“I’m sorry for the racism but the flat is just for religious people”

Mya Guarnieri Jaradat By Mya Guarnieri Jaradat October 26, 2011 | Edit

A landlord’s request for religious tenants only points at dangerous impulses within Israeli society

Screen shot of real estate ad requesting religious tenants (yad2.co.il)
Screen shot of real estate ad requesting religious tenants (yad2.co.il)

I’ve got a new gig in Jerusalem, so I’ve been busy apartment hunting lately. Here’s one of the odder listings I’ve seen on the website yad2:

I’m sorry for the racism but the flat is just for religious people.

This statement points to several currents running through Israeli society. The first is obvious—the landlord doesn’t want Palestinian renters. The second relates to the carving up of Jewish Israeli identity. It’s not just that the apartment is off-limits to Arabs; it’s also off-limits to another “race”: secular Jews.

Both impulses are dangerous and, as the recent events in Anatot shows, violence is not limited to confrontations between Jews and Palestinians, nor is it limited to clashes between protesters and the army. Secular Jews, in general, and leftists, in particular, are increasingly being “othered” by some members of the religious community, and this is creating an even more volatile situation.

But this goes in both directions. I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard secular Jews blame religious Jews for all of the country’s ills. It seems, to me, the easy way out—a way of shrugging off responsibility for the state of the state. “Their settlements are ruining this place,” secular Jewish Israelis sometimes say, ignoring the fact that not all settlers are religious and not all religious are settlers. This statement also overlooks the crucial role Israeli society plays, as a whole, in supporting the settlement enterprise—militarily, financially, and politically.

Racism is nothing new in Israel. Nor is the divide between the secular and the religious. What is new is the open, self-aware, and unapologetic nature of the statement. This guy might offer a thin, disingenuous apology, but he doesn’t bother making excuses. It’s frightening and dangerous, but there is a silver lining here—such moments offer Jewish Israelis the opportunity to self-reflect and understand the society they have become (or, as some would argue, the society they have always been). It also offers the international community a chance to see what coddling the state of Israel for more than 60 years and allowing the Zionists to operate with near impunity for over a century means for those deemed “others.”

Mya Guarnieri Jaradat

Mya Guarnieri Jaradat is a writer and independent journalist based in South Florida after almost a decade in Israel/Palestine. Her book, The Unchosen: The Lives of Israel's New Others (Pluto Press) was shortlisted for the Jewish Quarterly Wingate Prize. Her reportage and commentary has been published in The Nation, The NY Times, Haaretz, Le Monde Diplomatique, Al Jazeera English, The Guardian and many other outlets. Her essays and fiction have appeared in Slate, Guernica, the Jewish Quarterly, Narrative, and The Kenyon Review. She is currently working on a memoir.

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