Polish-Jewish Relations: 1,300 Keyword-Phrase-Indexed Book Reviews (by Jan Peczkis)

The War Within: Israel’s Ultra-Orthodox, by Yuval Elizur and Lawrence Malkin. 2013

Jews and Atheism. The “Parasitic” Haredim. How Zionists Use the Holocaust

This work, validly or invalidly, presents a negative view of Israel’s ultra-Orthodox community. The authors, without actually using this word, portray them as social parasites. The haredim are accused of sponging off Israeli society because they avoid secular academic subjects and are therefore unemployable, spending their entire days studying religion instead of engaging in productive work, avoiding military service, trying to impose their views and customs on everyone else, having inordinate influence, treating women as second-class citizens, and multiplying at a rate greater than that of Israeli society.

HOLOCAUSTIANITY: HOW ZIONISTS USE THE HOLOCAUST

The haredim, for their part, sometimes have unflattering portrayals of secular Jews. Elizur and Malkin comment, “For example, as the political negotiations over the obligation of military service intensified, three haredi men were arrested in connection with spray-painted graffiti on the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial and similar messages scrawled around Jerusalem’s Warsaw Ghetto Square. They read: THE ZIONISTS WANTED THE HOLOCAUST and IF HITLER HAD NOT EXISTED, THE ZIONISTS WOULD HAVE INVENTED HIM.” (p. 23).

Elizur and Malkin allege that there are haredim that want to leave the practice, but are constrained by social conformity from doing so. They act Orthodox even though they are not, and even call themselves Marranos, after those Jews who pretended to be Christians, in Columbus-era Spain, in order to avoid (reputed) persecution. (p. 204).

THE PROMOTION OF ATHEISM AMONG POLAND’S PRE-WWII JEWS

This book touches on matters beyond its stated purview. Consider, for example, Polish Cardinal August Hlond and his much-condemned 1936 statement on “Jews as freethinkers”. Although authors Elizur and Malkin do not raise this issue, they address matters related to pre-WWII Polish Jewry. From this, the informed reader can realize where Hlond was coming from. Consider one movement that existed among the Jews of Poland and elsewhere. The authors write, “Although they were a minority, followers of the leftist youth movement Hashomer Hatzair–the Youth Guard–dedicated themselves to getting `free of the burden of religion’.” (p. 51).The promotion of secularism, among Poland’s Jews, also occurred at high levels. The authors comment, “Even among the General Zionists there were those who advocated a secular life in the Land of Israel. Yitzhak Gruenbaum, one of the leaders of Polish Jewry and of the radical wing of the General Zionists, had been a member of the Polish parliament from 1919 until 1932, when he left for Palestine. There he continued his fight to separate religion from the state.” (p. 56).