Tonight is the 8th and final night of Chanukah and I’m sitting on my couch watching the candles burn down. We all know the story of Chanukah where the Maccabes were victorious over the Seleucid Greeks. In essence the Greeks wanted to make sure that Judaism didn’t survive by abolishing certain laws. One could argue that in some ways the Maccabes were the extremists since they didn’t want to have their way of life changed.
Recently in Israel there have been extremists on the offensive. These “ultra-orthodox” Jews are protesting, violently some times, for certain things. What they want is women to dress according to their standards and have a separation between the genders on public transportation.
As someone who is an observant Jew (I guess you can call me “ultra-orthodox” but I hate labels like that) I am disgusted and embarrassed by these protests. Thankfully more people, who have more pull than I do are starting to speak out about these people. I would also like to point out that these people don’t represent what Judaism is about. As I mentioned in a previous post, Judaism is about living with people and being respectful of their differing views.
Reading about stuff like this makes me embarrassed to call myself Jewish.
