People who are fanatical about kashrut should be good at obeying laws

DEBORAH STONE: This week’s events in Melbourne point to a culture of arrogance in a section of the ultra-Orthodox community that feeds carelessness towards state law

THE VICTORIAN PREMIER Dan Andrews carefully avoided the word “Jewish” during his media conference on Monday, as he lambasted the attendees at an illegal engagement party poised to become a Covid-19 super-spreader.

He was right to do so.  Citing an ethnic, religious or gender identity in any public discourse is only appropriate if it is relevant. The fact that the partygoers were all Jewish was neither a cause nor a factor of their callous and criminal behaviour.

But among ourselves, the information that the party was a L’chaim held by two visibly-observant Jewish families was a reason for anxiety, embarrassment and internecine tension.

Victoria had been plunged into a longer and stricter lockdown, at least in part because of 69 people who are culturally and religiously aligned with us and who live close to many of us. Nobody was angrier than other Jews.

The direct effect on our community was dramatic. The event spread Covid-19 into the heart of the shtetl. Two kosher bakeries and the biggest supermarkets used by the Jewish community were soon among the exposure sites. Many who bought a challah or went supermarket shopping before last Shabbat were soon in isolation, awaiting Covid-19 test results.

But the greater agony was in the implications for the Jews in the eyes of our fellow citizens. It was a Shande far di Goyim, a disgrace in front of the Gentiles, a Yiddish phrase which captures the exquisite sensitivity Jews feel about the way we are perceived by the non-Jewish community.

As the week played out, fears of antisemitism stirred up by the identification of this rogue element with other Jews proved largely unfounded.  As a case study of the health of the Jewish community’s relationship with the broader community, this week’s unfortunate events have been fundamentally reassuring.

The same cannot be said for the microcosm of the problem – the larger Jewish community’s relationship with parts of the ultra-Orthodox minority. This week exposed a small but rotten pocket within our community.

A sense of identification with the group is a core part of being Jewish. The pride we feel in our shared history and culture has a flip side in the deep shame we feel when members of our tribe behave badly. 

We are also, of course, the victims of a long and difficult history. We have been so often maligned, that we flinch before we are struck. Many Jews are prone to a reflexive form of victim-blaming in which Jewish behaviour is charged with creating or “stirring up” antisemitism.

Despite the damaging catalyst, what happened this week was mostly a positive story of a place where it is good to be Jewish.

Just after the media conference, Jewish broadcaster Rafael Epstein made the decision to bring the Jewish communal discourse into the public sphere. He named the engagement party as a Jewish event and interviewed Rabbi James Kennard about the way the rest of the community felt about it.

It was a smart move that worked because of Epstein’s frank and casual comfort with his own Jewishness as much as because of Rabbi Kennard’s carefully balanced responses. 

Jewish leaders of all shades were quick to condemn the illegal gatherings. The Jewish Community Council of Victoria sent out a call for every member of the community who lives in the City of Port Phillip or Glen Eira to get tested. It was a well-intentioned but flawed message which threatened to over-run testing with the wrong people and was soon clarified to focus on those who had been at exposure sites or had symptoms.

There was one case of antisemitism which came to public light when a hospital worker was sacked after making comments that the partygoers should be “sent to the gas chambers”. That was it. Even trawling Twitter looking for it, there were few who used the misbehaviour of this group of Jews as a reason to have a go at the community.

The hospital case put the Jewish question on the agenda for the Premier’s Tuesday media conference. We could not have asked for a better response.

“Antisemitism is unacceptable and evil, and we have a zero-tolerance approach to that in our state,” he said. “The event that we spoke about at some length yesterday was not a function of being Jewish. It was a stupid function. It was an illegal function. Those people are being dealt with. Them breaking the rules was not a reflection on the Jewish community more broadly. It was not an act of faith or culture.”

The Premier was right, of course. No minority group should be tarred with the bad behaviour of their least desirable element. There’s nothing at all Jewish about breaking lockdown law to hold a L’chaim. Indeed, the principle of dina d’malkhuta dina, the law of the land is the law, is a long held Jewish legal precept which requires that Jews are scrupulous in obeying the laws of the country in which they live.

But is there anything in the faith or culture of the individuals involved in these lockdown breaches that caused them to behave so badly?

People who are fanatical about every detail of kashrut (dietary laws) or Sabbath observance should be good at obeying laws. If they can cover up everywhere else so rigidly, they should be great at wearing masks.

But there does seem to be something in the arrogant culture of a section of the ultra-Orthodox community which feeds carelessness towards secular law. No one who lives in the Jewish areas of Melbourne can avoid noticing that those most identifiably religious are those least likely to be observing mask-wearing and social distancing.

Most Jews have experienced an attitude of superiority by those who consider their religious observance more punctilious than others. Such self-importance is unhelpful at a time when we are all required to make sacrifices for the general good.

Some ultra-Orthodox Jews live in such a closed bubble they forget their interdependence with the broader community. Some are so hung up on detail they lose sight of the broader picture.

The secret minyanim held by a few religious Jews are a case in point. They are in clear violation of the basic principle of pikuach nefesh, saving a soul, which means saving even a single life trumps any other religious obligation outright.

Covid-19 has reminded us that we are all part of a bigger communities – as Melburnians or Sydneysiders, as Australians, as citizens of a global world.

It is appropriate that we all interrogate the way in which our culture interacts with the broader Australian society that warmly and decently supports our way of life.

Properly observed, Jewish faith and culture supports us in making the sacrifices needed for health and safety, in obeying the law of the land, and in knowing we have the strength to overcome hard times.  It should be a force for good.

Photo: Mourners pay their respects to the Rabbi Yitzchok Groner after his death in Melbourne in 2008 (AAP/Joe Castro)