Very Fresh Paint (Article# 72) 2/7/08

On Monday, I got a frantic call from Goldie. As Mordechai was getting out of the car, he accidentally slammed the door on his finger. He was howling in pain and she was going to head to the doctor. To make a long story short (which is unusual for me), instead of a broken bone he had a sprain and bruise and had to wear a splint until Shabbat.

We hosted the neighborhood meeting in our house on Wednesday night. We weren’t sure how many people to expect, since we had only sent out the first email invitations out on Sunday. 120+ people showed.

Apparently, the threat of violence against our neighbors simply because they have a television struck a chord. There was a lot of talk about needing to do something to combat the violence that has sprung up. A lot of rhetoric too. The pacifist kept insisting that we should somehow make friends with the rock throwers and letter writers. But the important thing to us was that people cared enough to show up for a meeting with just 3 days notice.

We were able to talk through many issues that people didn’t even know existed and put together a bigger picture of how the Ramat Beit Shemesh Bet (RBSB) militant group (as opposed to the rest of RBSB) is positioning themselves to further develop their neighborhood and influence.

We broke into subcommittees and asked people to get the word out that manpower was needed for further meetings (like the one to be held with the Mayor and Chief of Police the following Monday) and other activities. It was an impressive showing, especially since almost 50% of those there immediately volunteered for subcommittees.

A couple of nights later Chaim came down to the kitchen laughing. “You won’t believe this,” he said. “I was playing a video game with Mordechai (his 6 year old brother) watching me. I made a move in the game that he did not like and he started yelling at me IN HEBREW!” How cool is that? Of course, Chaim didn’t understand a word.

On Thursday the Yeshiva went on a tiyul (trip) to the Gush and Chevron. It was an incredible day for everyone. We saw a physical representation of the various laws of Shemitta, visited a winery, stopped at Kibbutz Kfar Etzion and then toured the building in Chevron (among other sites there) that is at the heart of the current controversy there.

At one point, in Kfar Etzion, we were pointed out the building that houses the High School of Rav Shteinzaltz. Little did we know that less than twelve hours later, that very school was to be the target of a terrorist attack. It was quite shocking to hear the news and realize that we had walked by the very same spot – albeit with armed escort.

On Friday morning I got an email from one of the guys who was at the meeting in my house earlier in the week that the chareidim from across the street had spray painted the sidewalk outside our block. Our street is a dead end, but only because it sits about two to three feet above the street it would normally intersect near my house and is about twenty feet below the level of the street perpendicular.

In order to make it easier for pedestrians, there are stairs from our street to the adjacent streets and it was the sidewalk just outside those stairs that were spray painted with a message “Modest dress required when passing this way”.

Not that I am against modest dress, but this graffiti set me off.

I called a few fellows from the block and together we scrubbed the paint off the bricks by one set of stairs, and then we went out and bought some spray paint matching the color of the sidewalk by the other stairs and covered that message over as well.

While we were working, several of the Chareidim came by and one of our guys stopped to talk to
each one. Some of them knew what was going on and others didn’t. In the end, he spoke with one fellow who said that he wanted to set up a meeting with one of their Rabbis to try and diffuse the tension. So we’ll see, some good might come of it.

Meanwhile, more and more neighbors keep moving in, so it is exciting here on Rechov Gad. Of course, it isn’t that much of a treat when their moving boxes and packing paper are strewn all over the block – but what can you do?

PART TWO

I missed my deadline last week, so I can update you on a lot more that happened since then.
We met with the guys from across the street. Well, not me personally – but one of my neighbors and our Rav. I cannot argue with the results. Not only was the threatening letter withdrawn, but a personal apology was made – twice! We have a dialogue between us that no one thought possible.

There will still be flare-ups, and this meeting only solved (at least for now) one of the issues. There are many others yet to be covered. But dialogue is dialogue, and you cannot belittle how much better things feel in the neighborhood right now. And they also claim that spray painting is not their tactics – so we still have the spray painter to deal with.

We also had a town hall meeting with the Mayor and Police Chief. The crowd was over four hundred angry people – mostly anglos (American, English, Australian and South African with a Canadian here and there), and they were there to protest the violence that the police were letting happen as well as the mayor giving certain plots of land for some of the biggest of the troublemakers to make a school just outside our neighborhood.

It was clear that the mayor never expected so many people, nor the level of anger they had over the continuing situation. I even had one native Israeli tell me that it was the largest “political” meeting EVER in Bet Shemesh. And they got the point – even though they weren’t as forthcoming at the meeting that they could have been.

Yet, they agreed to meet with us on a regular basis (the Police Chief has already held his first meeting) and based on the newspapers that have come out in the last week, it seems as if all sides are finally looking to talk to each other and work together where they can find common ground. Which is a good thing.

The speed with which things came to a head and action started being taken took me by surprise. Especially when the “veterans” said that nothing could be done at all. Yes, we still have issues to face that will become heated, but then again – I would rather be fighting this argument than one concerning who runs the school board.