Original article on Ynet News
A new initiative put together by anonymous Mea Shearim residents is making the lives of youths there just a little bit harder, and stickier. Every week, just before Shabbat comes in, raspberry syrup is smeared on all public seating areas in the neighborhood.
I was wondering what would happen to all the excess syrup made of bug filled fruits, raspberries are infested with bugs, but since it was made kosher – it has a higher kedusha and therefore needs to be put to good use.
The campaign’s objective is to prevent young men and women from sitting on the benches and engaging in conversation.
Do you mean to tell me that young men and women actually sit together in broad daylight in Charedi neighborhoods that have residents known to attack women for dressing immodestly? Makes no sense to me…
The bench smearing takes place mainly in the busy section of Malchei Yisrael Street and Shabbat Square, where dozens of young men and women gather every Saturday, which has the Eda Haredit group and Geula neighborhood council outraged.
With Ner Jake gone it doesn’t seem likely, unless the more modern kids like to hang out in case there is a good riot taking place.
“These are defensive moves taken by extremist residents of the neighborhood, who don’t look favorably upon anything that takes place here,” said Itzik, a resident of the neighborhood. According to him, the new status quo prevents residents fro sitting outside on Shabbat. Nor do they have any way of wiping the raspberry syrup from the benches.
So I guess burning down your neighborhood because of a parking lot opening on shabbos wasn’t extremist??? What about those Gay Parade riots? Seemed pretty extremist to me…
“Furthermore, they operate inspectors on workdays who goad people to do their shopping quickly and prevent groups of young people from loitering in the streets,” he added.
Those who choose to compromise and sit on the steps instead of the benches also know no rest. In recent weeks, the syrup brigades have made sure to pour syrup on the steps leading up to Mercantile Discount Bank in Shabbat Square. Young people who chose to sit on the steps were met with an unpleasant and sticky surprise.
What about the Bleach Brigades? You know, the people that throw bleach on unsuspecting seminary girls for wearing red, denim skirts or logo sweatshirts? My rebetzins bais yaakov daughter was bleached for wearing an American Eagle sweatshirt!!!
It appears that some people are trying to either make a joke of how frum these people are trying to be, or they are crazy zealots? Are residents pissed off at how extreme things are and trying to beat them at their own game?
Even I am not crazy enough to think of this…although there are some potential problems.
As I mentioned before raspberries have bugs in them, what if the youths decide to eat the stuff and it doesn’t have the proper hechsher?
Have they not thought about how hot the color red is?
Can you imagine if these loitering youths started licking raspberry syrup off of each other or made suggestive faces with fingers and raspberry syrup?
What about the fact many of these people may bring changes of clothing and change publicly?
Have they thought of the danger to regular old upstanding citizens?
Stop playing catch up. Get ahead today with ego.com
im in israel for the past few months and in the meah shearim neighborhood and i’ve never seen this
Well its on the number one Israeli news site and making its rouns amongst the major news sites – apparently its a new initiative
It’s for sure baloney.
sounds like baloney to me too (mmmmm baloney)
What these bearded idiots always fail to realize is that when the activity goes on under their long nose, they can supervise and observe.
But when you force the youths out, you push them into the Russian Compound/Ben Yehuda area away from prying eyes.
Oy
I guess I was duped by Ynet and Vos Iz Neias – it sounds crazy but I would believe it
i live a block away and they deff. wasnt done recently either its all bullshit
Naaahhh this is realy crazy!! How can they be sooo judgemental? They do the same thing after all!!! Crazy I can’t even belive this!
I agree that it’s crazy. But to be fair, here’s another side to the story, posted in the comments on the ynet site. I have no idea as to its accuracy:
When these ‘loitering youths’ (the so-called “shababnikim”) attack Arab taxi drivers as they did last week, the media blames the “Edah Haredit” for it.
When these loitering youths burn garbage cans, burn stores, terrorize citizens, throw rocks at buses, the media blames the “Edah Haredit” for it.
And when the “Edah Haredit” undertakes serious steps to fight against these young criminals, who terrorize Jerusalem’s Haredi neighborhoods, all you write is another very negative piece about the “Edah Haredit”!
You people, who write all of these negative talkbacks, you have NO IDEA of what you are writing about.
#2 – this is not about normal kids, this is about criminal 15 to 20-year olds who terrorize our neighborhoods.
#3 – these are not the people being targeted.
#5 – how often have you been there yourself?
#7 – if you don’t have anything serious, constructive to say, then rather say nothing at all.
These ‘youths’ are not normal people. They are little criminals who terrorize our neighborhoods. I have seen them beating up innocent small children, spitting on women with babies, throwing rocks on buses, lighting fires on Shabbat, shouting very loudly in the middle of the night on Shabbat, throwing garbage cans on the road and then lighting them on fire, pushing old men, and I myself have almost been robbed by them.
The police are completely uninterested. You never see police just patrolling Geula, they only come when there are ‘riots’. Nobody cares about the behavior of these youths.
After five such youths told me to give them my mobile phone, wallet and MP3 player while threatening me with a knife, and I ran, and called the police, the police told me that there was no unit available that could respond, because it wasn’t an urgent matter, and I should just come to the station the next day to file a report.
You people, who criticize these actions and these ‘inspectors’ organized by the neighborhood Vaad and the Edah, you have NO IDEA of what you are talking about.
I’d like you, NYC Girl, to talk a walk around there and be attacked by these wild beasts. Let’s see whether you’ll still be shouting, when the Edah ‘inspectors’ save you from these criminals’ hands.
And Bartley Kulp, come take a look, I’d like to know what you have to say after you see these ‘inspectors’ send out (if necessary with a little physical assistance) these criminal youths after they spit on a pregnant women with little children in a stroller.
And Eli, I’d love to see what you think after these ‘kids’ rob you of your wallet, mobile phone and any other valuable possesions.
No way thats real…. the bleaching too that can’t be true, bleach could indanger somone cause them too go blind if thrown in their eyes.. if it was true it would be a shame and i believe that is assur any way, property damage is assur
They don’t sell fruit based products in chareidi stores, its too healthy and not brown
It can’t be true…..Chareidim would never do something that could endanger (spelled with an “E”) others….In RBS, there is NO WAY the Chareidim blocked the road into RBS-B on Shabbat with boulders so vehicles (ambulances, police, fire, etc) can’t get in. And, when people remove them, they are stoned…HELL NO!!! Chareidim can’t hurt other people…..NO WAY….I dont believe it for one second…!!!
This is completely believable, and in line with everything else the Charedi public does. However, I think that the sticky youth owe the Haredi psychos a big thank you. Think about how much fun it will be to clean that sticky and sweet mess off of each other’s legs and lower region. Yumm!!! And those Charedim thought food sex could only involve kugel and chulent…
I lived there for four years and I gotta say, this story is definitely believable. I have witnessed and been involved in quite a few incidents of the sort with crazed charedi zealots there.
With regards to the other side of the story from a comment on the story on ynet, I can assure you that these “loitering youths” stories are very much exaggerated. Most of the shabbabnikim around there are harmless, and if once in a while they do light a garbage can on fire, it’s because they’re poking fun at the charedim that do that in their own neighboorhood.
Even if this is an attempt to make the neighborhood safer (though it seems more in line with the tznius police than the nieghborhood watch) its vigililantism. If the police don’t respond in the neighborhood, that’s a seperate problem. What duly appointed body gave these people the right to vandalize public property? Whats their training? Who are they accountable to?
Vigilantes are only cool in comic books. In real life it leads to anarchy.
Charles Bronson was a pretty cool and good vigilante
Zol Zein g’Benched!