Marvin Schick's Call To Arms,Editorial Board

Marvin Schick, in a Jewish Press op-ed piece last week, lamented the lack of any sense of community in the ranks of Orthodoxy when any one particular segment is attacked. As Dr. Schick wrote, Professor Noah Feldman's rant against Modern Orthodoxy in the New York Times Magazine was, with few exceptions, largely ignored outside the precincts of Modern Orthodoxy. And he was equally on point in writing that haredim get little support when attacked by the likes of Haaretz or Professor Samuel Heilman.

Perhaps providentially, Modern Orthodox Jews, at least, have an opportunity to redeem themselves by responding to an extraordinary calumny that appeared in last week's issue of The Jewish Week, penned by that paper's publisher and editor, Gary Rosenblatt.

In a column titled "Time To Confront Israel's Inner Crisis," Mr. Rosenblatt talks about "an Israeli society unraveling politically, morally, and psychologically." He touches on the distrust in elected officials, the "scandals of political, ethical and sexual behavior" that have reached all levels of Israeli society and the striking military failures of recent years.

Yet, he says, "Most Israelis are reconciled to living with a deep distrust of their leaders."

So far, so good. But then he goes off in a strange direction, saying that " for all the real and frighteningly serious threats from its outside enemies, many thoughtful Israelis say their deepest fears are of the divisions from within."

And what, according to Mr. Rosenblatt, are those divisions? Well, he points to the dramatic decrease in the percentage of Zionists in Israel as the result of "the growth of the haredim, the fervently Orthodox segment that opposes a democratic state, and the Israeli Arab population, which has increasingly identified with the Palestinian cause (to the point of calling themselves Palestinians."

Israeli haredim and Israeli Arabs present an equivalent threat to Israel?! But there is more. Mr. Rosenblatt goes on to say, "While the politicians lack respect, they look like moral giants when compared to religious leaders in the Jewish state, whose chief rabbis have been accused of sexual and ethical misbehavior. They and other rabbinic authorities are best known for their embarrassing pronouncements that divide rather than unite society."

So for Mr. Rosenblatt, politicians convicted of financial and sexual wrongdoing are on a higher moral plane than rabbis who merely stand accused of wrongdoing. (We know of only one chief rabbi so accused - and those allegations never went anywhere.)

Likewise, for Mr. Rosenblatt, rabbis who reaffirm traditional halacha in the face of blatant revisionism are the ones guilty of divisiveness, not those who proclaim a change in centuries of practice.

Talk about an attack on Orthodoxy - Modern and haredi. Someone's moral compass is in serious need of repair.

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Marvin Schick's Call To Arms , Editorial Board