9/2/99

The day they nazified me

    I came under attack recently by a haredi mob. Hundreds, maybe thousands of them thought I did not have the right to drive down Bar-Ilan Road on Shabbat. I thought I did, because there was no barrier (the police did block off the road moments after I went through).
    A black wave surged at me from three directions, braying "Shabbos! Shabbos!" Garbage rained down on my car, which thankfully is not a convertible. I'm pretty sure that is forbidden behavior on Shabbat, but the converging mass was not interested in getting into a pilpulistic debate with me about it.
    So there I was. I had read plenty about just such a situation, and now I was in the thick of it.
    Later, in the blessed safety of secularity, I first checked for damage to the car (none), and then sat on the curb and checked my thoughts (plenty).
    I had never liked the haredim. Now I hated them.
    I had never understood how the goyim could hate us. Now I did.
    I had never witnessed furious, fundamentalist fanaticism in action, not in person; I had never before witnessed an intifada.
    I remembered my series of thoughts as these hooligans swarmed at me, and I chuckled at my own irrationality.
    Initially, I didn't believe it was happening. It was surreal.
    I reasoned: don't worry, they're Jews. Then I pointed out to myself that they're not behaving like Jews.
    Then I thought: hey, this is a democracy, I'm allowed to be here, and I'm going to stand my ground for the sake of being right; I will not be intimidated. Yes, I really did think like that, but only for a microsecond, because my next thought was, I really am intimidated.
    Then I remembered what I was doing there, and, for another microsecond (these were fleeting thoughts, mind you: the mob was getting closer by the microsecond) I decided I could reason with them: I had taken a wrong turn on the way to visiting a dying friend, a woman who does lots of mitzvot. This was, after all, my mob's ethos. Maybe, came the quick response, but from what I could see through the debris bouncing off my windscreen, there was a singular lack of pathos. These men and boys were not asking questions.
    At that point I felt a deep resentment for being pushed around. I can be as pigheaded, stiff-necked and mulish as the next Jew, even considering who, in this case, the next Jew was. For a full, entire second I contemplated taking my foot off the brake and hitting the gas. I was outraged.
    Fortunately, cowardice got the better of my principles. I muttered aloud, "Aww, hell," and hit the gas -- in reverse. I backed up at top speed about half a kilometer, until I came to the barrier, which was now down, and, ironically, blocking my escape.
    Minutes later, with this haredi (which, in English, means "fearful") scene still playing blackly before my eyes, I arrived at my destination: a Catholic hospice. Nuns in white smiled benificently at me. An enormous Jesus on the wall seemed so ... protective. It was all so Fellini-like.
    Then came the afterthought. That evening -- having gone from a haredi lynching to a holy, christian hallucination to a housewarming party (and that's about normal in this nutty city) -- I recounted my eventful day to a few people.
    "Yeah," one of them said, "I'd have hit the gas. Take some of the bastards out."
    I was startled. Yes, I had thought of it, defending my offended sense of moral justice by "taking some out." By killing. Even if it was just a momentary, blind spasm of bravado, I was stunned that I could wish it ... and I hated them for provoking me so deeply as to think like that. I hated them for dehumanizing themselves, and for nazifying me.
    Eventually came my final thought, an overview. If I can be incited to think like that -- and it should be noted that I was raised and educated in their midst -- maybe my friend Ittai is right. We are heading for a civil war, he had once said. Impossible, I argued, for a Jew could never wantonly kill fellow Jews. Yes they could, he insisted, if they don't see them as fellow Jews -- which, he avowed, "we don't."
    Scary.