Innocent booklet in her mailbox by Neturei Karta compels Tali Farkash to explain to her son truth about the 'evil Zionists.' Neturei Karta – Aramaic for protectors of the city – spread their ideology to impressionable children as they continue their hundred-year-old struggle against Zionism
Tali Farkash
YNET News
For about a month now, a ticking time bomb has been in our midst. It is not the kind of bomb that has blue and red electric wires sticking out of it, or even a stop watch. It's just a simple booklet about an old, affable grandpa and his grandson Shloimele that showed up one bright and shiny day in our mailbox. The perfect camouflage for ideological explosives complete with pictures and proper punctuation.
Thus, at the end of another Shabbat in the capital, as his mother was still occupied with counting the wounded from Jerusalem's civil war, my eldest son asked, "Mom, is it true that kibbutzniks cut off children's sidecurls?" Even before I could answer, he added, "Mom, is it true that Jews in Israel stole Yemenite children?"
At this point, I had already stopped dealing with the pictures of shtreimels and the threatening hooves of police horses. "Where did you hear that?" I asked as my jaw dropped.
"It's in the booklet on Shloimele," responded the babe without any signs of confusion. "Everything is in there about the evil Zionists."
No doubt. I failed miserably at monitoring what the child reads. My over-occupation with the Jewish against Jewish struggle in Karta parking lot covered up the battles against the "Zionists" that made their way into the kid's room. The stories about the grandfather and his grandson were in reality a shortened version of the battle being waged by the extreme haredi factions against Zionism. The entire doctrine was implanted in a most admirable way into an innocent dialogue for a young mind.
The pair's adventures cost me an entire evening of stuttering explanations of the less-than-perfect world of adults.
No breaks for haredim
Up until the incident with this manifesto for the young masses, I never even conceived of the ironic and oh-so-obvious connection between Neturei Karta (protectors of the city, in Aramaic), the Jerusalem group out protesting the streets, and the Karta parking lot, the current focus of those espousing this same ideology. The former are marking some one hundred years to their struggle. Generations of violent, uncompromising argument between the trusted police force charged with protecting the city and those who see themselves and the true protectors.
This group, which makes the anarchists in Bilin look like a summer camp in comparison, follows entirely different rules of the game. Being struck by a police officer has always been considered an honor for them. In the era of legendary Jerusalem Mayor Teddy Kolek, this also happened a lot. Karta stories, the current struggle, surely stir up nostalgic memories of the happy protests against Edison Cinema among the older generation, who may even compare battle scars at the mikveh.
Even the classic accusations leveled against haredim aren't applicable here. Their institutions are not funded by the State. They don't pay, and don't collect, social security. Most of them don't even have identity cards as an ideological statement that they are not part of the State of Israel. The solution of handing Jerusalem over to the Palestinians is their dream of 60 plus years – the destruction of the Zionist machine.
The booklet, whose author chose to remain unnamed, doesn't make any breaks for haredim. Among other claims, the booklet even attacked them for participating in the Knesset. Apparently, anonymous preaching is the way of burrowing into the heart of the haredi mainstream. And, as it turns out, mailboxes are an incredibly sophisticated way of expanding the ranks of their supporters among 7-and-a-half-year-old children.
Alive and kicking ideology
The show put on every Shabbat at the Karta parking lot and children's stories about the "Zionists" are a clear sign that their ideology is alive and kicking. It sweeps up with it the haredi street, along with national religious people in the midst of an identity crisis and radical leftists.
Everything we thought was over and done with – all the affairs, the kidnappings, the drownings, the extraditions of the days of the State's establishment – are alive and well, breathing the air in Mea Shaarim near the entrance to Mamila mall. As of now, more than 200 streets in Jerusalem, including main thoroughfares, are closed on Shabbat and holidays. Unfortunately, this is only due to the stubborn, unrelenting struggle of these "protectors."
In any case, I informed the little zealot they set up in my house that we aren't going to go to Grandma's in Haifa in order to shout "Shabbes" at cars passing by on the weekend.
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