Q:
What do you say about the violence of frum Jews against the archeologists that are digging in certain areas in Eretz Yisrael?
A:
And the answer is as follows. Imagine that you have a grandfather, maybe a father, who was buried, let’s say, in a cemetery here somewhere in America.
He was buried with reverence, let’s say, but after a while the gravestone broke down and was no longer visible. And along comes a team of archeologists, let’s say from John Hopkins University or from Northwestern University, and they decide to pick this spot because they suspect that there are some Indian mounds that were here before the cemetery was set up. And so they start digging into your father’s grave.
Now imagine you’re standing by because you heard what’s going on and you see them opening up the grave. What’s your reaction? Would you say for the sake of science in order to discover old Indian bones I’m going to let them disturb my father’s bones? You know that when you bore in with a pick and ax so you’re going to smash the backbone—there will come out broken pieces.
So they say “Please don’t be a fanatic. The time will come when we’re finished with our exploration. We’ll take together all your father’s bones. We’ll put them in a sack and we’ll give it to you. You can bury them again if you wish.”
Would you keep quiet? Oh no. You would rage. I’m afraid you would buy a gun and you would use it.
Suppose it’s not your father. Suppose it’s somebody that’s much greater than your father. Suppose it’s the founders of your people, Tanaim v’Amoraim, the sages whose very names we worship and they’re buried in these places in Yerushalayim. And everybody has a tradition that this is the grave of this Amora, this great sage whose words we, the students of the Torah, learn every day, and we follow his dicta and we imitate, we emulate his ways. And now there comes a team of people who are paid—they’re subsidized by American schools; they get money for the excavations—and they have not the slightest interest in respecting the bones of our ancestors. They’re interested in achieving and making a certain scientific report for which they’re going to get a lot of money. So what should the frum Jews of Yerushalayim do? Stand by and keep quiet? The truth is they’re not doing enough. Their protests are pretty weak. They’re mild. They’re not reacting like somebody should when he sees that the bones of his ancestors are being desecrated.
Had it been Mohammadans these scientists wouldn’t leave the scene alive. No question about it. No Arabs would let them leave the place alive. As soon as they would even approach that spot they’d make a bloody mess out of them.
The frum Jews are quiet so they protest. They cry out. What happens? The Israeli police come and they use their clubs. To do what? To smash Orthodox Jewish heads. Some Jews even died as a result.
Now when there are rock ‘n roll demonstrations in Tel Aviv and the wild Israeli youth goes to that demonstration and they start breaking windows and shooting guns and killing policemen, the police move in very gently. They don’t break any heads, oh no. Heads? Only Orthodox heads have to be broken. That’s a principle. I’m not exaggerating. Israeli police specialize in breaking only Orthodox heads. They wouldn’t harm a secular Jewish girl who is making a demonstration or a wild boy who is jumping up and down breaking windows.
You know last year when an American actor came to Israel—I forget his name; it’s unimportant—he and his wife came, and the girls in Tel Aviv, they gathered in the thousands. They were swooning over him. They were rushing to embrace him. He needed police to protect him. That’s the wildness of the Israeli youth. They grew up in Israeli schools you know—that’s the education.
And therefore the police wouldn’t touch these darlings of the rock ‘n roll world. But when Orthodox Jews come together and their hearts are breaking when they see that the graves of their ancestors are being so cruelly desecrated, this is called violence. It’s fanaticism. And the police don’t spare their clubs and these Jews go to the hospital. They’re hospitalized for trying to rescue the graves of their ancestors from this sacrilege.
October 1983
