But just because the secularists presented a distorted reality and lost all sense of proportion does that mean we have to as well? That demonstration was an act of Holocaust denial. It was a display of gross insensitivity to the reality of that dark chapter in our history like spitting in the face (yes here we are back to spitting again!) of those who through the mercy of Hashem survived that Gehinnom. The marchers in Yerushalayim were claiming in essence that their experience here in the State of Israel is like that of the Jews in Europe during the Holocaust.

Well I hereby inform you: Auschwitz wasn’t anything like a day camp. The Warsaw Ghetto wasn’t a vacation resort. If those demonstrators had spent one single day in the Lodz Ghetto if they had been in Auschwitz Treblinkla or Majdanek for one hour they would never dare to draw such a shocking comparison. Let’s imagine them demonstrating like that in front of armed SS men. After a few lessons in real time about Nazis yellow stars and concentration camps they wouldn’t be so quick to come out in the streets of Yerushalayim looking like Auschwitz escapees.

These people may feel wronged by the trendy incitement against chareidim currently taking place on streetcorners and in the pages and screens of the media but this too was caused to a large extent by the tiny violent minority among us (yes it’s time we got it through our heads that this is a small minority that the chareidim themselves also fear and thanks to them many places in Israel don’t want chareidim moving into their neighborhoods).

In Beit Shemesh they saw to it that an isolated incident would turn into a national conflagration. But  no symbols from that terrible period in our history please. The Israeli policeman even if he hits and uses force is not a Nazi. And despite all the wrongs of this secular regime we’re not in a ghetto in those horror-filled days in Europe. Ask those who survived and then maybe just maybe you’ll understand.

Be that as it may after two weeks of chareidi-bashing in the Israeli media a few voices of reason began to be heard above the noise. Not that anyone got up and issued a formal apology for the defamation of an entire sector of the population but even certain secular leaders began to say that things had gone too far. For example Labor Party head Shelley Yechimovitch -- although she is opposed to what she believes to be an offensive attitude towards women in Judaism -- called for a halt to the “racist” incitement against chareidi Jewry. And she was not the only one to speak up. Things were beginning to look a little better a little more balanced for the chareidim and then this demonstration came along and ruined the little that was in the process of being fixed. Once again the dogs have been set upon us the accusations are being hurled at us all and everything that was said last week about the entire chareidi community is being heard again at double the volume. All because of extremist demonstrations that went beyond all normal proportions because of demonstrators who didn’t ask us if we agree to suffer the consequences of secular reactions to their acts. For of course we will all be treated as if we were behind it too.

Perhaps I am overly sensitive about this issue. As a child refugee I may also be categorized as a Holocaust survivor. Baruch Hashem I didn’t live through the horrors and suffering that so many other children bore in Poland.  

The demonstration in Yerushalayim came as a s a sad personal shock to me and caused tremendous damage to the whole chareidi community in Eretz Yisrael. And having had to write about this has drained my strength preventing me from writing about a separate scandal that was revealed just last week -- behind the scenes of the secular attack that culminated in a relatively small demonstration in Beit Shemesh (I say “small” because the organizers had hoped for over ten thousand participants and no more than two thousand actually showed up). I can’t write about the city that almost achieved a peace agreement among its various groups and where for the last two months even those known as the Sikarikim haven’t been harassing little girls on their way to school. I can’t write about what is really hiding behind the notorious spitting incident and who the person was who went all out to ignite the flames of controversy – who brought in and egged on the media where perhaps things might have ended better had the flames not been fanned placing the whole chareidi community in danger. There have already been several incidents of attacks on chareidim by hooligans who just couldn’t bear the oppression they were witnessing in Beit Shemesh poor things. And I can’t write about the well-known inciter the man with a kippah on his head who had an interest in setting this city aflame a city whose people just want to live quietly as good neighbors.

After motzaei Shabbos I just can’t. I’m sorry.