synagogues which avow belief in the Rebbe as Messiah, but what is
most striking is the extent to which such calls have been ignored, and
the willingness of diaspora Jews of widely differing beliefs to worship
together and turn a blind eye to the issues which might otherwise drive
them apart.^20
Such mutual tolerance is much less characteristic of some haredim in
contemporary Israeli society, where the notion that humans are entitled
to use force to ensure compliance with the Torah is not uncommon.
Cars which enter haredi areas of Jerusalem or Bnei Brak on the Sabbath
run the risk of being stoned, as do archaeologists who disturb the dead
by excavating ancient tombs. Women who enter haredi enclaves while
‘immodestly’ dressed in shorts or with bare arms risk verbal abuse or
worse. So do women who demonstrate their right to conduct a women’s
prayer service while wearing prayer shawls at the Western Wall of the
Temple in Jerusalem. In recent years some male haredim have tried to
impose religious propriety (as they see it) by segregating men and
women on buses. Airline travel, in which extended physical proximity
to travellers of the opposite sex can be hard to avoid, can provoke
intense debates about religious scruples in relation to personal freedom.
In December 2011 anti- Zionist haredi men in Beit Shemesh, a town to
the west of Jerusalem, tried to close down a religious Zionist girls’
school by shouting abuse at the pupils, aged from six to twelve, accus-
ing them of being prostitutes. The parents of the frightened girls
responded by accompanying their daughters to school with dogs as pro-
tection, and the police had to intervene to keep the two sides apart. Such
violence is rarely condoned explicitly by the majority of haredim, but
nor is it condemned.
Intolerance between religious Jews in contemporary Israel is also
sometimes directed in the opposite direction, against haredim. When
haredim were granted special privileges such as state financing for full-
time yeshivah students by Ben Gurion at the foundation of the state in
1948, their numbers were small, but as their communities have grown
dramatically they have come to be seen by some as a drain on the state.
The haredi lifestyle promotes resentment among many other Israelis in
part because of the general refusal of even the most Zionist haredim to
undertake army service, a duty which provides a peculiarly powerful
bonding experience for other Jewish Israelis of differing backgrounds
because of the constant tension in which the country has existed since
its formation. Haredi avoidance of the military owes less to a disinclin-
ation to kill in defence of the state than to concern about the mingling