Israeli Adolescents Burn Israeli Flag, Mezuzot - Say They Hate Judaism
Adolescents burn Israeli flag, mezuzahsSix youngsters between ages of 12 and 15 from coastal town Bat-Yam, south of Tel Aviv, arrested for burning Israeli flag and mezuzah parchments torn from doorposts. The boys, not all Jewish, explain 'We loath anything related to Judaism'
"We loath Jews and anything related to the Jewish faith," six adolescent said, stunning police investigators.
The boys, aged 12 to 15, were arrested Monday night on suspicion of burning an Israeli flag and mezuzah parchments torn from doorposts. They were released on Tuesday morning and placed under house arrest.
The principal of a Bat-Yam school reported to the police on Monday morning that students had burnt an Israeli flag. Police investigators and detectives from the Central District arrived at the school and located the six students who are all new immigrants but not all Jewish. They admitted to burning the flag.
The boys were handed over to the juvenile department for further investigation where they described their recent acts of vandalism and claimed to be Satanists. They say they had stolen at least eight mezuzahs from apartments in one street then lit the parchments in one of the school structures. The structure burnt down as a result.
There is no shortage, unfortunately, of Jewish kids in America who also hate Judaism. But this happening in Israel incenses me for a different reason.
Check the comments on that YNet article for where I'm going with this:
4. Beautiful law of return and fake convertions as its best (End)5. Pride of Secular Israel - How appropriate, just a day after the Zionists decided to "get tough" with those damn settlers. Now you've got the mezuzas burning in the street - I guess your next step is the Final Solution for all us pesky Dossim. Herzl would be proud.
And it just continues.
No conversions from Chutz la'Aretz, they said. No funding for charedi schools, Yuli said. No funding for religious initiatives. Separate church and state and allow for civil marriage, they said. Pray to G-d to save you from the religious, Meretz's election ad said.
And now you have this. You wanted to allow for as many people who would have been affected by the Nuremburg Laws to be able to come to Israel, and now you have vehement non-Jews as part of Israeli society. Kids who self-identify as Satanists vandalizing Jewish articles.
Teenage rebellion is universal, but these kids obviously had never had a positive interaction with Judaism. And how could they? The media is anti-Judaism, and Tel Aviv is not a good place to be religious, socially. Haifa's mayor attributed Haifa's relative peace and coexistence to their lack of religion.
Lack of Judaism equals good in many parts of Israeli society -- Xmas observance is even up. When Judaism is so derided and religious people are treated as such pariahs, what should make a kid even think, "whoa, this is taboo, shouldn't burn this, it's Jewish and so am I"?
For the sake of World Jewry, Israel needs to take its Jewish identity more seriously and with a little more respect. How many American Jews consider Israel to be important and central to their Jewish identity?
And without religious education, without attaching significance to Judaism and things Jewish, how many Jews in central Israel would throw away that identity to just be American?
