Tuesday, June 29, 2010  The New Orthodox Jewish Left in Israel
Nir Hasson wrote a long article in Haaretz's Weekend Supplement
on the young orthodox (and formerly orthodox) Jews involved in
the Sheikh Jarrah protest movement. I have reproduced some of it
below.  There is a sort of "man-bites-dog" quality to the
article; after all, young modern orthodox Jews are assumed to be
ultra nationalistic racists, whether implicit or explicit, and
that assumption is mostly correct. So we are not talking about
large numbers, though the leadership role of these activists is
interesting. Readers of this blog are quite aware of the
phenomenon; I have counted kippot among the activists before.
But there is no global explanation for it. Why do some orthodox
Jews protest injustices against Palestinians? Why did some
gentiles risk their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust?
Explanations must be local. In the case of these particular
activists, many of them come from academic families; their
parents are thoughtful moderates;