Reflections on the Flag March on Jerusalem Day – A View from the Right (Column 714)
I’m taking a break from the question of ta’ama de-kra and dedicating one short column to the Flag March in Jerusalem that will take place (though may it not be God’s will) tomorrow.
In recent days, voices have been heard—even from within the religious public—pointing to problematic public conduct, especially among the youth, during the Flag Dance. In response, accusations arise that this is left-wing influence and that we ought to be proud of our Judaism and rejoice over the conquest of Jerusalem, particularly its holy places. This reminds me of a personal experience I had at the Flag Dance, and perhaps I’ll start with that.
In my youth, like everyone, I came almost every year to Jerusalem on the eve of Jerusalem Day and joined the dancing from Merkaz HaRav on the way to the Western Wall. It was a good experience (and there were also girls, which didn’t hurt), and I don’t recall any difficult feelings. From then until today I’ve been there only once, about twenty-five years ago, together with my students from the Hesder Yeshiva in Yeruham. I remember that experience as a real trauma. I left shocked by what I saw and experienced there.
The march began in Kiryat Moshe, and along the way there were songs and dancing, and everything was fine. From some point on, when we reached the Old City, a rampage began with the flags and amid the dancing. Throngs of flushed and fired-up youths kicked property, smashed cars and shops, and of course harassed people—Arab residents who were standing on the sides. It was downright nauseating, and it did not stop. Every moment felt like a punch to the gut, and when I tried to rebuke the rioters my words fell on deaf ears. There was no one to talk to. Go try to admonish hundreds and thousands of rampaging people. I am far from being soft-hearted or especially sensitive, but I clearly felt I could not continue to be present at the atrocity unfolding there. My feeling was like that of someone witnessing a fascist riot, and in order not to arouse harsh associations I won’t detail historical examples.
It was evident that most of this crowd was made up of entirely normative boys and girls who were automatically swept up by the fascist-nationalist surge around them, like the dances around the Golden Calf. I must say these phenomena did not characterize a small minority. I didn’t check throughout the entire march, but from what I saw it was happening all the time and by many of the “dancers,” and of course with the tacit consent of all the rest. It was more a dance on the blood and on the head than a dance with flags. It reminds me of the “hate wedding” events (which took place many years later) that only sharpened the broader phenomenon that occurs every year at the Flag March, and my impression is that it is even worsening. I was very frustrated and refused to accept that I am part of this phenomenon and of the public that perpetrates (in both senses) it.
Since then I keep wondering whether, in my youth, I saw the same things but they didn’t bother me because I too was swept along, or whether there truly has been deterioration over the years. I think masterpieces like “May your village burn” hadn’t yet appeared then, and my sense is that indeed the situation is deteriorating. But perhaps not…
Since then, every year I recall that harsh trauma, and from time to time I write about it. Each time I wrote, I received responses saying I’m describing the conduct of a small minority, unjustifiably generalizing, and besmirching the entire event. But nothing has changed. What I saw with my own eyes was not a small minority. Far from it. And I’m not feeding off reports by antisemitic left-wing journalists. My own eyes saw it; it wasn’t secondhand.
Let me add a few necessary words of background. I’m sure the straightforward reader now accuses me of leftism, of succumbing to anti-religious and anti-Zionist media brainwashing, of progressivism, and other ills. This is the common division in our circles, and it’s also the ultimate way to avoid criticism. Still, I feel it’s worth adding some background that refutes the above. In my views I lean to the right, and in some cases even far to the right. I advocate a heavy hand toward terrorists and their helpers, and in my view, when necessary, we should not spare even non-combatants (obviously not arbitrarily). I’m against a hostage deal, for those interested, and I also advocate continuing the war until victory (and I also believe that’s possible, though of course I don’t have full information—who does?!). I also oppose many of the ideas labeled progressive. In addition, I’m definitely not among those who constantly lament that “the occupation corrupts.” One can’t deny there’s something to that claim, but I oppose drawing conclusions from that simplistic assertion. Indeed, occupation can corrupt, and sometimes it also leads us to do problematic things (though many accusations are false). But even if occupation corrupts, the question is what the alternative is. I don’t see a reasonable alternative without occupation. Thus much for the right-winger in me.
On the other hand, a right-wing, sober, moral person must understand that even if necessity is not to be condemned, we must not increase this corruption beyond what is necessary. There is certainly value in showing sovereignty in Jerusalem, and there’s nothing wrong with rejoicing over its liberation. Does that require wild condescension and abuse of everyone around? Even if there’s a need to occupy, is there value in rejoicing over the occupation and behaving like inconsiderate occupiers? Is breaking Arabs’ property part of the need for occupation? I’m not talking about the use of force when force needs to be used. There the debate between right and left takes place (why?). I’m talking here about ordinary, day-to-day conduct, such as rejoicing over the liberation of Jerusalem. In short, occupation corrupts, and therefore, although we should use it without hesitation, it should be done in as small a dose as possible.
Beyond the moral matter of proper and humane treatment of the stranger and the “other,” even if he is an enemy—and beyond the moral rot that improper treatment creates in our own souls and in those of our students—there’s also a tactical question here: does anyone really think this rampage will bring any benefit? Suppose we’re all right-wing; why do all this at all? Will the frustration and insult suffered by the Arab population bring us to a better situation? Has the attitude of the rest of Israel’s population toward a united Jerusalem and its liberation—and of course toward right-wing ideas generally—improved due to these riots? Go and see who even celebrates Jerusalem Day today. Who is present at that wild dance, apart from the religious public? No one. A few days ago, school principals issued a letter not to send students to this march. For many years now, secular youth hardly come to celebrate Jerusalem Day in any form, and certainly not at the march. And let’s not delude ourselves—it’s not only due to a lack of spiritual connection to the city. There is something very off-putting in these events, even for those who live within the religious public and certainly for those looking from the outside. For my part, I do not understand the religious parents and educators who do want that spiritual connection to Jerusalem yet abandon their children and send them to participate in such a terrible event. We have lost most of the public in Israel, who today see Jerusalem as a security problem, a place that arouses ultranationalism—a breeding ground for fascist-messianic rampage. A wondrous fusion of Haredi exploitation with religious-Zionist fascism. Even if these descriptions are sometimes exaggerated, the Flag March does nothing to disprove them or to reconnect the general public to Jerusalem.
I’ll ask it on a more basic level: even if we assume the answers to all the questions I raised are positive—this will indeed improve our situation, it is morally justified, and it will bring with it the identification of the entire public in Israel with Jerusalem and its liberation—my question is whether those who are rampaging there have even made this calculation. Is this conduct the product of judgment, or are we talking about a rampage and venting of nationalist-fascist urges? To me the answer is clear. It is clear to me that this outburst, at least in part, stems from anger over the atrocities inflicted on us by the brothers of those same Palestinians (in the style of that Simchat Torah a year and a half ago), and also from the impotence of the authorities and security forces in dealing with them. There may also be here a release valve for millennia-old frustration over the absence of sovereignty. And still, even if this phenomenon can be somewhat understood, I think the educational and moral damage of what happens in that Flag March is terrible and ghastly. I must say that precisely from the perspective of someone who advocates continuing the occupation and a tough stance toward those who seek our lives and their helpers, I feel it is our duty to stop this corrupting affair.
Some will say it’s better to repair from within: to participate in the march and try to restrain the rioters. Various calls have now been issued by rabbis and educators for proper conduct at the march (apparently they too share my alleged over-generalizations), but I very much doubt it will help. From my experience then, it’s very hard to gain a hearing during such a riot. We’re talking about a large, unbridled crowd that truly cannot and is not willing to listen to ethical talks amidst the rampage. Moreover, these admonitions are immediately branded “leftism,” heaven forfend. Well, if judgment, minimal morality, and opposition to fascism are leftism, and if “right” means unbridled fascism, then I too am a leftist.
Our sages taught us that there are things whose purification is by breaking them, and there are oxen for whom the only guarding is a knife. The Flag March should be annulled as dust of the earth, and whoever values his life should stay far from it. Only afterward can we perhaps think about a more balanced and sane version of it. Counselors, teachers, and rabbis who lead their students to that march, as well as public figures who participate in it, bear a large share of responsibility for these horrific phenomena. My feeling is that even the sensitivity threshold to such phenomena—even among those who don’t identify with them—has become very dulled. This march is a badge of shame for religious-Zionist education, though of course it does not encompass all of it.
Discussion
More power to you!
I once heard the rabbi say that the Haredi public is afraid and doesn’t use its right to give positive or negative “feedback” to its rabbis’ rulings, and that this is the root of all its troubles. So one could say that אצלנו it’s the rabbis who don’t give feedback to the public’s youngsters, and that’s how many things enter the mainstream and the consensus because they weren’t stopped in time (that’s also the case with the Hasidic attitude and Lag BaOmer in Meron).
That’s exactly how it is.
This column is unbearably self-righteous. Better for the rabbi to go educate his leftist brothers from Kaplan about respecting property and not beating people up (remember the female protester who struck Minister Dichter with an iron bar). Since when are we supposed to care how the rest of the world, or the rest of this rootless, characterless secular public (which in any case doesn’t celebrate Jerusalem Day and is emotionally detached from it), looks at us? Let them not come. This is really the inferiority complex of classic Religious Zionists. The Left will in any case look for other reasons to hate settlers and religious people (and will find them. And if not, they’ll hate us even more for it), and the “sober” right-wingers and the liberals will always look for new reasons to grovel before them and say to them, “I am pure.”
By the way, I don’t know what the problem is with the song “May your village burn” or with the wedding of hate. True, in general wild behavior isn’t to my taste, but since when is it forbidden to hate someone, or to wish someone dead, or to rejoice at his death—especially enemies? Just sanctimoniousness (unbearable, as stated).
I was at the march only once and didn’t see this phenomenon, but that was 12 years ago—maybe I missed it?
In any case, I saw a similar phenomenon when I was visiting an Arab village (Kifl Haris), where according to tradition (which tradition exactly?..) the tomb of Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh is located.
I saw youths, under army protection, rioting. One uprooted a tree before my eyes and ran off.
I felt very bad about it (and I am not suspected of being a leftist; some call me far-right, so be it), and I understood that I had no desire to take part in these things.
More power to you for raising the issue.
Unfortunately, I think that the people who read your words and books in the first place are not eager for such behavior.
I’ve been to the march many times and I’m very skeptical about it for many reasons, but I have to say that only once did I encounter a phenomenon of such vandalism. So in my humble opinion, the factual unequivocalness of the column misses the truth.
More power to you for these true and important words.
The problem here is not the content itself (I too share the wishes for burning, and not only of the village), but the effect it has on the soul. A person who constantly fans feelings of hatred and war strengthens the dark sides of his soul, even if the object of hatred deserves it.
Just look at what happens to Haredi extremists who are constantly occupied with stoking the fire of “hatred of the wicked.” They turn into people full of aggression and hatred of the stranger, and they harm society.
Michael Abraham
I salute you. Well done.
The trigger for this behavior is (and I permit myself not to address the morality of the event itself) the impotence and feeble reactions of the rule of law in dealing with Arab terror. As for the rest—go and learn.
Since I wrote that in the column, I can only agree.
Michi, nice logic—you’re basically disqualifying the march because you generalize all the dancers by saying they generalize about the entire Arab population and also harm innocent people (assuming you have no problem with them doing graffiti on terrorists’ houses).
Hello.
As a resident of the Old City, let me note a few facts, without addressing the question of whether this justifies such behavior.
A. All the business owners along the market route are clear supporters of terror. Every time there is some operational activity or Hamas calls for days of rage, they go on strike, and they also regularly celebrate when there are attacks.
B. The police always notify them in advance about marches and the like, and whoever stays open does so purely to provoke, so I don’t pity him.
If the facts are correct – obviously.
How do you know they are constantly stoking hatred in their hearts? It’s one day a year. And it’s better to live in hatred than to be self-righteous and obsequious (someone who seeks approval for his behavior from other people and wants to find favor in their eyes). Besides, it seems to me that the people of the Left and their helpers from the “sober” and “moral” right know very well how to stoke feelings of hatred and war in their hearts against the Haredim and the Hardalim day and night. They are no different whatsoever from the people of the Jerusalem Faction and Neturei Karta, and they behaved exactly like them during the protests against the reform. And they even endanger the security of the Jewish people here (Yair Golan, stockpiling weapons for a civil war, etc.).
I simply don’t believe that there were hundreds or thousands of rioters committing vandalism.
Usually, when things are published after Jerusalem Day, it turns out to be a number of incidents you can count on one or two hands.
If 15–20 years ago, say, there were hundreds or thousands of vandals/hooligans as you wrote, where is the evidence of a mass pogrom against Jerusalem’s Arab residents and their property?
I’m not familiar with the march firsthand at all, and to be honest I was surprised to hear your testimony, and even more surprised that if this is indeed the case, how is it that I’ve never heard of it—not, I’m not fed only by Channel 14.
In any event, the paragraph “Go and see who celebrates Jerusalem Day at all today. Who is present at that dance of madness, aside from the religious public? No one. School principals sent out a letter a few days ago not to send students to this march. For many years now, secular youth have hardly come to celebrate Jerusalem Day in any way, certainly not at the march. And let us not delude ourselves: it is not only because of a lack of spiritual connection to the city. There is something very off-putting about these events, even to someone who lives within the religious public, and certainly to one who observes it from the outside. Personally, I do not understand the religious parents and educators who do want that spiritual connection to Jerusalem, yet abandon their children and send them to participate in such a terrible event” is in my opinion not relevant at all to the phenomenon, even if true. The reason the average secular person doesn’t celebrate Jerusalem Day is not because of this march or another, but in my opinion because they managed to create for the settlement enterprise in particular, and the occupation in general, an image of a product of “those messianic types with the weird little sidecurls,” even if only those messianic types are the ones who actually bleed for the state in wars and are not vandals.
I take part in the march; for many years now not continuously, and I’ve seen boys going wild, but
there were few of them
they came on their own
they didn’t really destroy anything, they just ran wild. Not that I liked it, but there were also many students from yeshivot and ulpanot who walked respectfully, and lots of couples with children. So because of the handful, cancel it?
By the way, there were also quite a few excited secular people…
Tzachi, are you serious?! I don’t tend to comment, but you really drove me up the wall.
No one has a problem with your wishing enemies dead. The problem is the unrestrained rampage against the Arabs along the route of the march. On what basis do you determine that they are enemies?! Is that what defines your “character and identity”? Assuming so, it turns out you have no character, are captive to your impulses, and are also stupid.
How is any of this connected to the Kaplanists? The fact that they do something problematic prevents criticism of a group that happens to be on the other side of some political axis?
This is simply a call for self-examination; there’s no need to drag brothers into it.
That’s because only a full-on right-wing government has been formed. If a truly right-wing government, but really truly, is formed, then everyone will see how terror is handled (spoiler: even in 2040, with a truly right-wing government, the responses will be impotent too—but it will be the fault of the progressive president David Mintz).
What luck that you happened to see the flag march and discovered that the leftists are right. Maybe sometime you’ll happen to see some more phenomena that people have been talking about for years, and we’ll get to read more columns full of self-importance about original and independent thinking.
My impression was quite similar in the years when I participated. I used to try to quiet young people by saying that this is exactly the behavior the foreign media that came there wanted to see. Not with much success. But I’m really not sure it’s the majority, so cancellation is not necessarily required. Maybe greater participation by families, influence on the young through the yeshiva heads, more police presence, or changes in the route would solve this problem.
Yes. It does prevent criticism.
A call for self-examination comes from someone who is part of a public and sees himself as part of it and genuinely wants its good. Michi, psychologically, has for a long time no longer been part of the public to which those marching in the march belong, and certainly not part of the hilltop youth (who it seems to me, from his perspective, are no different from Arabs). So he is not in a position to call for self-examination. He is beating on other people’s chest. The public to which he belongs psychologically is the liberal Religious Zionist public, heading toward Meimad, which, it became clear to me during the reform period, itself belongs to the left-wing camp psychologically, and therefore also adopts its progressive nonsense (which, as a liberal public, it ought to loathe no less than the conservative public, and even more so, since progressivism is in practice anti-individual-liberty). And in his support for the Supreme Court, he showed, in my opinion, that at least de facto he is not loyal to the historic Jewish national collective. The state (that is, the power that comes with its institutions) is more important to him than the People of Israel, as is the case with the secular leftist public (and perhaps with the Ashkenazi public in general).
A true right-winger (and in general a person who is not a man of lies) does not drone on about “sobriety” or “morality.” Not because they do not exist, but because he does not use them as feathers with which to adorn himself. For with a right-winger, sanity and morality are only basic conditions for something higher—a purpose in life of some kind (similar to “proper conduct precedes Torah”). Leftists, who have no purpose in their world, love to busy themselves with adorning themselves with these feathers, since externality and emptiness are their world (essentially so. It stems from their postmodern-progressive (anti-)faith). And since that is so, they are occupied day and night with the right-wingers’ feathers (or lack thereof).
How does your claim at the beginning of the column fit with your column 38 about the law of small numbers?
As someone who hasn’t missed a single march in the last 40 years and has been educating in a yeshiva high school for years: the march is excellent and right for students who rejoice in Jerusalem’s joy. They come back connected to national themes, to holiness, to our history. These young people, our students, teach us that as a public we are truly in a different place, where it really does not matter who is with us or not, and if the so-called secular public isn’t into it, then let them not be—we are moving forward.
The phenomena described occur only at the very margins, and the overwhelming majority sing and rejoice in the liberation of the city.
These students who supposedly went to the violent flag march etc. are the same students who fill and will fill the ranks on the battlefield, in the reserves, etc. There is a whiff of “How fair are you” moralizing rising from the column.
That’s what happens when people violate “do not add” and invent holidays (twice a year no less—and interesting that both fall during the days of the Omer, the opposite of what our rabbis instructed us, to diminish joy during those days): “Who asked this of you, trampling My courts, which I did not command, nor did I speak of it, nor did it enter My mind? ‘Your new moons and your appointed times My soul hates; they are a burden to Me, I am weary of bearing them. Even when you multiply prayer, I will not hear; your hands are full of blood’”—with vandalism and the unleashing of dark urges. This year I happened by chance into Mincha-Maariv of a high-quality group of Religious Zionists, on the eve of Jerusalem Day (the first time I ever found myself participating in a supposedly holiday prayer that doesn’t belong to my halakhic Jewish calendar; I only hoped they wouldn’t drag the prayer into the middle of the night with endless circuits and attacks—I have no idea what a festive prayer of that sort includes). We were, as usual, there in one of the side rooms of the synagogue; everyone was dressed in ordinary weekday clothes, including me of course as a Haredi. Someone suggested moving, in honor of the holiday, for Maariv to the main synagogue hall, but the congregation in its laziness rejected him. Suddenly, toward Maariv, the saintly man of the synagogue appeared (truly saintly, not sarcastically—a children’s teacher whom I love, and when I say love I mean it with my whole being: a humble man, always happy, all his business revolves around Torah and education and kindness and a cheerful countenance, and with his long beard he looks more Jewish than I do) and approached the lectern. The cantor said a chapter of Psalms, and then, with pathos, began Barekhu with the melody of the festivals, and so too the rest of the prayer with the melody of the three pilgrimage festivals. Now I am a cantor by profession, and it felt so strange to me from within; I held myself back from laughing through the whole prayer. It felt so bizarre. But one good thing came of it: for the first time I managed to pray with the congregation, which normally, when I happen to be there for Mincha-Maariv, by the time they start the Amidah I’m usually in the middle of the Shema; this time we finished together. We finished Aleinu, and I noticed they were now beginning some sort of ceremony, perhaps of reciting Psalms or the like. I fled for my life, but I noticed I wasn’t alone. More and more of the worshipers went out with me (there’s a limit to how much one can keep pretending). Maybe the cantor stayed with one more worshiper at least, so someone would answer his verses, so as not to remain a voice crying in the wilderness. I hope the sexton didn’t lock them in and that by now the event has ended. In sum: what Michi feels all year in an ordinary prayer, without bursting out laughing, I felt in the festive prayer mentioned above in the middle of ordinary weekdays during the Omer.
About this it was said: “My father chastised you with whips, and I will chastise you with even more whips.”
But one thing is certainly true: adding holidays during the counting of the Omer really is outrageous. After all, that slot is already taken by the holy day of Lag BaOmer. There is more to elaborate on regarding the nonsense stated here, but it is insulting even to address it. Poor babes captured among the gentiles.
As a Litvak, I once found myself in Meron on Friday and Shabbat, when Lag BaOmer fell on Saturday night. What do you think I did? I left immediately at the end of Shabbat and returned to my home in the center of the country.
But this really is a question of degree. Because it gets rowdy when the Arabs get rowdy; in calm periods the march is quite fine.
Discounting the nonsense (and there’s a lot of it) and the writer’s naïveté, there is some kernel of truth here in my opinion.
Pouring new religious content into a factual event (the conquest of Jerusalem or the reunification of Jerusalem, you name it) is not received by the public (even the Religious Zionist one) as an ethical religious command, and the violent youth identify this very well (apparently because today there is no Sanhedrin as an agreed-upon body that produces religious norms), and then the religious excitement created in ’67 is gradually converted into violent nationalist excitement.
Lag BaOmer is another factual event lacking any religious value, were it not for the decision over the generations to see it as having religious value (for whatever reason), and therefore it is perceived by the public as such and does not need to be translated into something foreign (the Meron phenomenon is still not representative, because most of those who come there come for the celebration, not out of “religious” fervor).
I answered you with a decent reply, but Michi censored it twice.
From the entire deep philosophical column, I will respond to a ‘trifle’:
“There was a good atmosphere (and there were also girls, which didn’t hurt).”
I have heard a lot of slander about you and your words, and I have tried hard to defend you.
For this I cannot defend you.
Shabbat shalom
I was there this year. True, I didn’t see children destroying cars (maybe because after entering through Damascus Gate I was shocked and turned back), but before my eyes almost everyone who passed through Damascus Gate tried to break Arab shops, kicked them, and I don’t think it would have been any different if there had been a car there, and there were also stickers saying “Rabbi Kahane was right.”
Dear Michi,
I suggest you come next year for a corrective experience.
The facts are simply not correct.
We are talking about a handful, a minority, teenagers who most of them too, when they grow up, will understand that they were mistaken, God willing.
How many people did you see? There are tens of thousands of people there every year. Did you see 100 people rioting? 200? That is still a small minority.
And while we’re at it, a general note about fringe phenomena: every public has them. In every path you will find the people who distort the method, and the teenagers who enjoy the “dross” that it contains. Go to the dirty places of Tel Aviv and see what kinds of vandalism you find there. Go to certain places among the Haredim too—yes yes, there as well. It is easiest to criticize Religious-Zionist youth, most of whom are made up of excellent boys, and even their fringe is relatively “moderate.”
Indeed, I too wondered whether there is not a desecration of God’s name in the rabbi writing this about himself.
The intention of the words is to add a twig to the bonfire of criticism of the dance participants—meaning that some of the participants in the flag dance are not only righteous people whose sole aim is to rejoice in the joy of our holy and glorious city, Jerusalem of Gold, but also come for their own enjoyment from the party atmosphere and the mingling. Every youth who grew up in a mixed society to some degree (that is, excluding Haredi society, which distances the sexes from one another like tow from fire) experiences this naturally. And there is neither honor nor sense in denying what is in every person’s heart.
How do you know that what was there then is the common phenomenon at flag marches every year? I ask because I simply missed this experience after high school, and even when I was there I didn’t encounter the things you describe.