Activists call to boycott kashrut giant in battle against anti-IDF incitement
Social activists announce an initiative to curb attacks by extremists on Haredi soldiers by calling to boycott food products certified as kosher by the OCJ to strike at source of offenders’ funding.
A new initiative seeking to curb violence in the ultra-Orthodox sector against young people who choose to enlist in the IDF aims to impose a financial price on organizations that support and fund the campaign against the draft law by calling on the public to boycott them.
In the campaign, launched Sunday by the Forum Against Incitement, the organization called on the public to boycott the Orthodox Council of Jerusalem (OCJ)—otherwise known in Israel as Badatz—which serves as the ultra-Orthodox community's Kosher certification agency—by avoiding purchasing any food products bearing its certificate.
In a video distributed by the new organization, an ultra-Orthodox man appears, standing nearly naked in front of the camera with the ambient sounds of a supermarket in the background.
With every beep of a barcode scanner, an additional garment associated with Haredi attire adorns him. Eventually, as the beeps continues, more extreme and anti-Zionist props begin appearing. At first he is seen carrying a sign disparaging the IDF, then treading on an IDF uniform, and finally holding a smoldering and burnt Israeli flag.
The Forum Against Incitement includes social activists and IDF reserve officers—secular, religious and ultra-Orthodox—who have been fighting in recent months to curb incitement against the IDF, among them Benjamin Ze'ev Tsabari, who organized a protest in march in Mea Shearim in support of Haredi soldiers, and Gadi Dimri, a member of the Bet Shemesh Zionist organization who fights attacks on IDF soldiers in his city.
At a conference the organization plans to hold in Jerusalem this week, its members will present an "Incitement Report", which has surveyed the activities of the OCJ and the radical Jerusalem Faction fringe group against IDF soldiers and the State of Israel over the past year, and will announce their next steps in the efforts to eradicate the phenomenon.
Moshe Lorber, founder of Citizens for Lone Soldiers, who is also taking part in the initiative, outlined the group's intentions and primary goals.
"We decided to do something and to end the brutal activity of the two groups," he said. "It is important for us to clarify that our claims are directed only at the OCJ and the Jerusalem Faction, and not at the entire Haredi community, most of whom are good citizens who contribute to the state. We also think that the activities of the two groups hurt the ultra-Orthodox.
"In the coming months, we will work to stop the funding of these groups through the Badatz kashrut certification. There is no need to fund inflammatory groups that harm IDF soldiers and the State of Israel," Lorber concluded.
