NIMBY

In Israel NIMBY (not in my backyard) can just as easily refer to the tension between the ultra-orthodox and other Jews as to that between Jews and Arabs. This is particularly true in Jerusalem, although the phenomenon recently erupted in Jaffa as well as in the posh neighborhood of Ramat Aviv (near Tel Aviv University) when Haredi announced plans to move in or build new apartments in these neighborhoods. In Jerusalem particularly virulent battles (including stone-throwing) have been going on over Haredi demands for an increase in the number of segregated busses traveling from or through Mea She’arim and other ultra orthodox neighborhoods. Novelist Naomi Ragen, herself an observant though not Haredi Jew, has been one of the most outspoken opponents of segregated busses, pulling a Rosa Parks to protest the practice. In another ongoing battle, the longtime secular residents of the Kiryat Hayovel neighborhood have been fighting with ultra-orthodox newcomers over the erection of an eruv (a physical boundary which allows the ultras to carry things outside during Shabbat) and the use of a private home to hold regular prayer services with 40 participants. Citywide there is conflict over the disproportionate funding allocated to Haredi daycare and kindergarten centers. In addition to their self-imposed insularity, the Haredi families have higher birthrates and suffer from higher rates of poverty due to the focus on study rather than work, at least for the men.

Yesterday we viewed an exhibit of amazing photographs by Menahem Kahara, a photojournalist who gained access to the Haredi community and has been documenting their spiritual and everyday lives for the past 15 years. Exhibition curator, Alex Levac writes that the photos provide a peak over the wall that separates religious and secular Israelis. He argues that not only do the Haredi work hard to maintain this wall, but Sabra Israelis, eager to build a new society, also strive to distance themselves from the religious, spiritual and presumably moral-driven lives of these “others.” In a way, a distinction is made between Jewishness and Israeliness. These photos portray the ultra Orthodox as individual human beings, not simply social ciphers, who love, hate, get drunk, play, and pray. Gideon Levy, a left-leaning columnist in Haaretz recently urged readers to take this same view in the face of the intolerance shown by the Ramat Aviv residents. Yet, as we heard from our friend Josie in Carmiel, it is not clear what Haredi neighbors contribute to the social fabric of the broader communities in which they live. And, as the bus battles demonstrate, their presence can bring unwanted consequences that burden other women who don’t choose to limit themselves in the public sphere.

The extreme gender segregation and the fact that the photographer is male, render the women in these photos almost invisible, seen only from a distance at the back of male crowds or peeking around from behind the men at a family celebration. The one striking exception is a photo of a bride seated in an almost empty reception room with a few boys studying in the background. She is dressed in a demure white gown with her face completely covered by a white veil and in her hand she holds one end of a long black ribbon or rope that trails in front of her to the ground. A young girl seated near her, one of three dressed in modest party dresses, tilts sideways trying to get a glimpse of the bride’s face. I wonder what is going through her head.