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Shy Guy's avatar

Bonus points if you can figure out why the tank in the picture above has a “sorry!” sign hanging from it!

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I would have thought it should have had a "tank you" sign hanging from it.

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Garvin's avatar

The second story is certainly believable, although the guy walking around in short sleeves is clearly not a Charedi as the term is commonly understood, rendering the story pointless.

The first is not a story at all, but someone's subjective belief, that she will be attacked by religious Jews if she goes into their neighborhood. This could also be true -people have all sorts of irrational fears - but it too, is meaningless. The only thing it makes one wonder is what you don't want to hear, but that's bc you're not thinking objectively: What kind of "soldier", in an army, is afraid of other Jews, and needs to be picked up by her father?

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Weaver's avatar

You always go low, huh?

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Garvin's avatar

Huh? What was low about that?

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David Ohsie's avatar

He's a troll who just makes stuff up. Pretty much reverse everything and you might get closer to the truth.

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Weaver's avatar

Clearly. It's interesting though, I've noticed then same 3-4 commenters always make sure to give themselves "likes", whereas nobody else here really seems to care. Is it reflective of a herd mentality, or are they insecure in their own positions? Interesting sociological question . . .

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Dov Kaiser's avatar

Grammar check: "surprised my wife and I" should be "surprised my wife and me". You wouldn't say "she surprised I", and adding "my wife" between the verb and the pronoun doesn't change that.

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מרכבות פרעה's avatar

Natan, to solve some of your traumas, I propose the following exercise: Try for a period of 24 hours, to keep chareidim completely out of your mind.

Don't look at them, think about them, talk to them, argue with them, blog about them, or eat them. Just complete total disconnection, For 24 hours you're going 100% Dati Leumi. Completely. Entirely. Absolutely.

You'll be surprised what this would do for you. This unhealthy obsession you have with chareidim is toxic for yourself and your family. You'll be shocked to see how much calmer you'll feel.

Now if it works, then try keeping this up for another 24 hours, and then another. Who knows? You might even find time to do something productive in life, such as finishing Volume II of The Torah Encyclopedia of the Animal Kingdom.

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Natan Slifkin's avatar

Lol, you spend more time on this blog than I do. Maybe you need to take a break from your unhealthy obsession. Go learn some Gemara.

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Eli Julian's avatar

As a soldier who served in Shachar ten years ago, I can personally attest to the threat Ms. Slifkin was afraid of. I served in Ramat Gan and lived in Neve Yaakov, and the most convenient way home was to take the bus through Bnei Brak that let me off in the Bar Ilan neighborhood. Suffice it to say that it wasn't a question of if I would hear comments about my uniform, but how many and of what intensity. I was spat on multiple times, chased after and screamed at. From conversations with fellow soldiers who lived in Haredi population centers who dared walk around in their uniforms, it seems this was standard.

There was a while when there was a concerted campaign to besmirch Haredi soldiers - the infamous Chardakim campaign. One of my fellow Haredi soldiers approached one of the "gedoilim" at the time, asking him to take a public stance against those who were abusing the Haredi soldiers. He demurred, saying that none of "his people" were participating in the campaign. This did wonders for my emunas chachamim.

One of the incidents that particularly stands out in my mind: After a family day on the base I was on the bus home with my wife and kids when a distinguished looking gentleman in a long beard and frock got on the bus. Upon seeing me, he leaned over my six year old boy to scream in my face "עדיף מדי כומר!!! It would be better to wear priests garments!!!" "Why did he say that Abba?" my son asked...

To his tremendous credit, Rabbi Yirmiyahu Kaganoff was always quick to stand by my side. The first time I came to shul in Neve Yaakov in my uniform when I was feeling extremely uncomfortable and vulnerable, he got up from the other side of the shul and came over to publicly say Shalom Aleichem to me, as if showing everyone present the right way to behave towards a Haredi soldier.

I'm sure there were people who said encouraging things to me too. Unfortunately only the kindness of Rabbi Kaganoff managed to supercede the trauma of the many other negative incidents. Ten years later, driving into Yerushalayim still raises my blood pressure...

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Garvin's avatar

I lived in Israel in yeshivah for two years, and went back numerous times, both single and married. I've waited in hundreds of lines with soldiers and charedim, both in Bnai Brak and Yerushlayim, as well as other spots, and NEVER once saw any soldier spat on. And you claim yet it happened to you not once, but "multiple times"? And screamed at? And chased?

BALONEY. Where are all the videos of such events, eh? How come we've never seen any? To the contrary - the only time we ever hear of such things, like the Bnai Brak flag burning of Guy Hochman, it turns out to be fake news. "Multiple times", he says. Puh-lease.

שקר וכזב. Hundreds or perhaps thousands of soldiers, male and female, can be seen in religious areas, every day, in bus stops, makolets, and more. If charedim were stupid enough to be attacking them or spitting on them, you would see proof of it, and it would have been political fodder loooong ago. If something truly happened to you, which I highly highly doubt, you either provoked it or you just imagined it (like you said, you "felt uncomfortable"), and in any event, it would be an idiosyncratic incident which has no meaning. Shame on you for attempting to besmirch your fellow Jews.

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Garvin's avatar

OK, so it happened to somebody once. ONCE. (And even then, we have no idea what the circumstances were.) When the same thing starts happening every week, every where - let us know.

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David Ohsie's avatar

To repeat, whatever this troll says is pretty much the reverse of reality. No point in arguing with someone who is aiming for falsehood. Just agree that he succeeded at saying something incorrect.

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Ash's avatar

Garvin, stop gaslightimg. Its disgusting.

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Garvin's avatar

Explain a) what gaslighting is, b) how I did it, whatever it is, and c) how it was disgusting. I will reply bl"n if you explain what you're trying to say.

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Garvin's avatar

Typical. No explanation. Typical lefty. Great at making statements and accusations, but when actually pressed to explain themselves, they never can.

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Eli Julian's avatar

I recommend clicking through to some of the links in the wiki article. Seems like it did get just a wee bit of media coverage

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sender zeyv goldberg's avatar

Noson, your "rationality" has gone so far to extreme as to become irrationality!

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Pinchas Solomon's avatar

"... greatly surprised my wife and I..." . Proper English would be "my wife and me"

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Howard Schranz's avatar

Imagine the sentence without your wife's being in it. U would certainly say: "she surprised ME." The presence of another person does not change the object of the sentence.

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Building Worlds's avatar

"But neither would they say a prayer in shul for their safety"

Motzi Shem Ra!

Not having public prayer synagogue for soldiers does not indicate that individuals don't daven for the welfare of every Jewish soldier!

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Moshe's avatar

They show that your belly is itchy.

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מכרכר בכל עוז's avatar

Oh, wow. I'm shocked.

Not.

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DYK Torah Journal's avatar

Two questions:

What subject is your daughter teaching to these immigrant soldiers in the army? (Is it Hebrew, perhaps?)

Are the new immigrant soldiers your daughter teaching, male or female, or a mixture of both? Are they secular or religious, or a mixture of both?

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Cappy's avatar

Um, the 4, 14, 15 lines all go from the train station to near your house without passing through RBS bet.

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Natan Slifkin's avatar

Darn. Maybe she just wanted a free ride.

(But the risk of attack on the buses that go through RBS-B is real. My daughter herself was once on the bus with an Israeli flag and the bus got attacked as a result.)

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זכרון דברים's avatar

Do you want it be the truth too?

זאל נאך זיין אמת אויך?

It works better in Yiddish.

Without mendacity, this blog has no existence.

But good that his daughter went to the army. Nice.

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Uriah’s Wife's avatar

@זכרון דברים

What was mendacious about this post?

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Howard Schranz's avatar

There is absolutely nothing mendacious in this post! If a writer brightens up a true story without changing it substantially, that is good writing!

To ZD, why does your quip work "better in Yiddish"? Maybe cause YOUR translation to English is awkward. How is this: "Nice story, but too bad it is not true."

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זכרון דברים's avatar

Writing that the bus passes through the 'ghetto' when it doesn't counts as untrue

Perhaps you translate the word 'truth' differently.

And you did not get the Yiddish quip. It makes the point so much better.

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Natan Slifkin's avatar

The buses do indeed pass there and it is indeed dangerous. I don't know why my daughter doesn't want to take the other bus but whatever the reason, the facts of danger to soldiers in that neighborhood are true. https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/361149

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Uriah’s Wife's avatar

@זכרון דברים

ווען ער איז צוויי מאל אזוי קלןג וואלט ער געווען א גולם!

Applicable Yiddish proverb to Mr. דברים.

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Howard Schranz's avatar

I know a fair bit of Yiddish, so please explain how the Yiddish version "makes the point so much better"? Which point is that? Part of the reason your English version is not great is that u use "the truth" rather than the simple "true." The word "emes" is not used exclusively for some grand supra-cosmic "truth." Emes can simply mean true.

I am very familiar with the sentimentalist non-truth that somehow Yiddish is magically more "expressive" or "deep" or "funnier" than other languages.

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Yakov's avatar

Has there been cases of female soldiers attacked by charedi Jews on buses in Israel?

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Lo's avatar

In our American Chabad shul, the prayer for the government is not said, but prayer for the IDF IS said.

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David Schwartz's avatar

"surprised my wife and I" ???

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Yisrael Bronstein's avatar

As someone who served way back in the previous century, you often would bring home extra laundry on the weekends off belonging to other people in the unit who got stuck back on base.

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