Uri Orbach
Photo: Gabi Menashe
An abomination? The bridge
Photo: Israel Bardugo
Jerusalem is losing it
Orthodox insistence that bridge ceremony dancers dress up modestly uncalled for
The only bridge missing in Jerusalem today is the bridge of common sense, which should be used by the turning-a-blind-eye train.
Common sense could have made sure not to have young girls perform dances that annoy
Religious Rampage
Efrat Weiss
Posters hung throughout ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods allegedly signed by man imprisoned for attempting to murder parade participants in 2006, call on community to 'fight against will of evil to make abomination parade'
The stronger and more influential the Orthodox become in Jerusalem, the more sensitive and vulnerable they get, as if the entire Orthodox pubic is nothing but a huge chunk of fragile feelings, with every dancer on a bridge overwhelming their emotions and trampling their rights in the holy city.
Perhaps it would be worthwhile for the ultra-Orthodox to also learn the art of turning a blind eye: There is no need to see everything or create a scandal over every minor issue. This city is still shared by all of us, and I believe the ceremony was not held at the Western Wall, but rather, on a bridge used by a train.
Orthodox modesty standards
Yet the Orthodox in Jerusalem, who are provoked by their crude functionaries, do not make such distinction. In their eyes the bridge is as holy as the Western Wall, and a girl in a dancing troupe constitutes complete promiscuity; and if for some reasons these dancers were included in the inauguration ceremony, they will only appear in line with Orthodox standards of modesty – wearing sacks and wool hats.Orthodox crudity has not yet learned how to look the other way for five minutes – not in Jerusalem at least, which the Orthodox feel they personally own.
There is a new ultra-Orthodox trend these days that is prominently featured in the Orthodox media: Wearing a sackcloth and praying to God. The problem is that quite a few Orthodox are trying to put the whole of Jerusalem in such sackcloth.
On Wednesday, at least two years before the train will actually travel on the Chords Bridge, we saw the first collision. The train car of stupidity and flawed planning by organizers of the show crashed into ultra-Orthodox belligerence. Jerusalem is losing it.
