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Gradually, as if bored, the haredi crowd around the barricades thinned from three deep to one, even showing a few gaps. But as the service neared the Torah reading, the level of derision rose again, and the sound of ridicule attracted the claque.

It was no longer just children, or just haredim, who led the catcalls. A young man in his early 20s -- without sidelocks or fedora, and wearing a double-breasted suit -- began shouting in English from the perimeter. "Are gorillas accepted by your conversions?" he asked. "At a homosexual wedding, who gives the ring to whom?"

Soon after that, the bottles began to fly. Every time one landed, the haredim cheered. And when the police waded into the crowd to grab assailants, the crowd cried, "Why are you taking civilians?" Some of the haredim ran deep into the throngs on the plaza, and from that safe remove hurled more bottles.

By then, two hours into the Shavuot service, half of the Conservative congregation was facing outward, chanting the liturgy while scanning the air for incoming rounds. The rest huddled tightly together, close to the Torah. Every time a bird swooped low, every time a haredim shouted a fake warning, the worshipers flinched as one. Some of them, trembling, headed for the gate. One young man, speaking flawless English, shouted as they passed, "Go back to Germany. Let the Nazis finish the job."

"Sinat hinam," muttered a man in the Conservative group. The words mean "groundless hatred," and they could not have been more appropriate. Although the Roman army destroyed the Second Temple in 70 A.D., Jewish tradition teaches that the calamity was brought on by sinat hanim -- the virtual civil war that pit the original Zealots against the moderate priestly class even as both were supposed to be resisting the Titus' legions. Instead, the Roman conquest began the Jewish Diaspora and the Western Wall did not return to Jewish control until Israeli troops captured the Old City from Jordan in the 1967 war.

Through all the morning skirmish, it must be said, the overwhelming majority of the ultra-Orthodox worshipers on the plaza were in no way disturbing the Conservative service. Thousands had walked past the barricaded area while arriving and given the mixed congregation no more than a cursory glance. Yet virtually none of them -- these rabbis and teachers who guide so many aspects of their students' lives -- bothered to intercede in the abuse, to defuse the incipient violence. A single wizened rabbi did walk with police escort along the barricades, pleading with the young men to halt, even disarming one of a soda bottle. And a few yeshiva girls began arguing with the boys, saying, "You're worse than they are." Ignored, several of the girls left in tears.

By the time the Conservative service was moving into its final section, a policeman approached one of the worshipers.

"How much time is left?" he asked in Hebrew.

"Thirty minutes."

"See if the rabbi can hurry it up."

Based on past experience, the rabbi had been hurrying already, omitting the usual repetition of the Amidah section and pushing briskly through the rest of the service. Then the congregation sang "Hatikvah," the Israeli national anthem. Two years ago, the haredim had booed it. This time, pushed back from the barricades by the police, they didn't respond.

The rabbi put the Torah in an Eddie Bauer duffel bag and shouldered it for the mile-long walk back to the main Conservative synagogue. The rest of the worshipers filed out, guarded by a corridor of police. As one of the Conservative worshipers, a teenager on a study trip from Maryland, passed through the gate, he encountered a haredi boy roughly his age, whom he recognized from the other side of the barricades.

"Hag sameach," the haredi said. Happy holiday.
salon.com | May 21, 1999

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