FEMINISTS page 3

tic chores of housework and child- grant populace can obtain day
rearing.
care for their young children.
Dr. Hazan echoed Ms. Uman-
But Dr. Hazan said the patri-
it's complaints and spoke of the archal nature of Arab culture also
special challenges Arab
contributes to the prob-
and immigrant women Dr. Hala H azan: Arab lem.
face in Israel. She not- women s utter more
`The role of women is
ed, for instance, that than othe Ts in Israel. to be first at the home,"
while the vast majority
she said. "Few young
of Jewish women in Israel have women can hold two roles; they
access to day care, less than half get no help from their husbands
of the minority Arab and immi- with their housework." ❑

E 'TA 1 11

1

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Q

UMBRAGE AT "ULTRA" page 9

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I.

"improper"? Does not the word
"proper," at least from a Jewish
perspective, encompass those who
endeavor to practice the full spec-
trum of Jewish law and Jewish
values? If that endeavor is indeed
"too much," then we Jews as a
people are in deeper trouble than
we suspect.
Whether most Jews today
choose to live religiously observant
lives or not, those who plan their
days on earth in consonance with
Jewish law as codified for many
centuries and practiced by our
common Jewish ancestors for mil-
lennia — are quintessentially
Jewish, not "ultra" anything. We
Haredim (from the Hebrew word
for "tremble" — a reference to a
verse that applies the term to
meticulously observant Jews) may
not be the Jewish mainstream in
a sociological sense, but we are
very much the Jewish main-
stream in a historical one.
Using a term that marginalizes
us, moreover, is not only an in-
excusable, if subtle, vilification but
sends a terrible subliminal mes-
sage: that way — the way of ded-
ication to the full Jewish heritage
— lies madness. The message be-
comes all the more lamentable
when one reflects on how the Jew-
ish "identity" and "continuity" so
desperately sought by so many
Jewish leaders and organizations
thrive, by all accounts, among us
you-know-whos.
Contrary tO popular imagina-
tion, we Haredi Jews are not
backward, do not sanction stone-
throwing (and certainly not worse
violence) and consider all our fel-
low Jews — observant or not —

to be our brothers and sisters. The
Haredi community, furthermore,
includes doctors, lawyers, com-
puter programmers and profes-
sors, in addition to full-time
mothers and full-time students of
the traditions and texts of our re-
ligious heritage.
Most Haredim, moreover, while
rejective of elements of what pass-
es for culture in modern society,
are, nevertheless, quite aware of
and even conversant with the
larger society around them, not to
mention technologically adept.
Where Haredim stand out is in
their refusal to compromise the
tenets or laws of their — our — re-
ligion. A Haredi lawyer or busi-
nessman might interrupt a
meeting for Minchah, and Haredi
families are often rather large,
compared to the Jewish norm.
Haredim place a great emphasis
on the study of the holy literature
of the Jewish heritage — and on
communal and personal chesed or
"benevolence." The latter is well-
evidenced not only in countless in-
dividual Haredi lives but in a host
of Haredi community services and
organizations —including, among
other things, free-loan societies,
organized care for the sick and the
destitute and community food-
banks (all of which extend help not
only to Haredim but to all Jews in
need). Those are some Haredi "im-
moderations."
Wouldn't the members of the
Haredi community be more con-
structively — and accurately —
portrayed not as radicals but as
examples, not as a threat to their
fellow Jews but as aprecious re-
source for them? ❑

