Today I sat next to a haredi (ultra-Orthodox) man.
The number 66 bus bumped endlessly down Jerusalem’s broken roads. The day’s news was consumed by the riot in Bnei Brak. My legs rested on the empty seat across from me as I drafted an article on the disturbance for the next day.
The bus pulled to a stop beneath Jerusalem’s Chords Bridge, and a middle-aged haredi man approached my seat. The bus was largely empty, but our eyes met in that silent exchange exclusive to buses and trains, signaling that one may sit next to another. Having shared that brief contact, he hiked up his long jacket and sat in the seat beside mine.
Returning to my work, I navigated through the details of the riot: the female soldiers chased through the streets, the patrol car flipped, and the motorcycle burned – with a prayer book and phylacteries (tefillin) consumed in the flames.
Like many religious Israelis, there is not a small part of my mind devoted to haredim, where feelings of admiration for their piety mix freely with a healthy helping of resentment. Resentment is the closest description for the complicated emotion.
It’s a blend of frustration at their lack of participation in the state, anger at their monetary dependence, and a sense of rejection at their seeming condescension toward the religious community that I am a part of.
The complex cocktail of emotions flooded my mind as the bus waded through late-evening traffic. Still, no words were exchanged. I continued working while he stroked his beard, a look of profound concern about some issue I knew nothing about in his eyes.
The riot was, to me, what it was to most Israelis: confirmation. Confirmation that this community didn’t care, confirmation that they were radicalized beyond rescue, and confirmation that of all the enemies Israel faces, they were perhaps the most intractable.
Watching the videos, I wanted to rage, to cry, to ask why they sat in their ivory towers speaking of profound spiritual contributions while my friends and family sacrificed their lives for their protection. The profound joy buried in all the sorrow of the past few years – that feeling of unity and common purpose that sustained the nation – they seemingly disregarded it, having never tried to understand its worth.
Confronting assumptions, finding humanity
But despite my whirlwind of emotions, the man sat unfazed, and I sat beside him. No contact other than the light pressure of his thigh against mine.
The anger and outrage began to fade. I had done what many had done: I had dehumanized him, treated him as interchangeable as his clothes suggested. I didn’t know his name. I didn’t know his opinion. I didn’t know if he would shout “death before draft” or if he believed that “dropouts”– those youths who do not learn – should be drafted.
But looking at him, the distance between my emotions and the group to which I had applied them seemed vast. Not because it was infeasible – I could easily slot him into my worst imaginings of his community – but because reality resists conformity to our expectations.
None of my opinions changed. My strong support for the draft, my concern over the fiscal future of the State of Israel, and even my sadness and disappointment at their separatism – all remained.
But sitting beside him, I did not want to hate this man – even if my tax dollars were sponsoring his learning, even if he might think me irreligious for my lack of a black hat, even if he rejected my state as evil. I knew that hating him would do nothing but hurt us both. In that moment, we were simply two people sitting on the 66 bus, stuck in Jerusalem traffic.
I knew that if I spoke to him, I might discover things I found objectionable. I knew I didn’t have the deep textual understanding to refute his theological foundations, and even if I did, I knew he was himself – and nothing I could say would change that.
So I did the democratic thing. I lived with it.
The bus pulled to my stop, and I stood up; he shifted slightly to let me pass. We shared one last look as I stepped off to rejoin my world, and he remained seated, never having left his.
The writer is an English editor for Amit Segal, focusing primarily on issues relating to Israel and the Jewish people.