Black Hats en masse swarm Jerusalem

Here's an advert for a cable channel which shows how the secular Tel Aviv bubble-bubbas view their ultra-Orthodox brethren. The integration of schools seems to be a tough issue for the insular black hat sects and leads to insoluble problems in some school districts inside Jerusalem.

Update from AP:

...one of the largest protests in Jerusalem's history [was] a stark reminder of the ultra-Orthodox minority's refusal to accept the authority of the state.

Also, the throngs of devout Jews showed to which extent the ultra-Orthodox live by their own rules, some of them archaic, while wielding disproportionate power in the modern state of Israel.

Parents of European, or Ashkenazi, descent at a girls' school in the West Bank settlement of Emanuel don't want their daughters to study with schoolgirls of Mideast and North African descent, known as Sephardim.

The Ashkenazi parents insist they aren't racist, but want to keep the classrooms segregated, as they have been for years, arguing that the families of the Sephardi girls aren't religious enough.

Israel's Supreme Court rejected that argument, and ruled that the 43 sets of parents who have defied the integration efforts by keeping their daughters from school were to be jailed on Thursday for two weeks.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said about 100,000 people converged in downtown Jerusalem in support of the Ashkenazi parents. An additional 20,000 demonstrated in the central city of Bnei Brak. He said 10,000 police were deployed.

Most of the demonstrators were men wearing the long beards and heavy black clothing typical among ultra-Orthodox Jews. "The Supreme Court is fascist," said one poster.

Esther Bark, 50, who has seven daughters, said the issue is keeping the girls away from the temptations of the modern world. "To suddenly put them in an open-minded place is not good for them," she said.

The enormous ultra-Orthodox rally today inside Jerusalem was prefaced with this 'warden message' from the US Embassy:

A large demonstration is likely to take place this afternoon,June 17th, in the City Center and Me'a She'arim areas of Jerusalem between 2:00pm and 5:00pm. Estimates of up to 100,000 people are expected to march from Yirmiyahu, Bar Eilan, and Shvtei Yisrael and Prophet Streets toward the Israeli National Police station at the
"Russian compound" where the demonstration will take place.the city entrance.

Frum Europe with love... E. Fink (of nostalgia, black hats and frugal kugel)

Does the black hat have any holiness attached to it? Is there any meaning behind the black hat? No and no.

The fedora was standard issue for Europeans and Americans, Jews and non-Jews up until about 50 years ago. It was a style of dress that was appropriate for its time. Why do we cling to it today?

We cling to it like we cling to kugel. The black hat evokes the shtetl. There is a nostalgia associated with the black hat. It is a social phenomena.

So what's wrong with that? Nothing if that is where it ended. But the black hat has come to mean more than that. It has become like the handshake of the Freemasons. It is an entry into the exclusive club of orthodox Judaism. Shouldn't the entry into the club have more meaning than kugel? Wouldn't we be better off if entry was shmiras hamitzvos?

There are other problems. There is the idea that Jews are like Amish folks. We don't move on, we don't welcome change or adapt in outsider's eyes. Worse, we have started to think that we don't embrace change or adapt. See the latest bans on internet or the fear of joining the work force or pursuing advanced degrees. Orthodox Jews are becoming an anachronism and the black hat is the banner of stagnant thinking.

How about this one? Sephardim now wear black hats. To me that is blatant discrimanation. Sephardim wore turbans as their non-Jewish mediterranean neighbors did. Why should their anachronsitic head gear not be accepted and they have to adopt European anachronistic head gear. It just seems narrow-minded and bigoted.

Fast forward 100 years. Orthodox Jewish men will look as silly in their black hats as many of THOSE HAT WEARERS describe chassidic men. Those crazies wear hats from 200 years ago. We are only wearing 60 year old hats! /sarcasm/ Do you see how silly this is?

On a slighty more humorous note, hats are also associated with the Mob 'look'. Is it a coincidence that so many Orthodox Jews have been in the news (and the prisons) for their Mobster like behavior?

Then there is the halacha. The Mishna Brura paskens that when praying, a man must wear a hat. Does this give the hat holy status? Does this mean the hat is a requirement for effective prayer? Or perhaps it would have been just blasphemous to show up to shul with no hat as it would have been for Woodrow Wilson to leave the White House with no hat on his head?

Think about it this way: Would you go to an important job interview wearing a black hat? Is a black hat a normal way of "dressing up" in our society? Of course not? So why should we go to shul or for those that wear their hats at the supermarkets, go to the supermarket in a black hat?

Just because some social phenomena was a certain way in Europe 200 years ago does not make it Jewish or more Holy.

As it stands now, the black hat is the symbol of the yeshivish Jew. If you don't wear one you are saying "I am not one of you". That is a pretty drastic statement that one implies by not wearing a hat. So if you mind being labeled that way you probably should still wear that hat.

Personally, I don't mind all that much. I can still be frum without my hat and I don't feel like a gangster when I go out of the house.

(Black) Hat tip to Rabbi Eliyahu Fink of the Venice Beach shul for his musings.
Now WHETHER this coMmon sense attitude would go down in fedorable Jerusalem remains to be seen.