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KIDS will be kids. This was said to me both by Manchester's King David
Schools chairman of trustees Joshua Rowe in relation to alleged
"frummy" bullying at his schools and by a leading member of the city's
Orthodox community in relation to name calling by chassidic kids of
their non-chassidic counterparts and vice-versa.
The
argument just does not hold. If you can't do anything about kids'
behaviour then why do charedim go to such lengths to control it by
censoring almost everything else they do, from their access to books
and the Internet, contact with the opposite sex and the hechsherim of
the products they are allowed to eat?
Can
it be right for a kid from a charedi home to be prohibited from eating
Beth Din rather than Kedassiah and Badatz products and yet be allowed
to name-call Jews with different degrees of religious observance to
themselves?
Parents
and teachers can certainly impose boundaries when they choose and can
also be exceptionally good at turning a blind eye when they so desire.
Unfortunately,
it does not surprise me to learn that charedi children name-call other
kids different from themselves when they are brought up in such an
elitist and exclusivist environment with little or no positive exposure
to people different from themselves.
But
pupils in a mainstream school like Manchester's KD, which is governed
by local authority anti-bullying and anti-discrimination policies and
which is exposed to our country's current zero-tolerance of
discrimination attitude, should know better.
I
read about the allegations of the "frummy germs" tag game as I was
re-reading Mila 18 to mark the 70th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto
Uprising. The Nazis' excuse for herding Jews into ghettoes and
"de-lousing" them was that they were dirty and infectious.
Can we really look on with impunity at Jewish kids playing games which target other Jews less religious than themselves?
It's
bad enough that Jerusalem's holy Kotel is polluted by internecine
warfare between Jews of different persuasions. Do we really have to
import such disunity into Manchester?
Because, make no mistake, if childish behaviour is not checked these kids will grow up to be dangerously bigoted adults.
ALTERNATIVE psychological methods are becoming all the rage, particularly among charedi women.
In
London, Liverpool-born Rabbi Shaul Rosenblatt has a massive following
for his Innate Health sessions which have given a Jewish touch to this
new American approach to wellbeing.
And
when Brighton-based Emotional Freedom Technique practitioner Dr
Shoshana Garfield recently went to Manchester to give a two-day crash
course in EFT tapping training, there was an excellent turnout,
particularly of sheitel-topped women. What is it which attracts these
mainly mothers of large families to these new therapeutic methods?
Dare
I suggest that Jews, in general, are more into psychology than other
members of these isles because they tend to take their problem
seriously, rather than drowning them in drink?
Maybe that's why Americans, who have stricter anti-drinking laws than us, are so much more into going to shrinks.
Charedi
women, too, with their education focusing upon perfecting their
character traits, take their own attaining of midot (good qualities)
and the upbringing of their children seriously and are fascinated by
any method which might help them in this goal.
With
less trivial distractions of TV and Internet, not to say booze, than
the rest of the population, they are thirsting for any tool which will
help them in their self-knowledge and ability to help members of their
families and communities.
This is all to the good and could be an example to other communities.
SEPARATE seating is a must at all charedi events.
This
can be a boon for the single woman who is not noticeable for her lack
of husband or an annoyance because it's hard to strike up a
conversation with your elderly uncle on the other side of the mechitsa
or to let your husband know you want to take the kids home.
But Jewish-wise, they are never considered a security threat.
Sad
to say, the same is not true on campus where events with separate
seating, which breach equality legislation for non-religious public
places, are linked with incitement to violence by extremist Muslim
speakers at universities who are often protected by the right to
freedom of speech.
For
those worried about the disturbing trend of growing Muslim extremism on
campus it could possibly be easier to clamp down on the sexual
segregation issue than the freedom of speech one.
If
this really were implemented, then it could perhaps negatively affect
charedi events, not on campus because charedim tend to shun
universities but in other public places where they might hold meetings
or simchot, which would be a shame.
E-MAIL: comment@jewishtelegraph.com
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