'Treatment of haredim – like Nuerenberg Laws'
Eda Haredit member who participated in 'Holocaust display' during Jerusalem rally claims 'persecution of haredim resembles race laws passed in Germany against Jews'; slams secular Jews for 'making Hitler proud by acting like goyim'
After images of kids wearing yellow patches and striped pajamas during haredi protest in Jerusalem shocked many across the country, some participants wished to explain the move.
Moshe, a member of the Eda Haredit sect and resident of Jerusalem's ultra-Orthodox Mea Shaarim neighborhood told Ynet he does not regret participating in the "Holocaust display."
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Moshe, who attended the rally along with his eight-year-old nephew, noted that the sect leaders supported the demonstration, even if they did not personally participate. "They didn’t publicly call to attend the rally because they feared that the police might employ violence and rubber bullets, and that haredi blood would be spilled."
Warsaw 1943, Jerusalem 2011 (Photos: Jürgen Stroop, Noam Moskovich)
The Eda Haredit member attempted to explain the rationale behind the display of Holocaust symbols, saying it was important that secular people understand the campaign that is being conducted against their community.
"It's important to remember that the Holocaust didn’t start with the gas chambers, but was preceded with an unruly incitement campaign against the Jews. Even after Krystalnacht there were those who preferred to turn a blind eye.
"What is happening today resembles those years and it can definitely reach a secular intifada," he noted.
'Racist legislation against haredim'
Moshe compared the Israeli society's treatment of the haredim to "persecution similar to the Nuerenberg Laws." According to him, the very fact that a haredi man who verbally assaulted a female soldier is being accused of sexual harassment – even though many legal experts claimed there were no grounds for arrest – resembles racist legislation.
'Seculars should understand campaign against us.' (Photo: Noam Moskovich)
"It's exactly like those race laws that only applied to certain people," he said, claiming that if the same thing would have happened to an Arab, "The whole media would have been up in arms. But now no one says a thing."
Referring to the harsh criticism voiced over the use of Holocaust symbols, Moshe said: "No one can teach me what it is to respect the memory of the deceased. My family members were also murdered in the Holocaust.
"In Zionist Israel there are hundreds of thousands of Jews that live like complete goyim, just like in Germany. If the Gestapo leadership would have witnessed how Jews get intoxicated on the very day that European Jews were too scared to leave their houses from fear of pogroms, they would have celebrates. This is Hitler's biggest victory. And they are the ones preaching about disrespecting the Holocaust?"
Moshe noted that the replicated image of the little boy from Warsaw Ghetto – which stirred media frenzy – was not planned, but was rather a "spontaneous initiative." However, he refused to condemn it, saying: "When the seculars explain to us why they act like Germans – we'll talk."
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