Does calling someone a 'pig' sound different in Yiddish?

When you read that haredi politicians call Reform Jews “pigs,” that’s not exactly right. There is such a thing as “Haredi-speak.” You must be brought up knowing Talmud and Midrash, or in a traditional Yiddish-speaking home, to really understand what is being said.

In Yiddish there are a number of sarcastic terms for “hypocrite.” 

The most used is based on the Midrash. Translated into English, it is a bit obtuse: “he sticks out his pig’s foot.” The original Midrash explains that the pig “crouches and shows his cloven (split) hoof, and says, ‘See I am pure.’” “Pure” in the sense of kosher.

The biblical requirement for animals to be kosher is that they have both a cloven hoof and chew their cud. The pig wishes to appear pure, so he presents the cloven hoof, knowing that it does not chew its cud.

I cannot vouch for what was in the heart of MK Rabbi Meir Porush of the United Torah Judaism Party. But chances are he did not mean to say that the Reform were pigs. He meant, I think, Reform Judaism is dangerous because Reform Jews “show” some Jewish practices but do not observe “all” of them. That means that they might (Heaven forfend) mislead some people into thinking they were kosher. But they really aren’t.

To call someone a “pig” in Yiddish depends on the tone. For example, “Don’t be a khazer (pig)” means, don’t take more than your share. This can apply to a meal or to business or to human relations. It is said as a rebuke, or even as a joke. But to speak of a person as “a khazer” in a derogatory tone, a tone of disgust, that really does mean he is a pig in every bad sense.

Lest the reader think I am focused narrowly on haredim, I assure you I am even-handed. I believe that our Declaration of Independence, penned by David Ben-Gurion in May 1948 is a basic principle of Israeli law. I am not a lawyer and I doubt whether this is legally binding. But it is morally and ethically binding. And it says in clear and simple Hebrew: 

“The State of Israel….will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture…”

In simple English the new state guaranteed – repeat guaranteed – “freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture” to all its inhabitants.

In simple English, Arab Muslim, Arab Christian, Druze and – gasp, Jews! – are to practice their religion or culture in freedom. 

But Jews have been constantly marked out for discrimination. Only Orthodox Judaism, ranging from ultra-Orthodox to religious-Zionist, is recognized, and it is mainly the ultra-Orthodox who control the religious courts and rabbinical budgets. Only recently some decent modern Orthodox rabbis challenged the utra-Orthodox financial, immoral if not outright corrupt, stranglehold on kashrut. As I write, Religious Affairs Minister Matan Kahana has announced that his ministry together with the Finance Ministry are planning to open kashrut supervision to competing “private” groups.

In the ultra-Orthodox world, any innovation in religious practice is forbidden. To almost all shades of Orthodoxy, Conservative and Reform synagogues and members are taboo.

Now the right-wing religious-Zionist grouping is behaving in an unconscionable manner. A space for pluralistic (read Reform, Conservative, Reconstructionist) prayer was allocated by the previous government south of the actual Western Wall prayer area three years ago. Then, of course, this was never quite implemented or protected due to pressure on then-prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu by the anti-innovators. 

Now, students from the Old City’s Ateret Yerushalayim Yeshiva, followed by those from Yeshivat Hakotel, routinely crash non-Orthodox prayer sessions at the site. They impose Orthodox prayers on the non-Orthodox and set up portable gender-separation partitions to prevent pluralistic practices. They are led and egged on by Rabbi Shlomo Aviner. 

In a separate incident, ultra-Orthodox and religious-Zionist men grabbed a Torah scroll out of the hands of Women of the Wall members attempting to hold the beginning of the rosh hodesh prayer in the female section of the Kotel. 

They also tore prayer books from the hands of these worshipers, and ripped their pages. If this is reminiscent of other times and places, then indeed you, the reader, do recall medieval and modern Jewish history clearly.

At this point, it would be relevant to refer to two letters, respectfully written, criticizing things I had said in a column several weeks ago. This will not be a personal polemic, but rather a matter of principle, so there is no need to refer to specific names.

One reader wrote that he was disappointed because Avi-hai “expresses alarmed concern that, ‘The atmosphere is as electric today as it was before the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin.’ Yet he proceeds to defame the widely respected Rabbi Haim Druckman as a ‘so-called spiritual leader’ and goes on to defame the religious-Zionist movement as ‘far right,’ easily embracing fascism and racism.”

I fail to see the connection between the above two sentences. There is a dangerous scent of violence encouraged by the spewing ugliness of the members of the opposition beginning at the infamous session introducing the new government when they made the Knesset into a fishmongers’ stand. 

To this must be added the Trumpeting by opposition leader Netanyahu about the “illegitimate” new government. As a result, we read reports that Likud supporters stabbed posters of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked. So we all agree that the atmosphere is electric. 

Now let us recall that Israel’s political murders and assassination were carried out by extreme members of the Right. In the case of Yigal Amir, we have good reason to believe that his action was sanctioned by rabbinical authorities. 

Therefore logically, we look for the people who lead the far Right. There are two easily identified: Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir. Smotrich’s statements speak clearly for his anti-Arab racism. 

I will not dignify them by repeating them. Ben-Gvir is a follower of Meir Kahane, who certainly was a fascist, abjured by the greatest right-wing leader, Menachem Begin, and shunned by the entire Knesset when he rose to speak. Ben-Gvir’s minions have been sent into mixed Jewish-Arab areas and towns to add fire to inter-racial tension.

The other letter writer said I used the terms “racist” and “fascist” without proof. The proof is obvious to all who have read my previous columns. In a newspaper column, unlike a legal brief,the writer does not need to repeat himself in one column after another. 

The main point of the article the two readers reference was that by courting both Smotrich-Ben-Gvir and the Islamist Ra’am party to enter a Netanyahu-led government, Netanyahu foiled his dream of returning (forever?) to Balfour Road. Smotrich, the racist, would not sit in a government coalition that included Arabs.

Now let’s go on to Rabbi Haim Druckman. Umbrage was taken at my defaming “the widely-respected Rabbi Haim Druckman as a so-called ‘spiritual leader.’”

Now a leader is a leader in the eyes of his followers. I am not a follower of the rabbi, nor have I ever been. Since he is old (though a few years younger than I) and ailing, I am now trying to swallow my anger at the rabbi. Why was I angry? I grew up in the religious (Orthodox) youth movement which was – at least in our time, in Toronto – “open” and we were taught to see the religious kibbutz movement as a model and an ideal. 

As a result, we spent our first six months in Israel in a religious kibbutz. The kibbutz movement had not yet been captured by yeshiva graduates who imposed strictures unknown before. We danced, men and women together, and perhaps only one or two women wore headkerchiefs. I left the kibbutz because the bucolic lifestyle and pace did not match my action-oriented character. In my heart I stayed loyal to the ideals of an “open” Judaism and a socially decent society.

I am convinced that under Druckman’s leadership, the Land of Israel became more important than the people of Israel. Today a great number of the young followers of Torah V’Avodah are extreme nationalists. They are not aware of its original social idealism which the movement shared with the other builders of the state. 

Since this is not about my Zionism, but the rabbi’s, I continue.

To the best of my knowledge, he has never rebuked the “Hilltop Youth” and unprovoked attacks on Arabs and on our own security forces; To the best of my knowledge, he has never condemned Jewish terrorism.

Silence means consent. This is a Talmudic principle as well as an English idiom. Furthermore, as I have written, the basic logical Euclidean proposition that “things which are equal to the same thing are equal to each other”: Ben-Gvir = Smotrich. Druckman called upon his followers to vote for them. If one is racist and one is fascist and a third calls on his followers to vote for them, what am I, in all logic, to assume?

He is more a political leader than a spiritual one. As I wrote above, he is old and ailing. So I will withdraw the term ”so-called.”

There is another point I must make. The behavior of the Netanyahu, Deri, Gafni opposition is scandalous. I was in the Prime Minister’s Office and personally participated in the peaceful handover of power from a failing David Ben-Gurion to the less charismatic Levi Eshkol.

I closely observed the transition of power from Yitzhak Rabin to Menachem Begin. They acted with nobility. There was respect and dignity then.

As for MKs Aryeh Deri and Moshe Gafni, the facts speak for themselves. I hate to remind us that Deri has served one jail term and faces a floating possible indictment. He has lost control of major budgets in the Interior Ministry. Gafni’s frenzied fury in the Knesset towards the new leaders of Israel is also that of the dispossessed. Once, Gafni held the keys of the kingdom to the benefit of his own sector first and foremost, but no longer!

Let’s be crystal clear. It was Netanyahu who first gave the kosher certificate to the Ra’am party Islamists. Now he accuses the new government of being “Palestinian” because Bennett and Lapid used his certificate to bring Ra’am into the governing coalition. I will refrain from using the haredi-speak for “hypocrisy.”

And finally, I again thank the writers for their criticism and respectful tone. I shall continue to use clear language to express my views. 

I understand haredi-speak. I shall in the face of growing subversion of democracy and of my own Jewish and Israeli values, speak straight-talk.

The writer has wide experience in both Israeli and world Jewish affairs. He held senior positions in the offices of prime ministers David Ben-Gurion and Levi Eshkol. In the Jewish Agency, he held the non-party position of World Chairman of Keren Hayesod-United Israel Appeal. He was a founding Dean of the Rothberg International School at the Hebrew University.