‘…there is nothing new under the sun’ (Eccl. 1,9)

“What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:9).

When I was 11 years old, shortly before our family immigrated to Israel in the summer of 1969, we came for a month-long visit to Israel during the Passover break. My late father, Prof. David Maeir, z”l, had already been appointed as director-general of Shaare Zedek Hospital and was commuting between New York and Israel during the year leading up to our aliyah.

The Edah HaChareidit (the large, anti-Zionist ultra-Orthodox Jewish communal organization based in Jerusalem) strongly opposed his appointment director-general of the hospital, as they regarded it “their” hospital, and were against him as he was a pathologist, a field that they considered religiously unacceptable, as they were opposed to autopsies. Protests erupted among Haredi (ultra-orthodox) communities both in the United States and in Israel. They made harassing phone calls to my parents at all hours of the day and night, conducted demonstrations, along with intense political maneuvering behind the scenes, in an attempt to stop his appointment as director-general of the hospital.

During our Passover stay, we lived in a rented apartment in Jerusalem’s Bayit Vegan neighborhood. One evening, while my parents were out, my paternal grandmother, Kate, z”l, who herself has a remarkable story – the first woman to be licensed to practice law and admitted to the New Jersey State Bar, watched over me and my siblings that evening.

A large group of Haredi protesters gathered outside the building to demonstrate against my father’s appointment. They shouted, made a commotion, and started throwing stones that shattered the windows of the apartment. Then, they stormed into the building and up the stairs, breaking down the door of our apartment and forced their way inside. My grandmother tried to block them, but the mob pushed her to the ground and surged inside, wounding her in the process, and then they began vandalizing the contents of the home.

Deeply terrified, I ran and hid under my bed. I still remember vividly, until today, the feeling of terror, and how, from my hiding place, I could see the feet of these intruders moving through the apartment as they wreaked havoc.

Eventually, the police arrived and removed the rioters from the home.

Some of the Haredi protestors were arrested by the police, of which a few were brought to court, and even a smaller number was actually punished, but with very minor legal consequences.

Despite this and other demonstrations and a lot of noise and politicking, my father continued to direct the hospital, eventually overseeing its relocation from the old building on Jaffa Road to the new and modern campus near Mount Herzl. With time, even the Haredi rabbis became his friends, once they recognized him as a learned man (talmid chacham) who bridged Jewish tradition and modern science.

I was reminded of this episode due to the Haredi demonstrators who broke into the private home of the commander of the IDF Military Police. I was constantly thinking of his children, hoping that they had been spared the trauma that I had experienced.

Unfortunately, despite the many years since my experience, it seems that some things do not change. Extremists continue to believe they can dictate the agendas of our society. This is so, particularly nowadays, since the war that started on that horrible day of Oct. 7th, 2023. Since then, the leaders of Haredi Judaism in Israel, in their actions, have caused their communities to largely have lost all rights to be considered part of כלל ישראל (Klal Yisrael = all of Israel), as they as leaders, and most of their followers, failed to mobilize in massive numbers to support the taxing war effort that other parts of the People of Israel have been forced into in the last two and half years.

If Haredi Jews, in Israel and abroad, wish to once again be considered part of Klal Yisrael, it is high time for them to reject the extremist parts of Haredi society, both in its leadership and in the various communities, and pitch in, and pull their weight, in facing the challenges, hardships that we, the People of Israel and Citizens of Israel face on a daily basis.

As one would say in Yiddish – genug shoyn – enough already!