Blessed are the protests of the Hareidi-religious community against Israel’s Supreme Court! Especially the Court’s ruling that forces Hassidic parents in the Samarian town of Emanuel to send their daughters to a school they believe doesn’t meet their religious standards. These protests show an orneriness free people must keep up to stay free.

The Hareidi protest against the Court’s ruling is nothing less than a protest against the judicial despotism that has made a mockery of Israeli democracy. I could cite many examples of this despotism, some of which have cost the lives of Jews. But I have something else in view.

Parallel to the American Revolution

The protest of the Hareidi-religious Jews reminds me of the famous protest of the American Sons of Liberty who ignited the American Revolution of 1776! Never mind the differences. Most significant is the commendable orneriness of the Hareidi-religious Jews against the tyranny of statism, regardless of its ideological veneer. Bear in mind the power-grasping State has always been at war with the Family. This holds especially for Israel’s ultra-secular Supreme Court which has repeatedly usurped powers rightly prescribed for the Legislative and Executive branches.

As the ornery Lee Harris well explains in his book The Next American Civil War, it is precisely orneriness that made America the freest, richest, and most powerful nation on earth, now sadly in decline because of the Nanny State mentality or “Progressivism” of the Obama administration.

Orneriness keeps freedom alive

Even if you don’t cotton to Hareidi Jews, you should applaud their orneriness. That orneriness keeps freedom alive, even if a particular act of orneriness happens to be for a questionable cause. (Here I’m merely paraphrasing a line from Lee Harris about the history of American orneriness.)

I like Harris’ examples of orneriness: the frontiersmen Abe Lincoln. And if you want a Hollywood star that exemplifies an ornery critter, Harris suggests John Wayne!

Even if you’re a non-religious Jew, aren’t you tired of the lack of orneriness on the part of Israel’s ruling elites? Aren’t you sick of Israeli politicians fawning to Washington? Aren’t you revolted by Israeli political scientists that genuflect to Israel’s parliamentary system of Proportional Representation, the wretched system that multiplies single-issue parties like mushrooms and prevents the formation of any solid majority government represents the Jewish Republic?

Aren’t you sick of the spiritual stagnation of Israeli politicians who worship at the Pagan Church of Oslo? Or the timid Israeli political scientists that remained tongue-tied when Pope Francis gave his blessings to a Palestinian state? Aren’t you revolted by their “political correctness,” a euphemism for intellectual and moral cowardice?

Of course you are! You know darn well that only dead fish go with the stream. And you despise Islam’s philosophy of the ant heap, which sterile socialists have joined to retain a scrap of depleted power. This groveling is beneath the dignity of Hareidi Jews. So “three cheers” for the Hareidi-religious community! And long live orneriness!☼