How long will it take Israel’s society to recover from the shock of the recent murderous attack on the homosexual parade in Jerusalem last Thursday?
If left to Israel’s media, there isn’t much of a chance for a quick healing. A case in point is a nastily provocative question posed by radio host and investigative reporter Ilana Dayan to Adina Bar Shalom, daughter of the late Rav Ovadia Yosef.
Bar Shalom, who serves as member of the Women’s Council of the Shas party, made a Shiva call on Wednesday to the family of the late Shira Banki, who was stabbed to death by Yishai Schlissel, a serial attacker from the Hareidi community. Her visit was one of numerous, similar gestures on the part of Hareidi public figures who have been acting swiftly and forcefully to disassociate themselves from the murder.
In fact, it has been almost amusing, save for the tragic circumstances, to watch Haredi dignitaries go before the cameras to speak gingerly and even respectfully about the LGBT community. It was a first for them, and for the public in general.
Adina Bar Shalom is far from being a right-wing Jew, despite her close association with the Sephardi, Ultra-Orthodox party. She is member of the public council supporting the Geneva Initiative, which was rejected by most Israelis.
In early April 2011, she signed a petition calling on Israel to withdraw from the Golan Heights, and to establish a Palestinian states according to the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital.
She also came out publicly against the exclusion of women in the Hareidi community and attacked the “segregated bus lines” in public transportation serving Hareidi neighborhoods.
Adina Bar Shalom has far fewer friends on the right than she does on the left. And yet, on Thursday morning, Ilana Dayan decided to use her as a Hareidi straw-man in an interview on Army Radio.
Relating to Bar Shalom’s shiva call to the Banki family, Dayan noted:
Tell me, how can you live with the fact that … I’ll ask you a question that we are very careful with here, everything here being politically correct, how can you live with the fact that Yishai Schlissel looks more like you than he does me?
The evils of political correctness aside, this kind of question is anti-Semitic at its core. It is worse than guilt by association, it comes near to guilt by genetics.
Bar Shalom was dumbfounded, but, probably because she is not an aggressive person, replied: “No, I can’t live with that in peace. I don’t think so.”
“Doesn’t he look more like you than he does me?” Dayan pushed on, apparently unaware of the Aryan overtones of her assault.
“Absolutely not,” Bar Shalom insisted.
So Dayan added the guilt by attire attack:
Despite the fact that he wears a yarmulke and fringes?
Bar Shalom replied:
He broke one of the biggest prohibitions in the Ten Commandments – Thou shalt not murder – {so] how can I view him as a person from my own community?
It was a good answer, although a much better response would have been for Bar Shalom to file a complaint of anti-Semitic harassment with the nearest police station.
Ilana Dayan responded to an inquiry from Kikar HaShabbat that her “intention was obviously just regarding her belonging to the same sector, the Hareidi sector. If things were understood otherwise, of course, I’m sorry. There was no intention to generalize, just to ask and understand.”
She wants to sound as if it were a harmless inquiry, born by pure intellectual curiosity.