1. The boycott of Angel could have ended in two minutes and three to four sentences. All that was needed was a short message in this spirit: “The Angel Company serves the public in Israel regardless of sector or political opinion. Every morning our trucks transport bread and types of pastries to thousands of containers all over the country. Millions of Israelis have been enjoying our products since 1927. This is how it was and will be. We are very sorry that the company’s name is mixed up in political controversy. Mr. Omar Bar-Lev, who assumed his position as the company’s chairman a few days ago, came to the demonstration in Bnei Brak as a private individual. Angel’s bread and pastries will continue to be at the heart of the Israeli consensus.”
In fact, a message like this would not only have stopped the boycott, it would have killed it before it even started. After all, there is no organized boycott here with an action committee that comes with a list of demands. There is no organized body behind the boycott. There is no leader for the protest.
And that’s what moved me so much about this story. Yes, moved, that’s the word. Sometimes you get into the details behind an apparently just public campaign, but then you discover that the picture is much more complex, and that political parties or those with economic interests are actually involved in the story. But here it was the most genuine and from the heart: a large and dear public that was simply tired of being incited against it.
I was asked this week: What is the strategy of the ultra-orthodox boycott of Angel? Against whom will the next fight be directed? What is the action plan? Beautiful and correct questions. But they are not relevant to this campaign, because there is no campaign here. There is cardiac arrest here. A natural and human instinct of a public – more precisely: of a multitude of individuals – who felt there was a limit to how many could be stepped on.
2. Why was Angel confiscated? There are countless companies in the economy whose heads are taking part in the protest against the government. More than that: why was Angel herself not confiscated until today? This is not the first demonstration against the government that Amer Bar-Lev has participated in in recent days. The answer is that Bar-Lev’s demonstration in front of Rabbi Gershon Edelstein’s house in Bnei Brak crossed the standard line of incitement that the ultra-orthodox public has been used to for decades. They write articles against him, draw hateful cartoons against him, make fun of him, make him ridiculous and ignorant, speak against him in the Knesset, and yes, also demonstrate against him; But the class in which Bar-Lev participated was not a demonstration, but a cynical provocation. Those who show up with inflammatory signs and a stretcher in front of Rabbi Edelstein’s house in the heart of Bnei Brak are not here to protest, they are here to make a mess. He hopes it will develop into street fights.
And what is his interest? Oh, it’s very simple. Recruiting ultra-Orthodox is interesting to Bar-Lev’s grandmother. He is also not interested in his members of the ‘Brothers in Arms’ organization, who at those exact moments staged the sickening display of coffins in baby carriages in front of the Jewish Committee. What does interest them? organization and there is a lot of money and even more a lot of sympathetic press.
And the strategy is that after the left-wing protest that changes the topic every week fades away, there is no choice but to return to the good old Haredim hatred that has always worked and will always work. Bar-Lev understands (or actually: the person who activates him understands. I didn’t get the impression that Bar-Lev himself really understands anything or makes moves) that if the discourse is about reforming the judicial system, his side may still lose the battle. But if they take it to the place of a secular-Orthodox war in the streets – they have a chance to win.
3. And the ordinary Haredi understands this. Feel how cynical and mean this time. How dirty the game is. Some of the incitement against him is only on the way to Bibi’s head. After all, if the ultra-orthodox went with Gantz, would anyone come to demonstrate in Bnei Brak? If Deri did a Bennett act and made a “reconciliation and healing” deal with Yair Lapid – would anyone write something against him? The media would embrace him just for agreeing to sit in the Bibi-only bloc. He would have received more billions than Mansour Abbas at the time. Deri next to Gantz and Lapid – Mami Leumi (which of course the High Court would approve for the position of minister). Deri next to Bibi – the reason for the silence. This is the equation.
So what is left for the ultra-Orthodox to do? Their voice is not counted, maybe at least their (little) money will be counted. That’s why it excites me. True, a mass boycott is not always a beautiful thing, I agree. But what a beautiful thing it is for the only Haredi, who stands in front of the bread cabinet in his grocery store and is simply unable to buy an angel because his century-old rabbi was harmed. Because they hurt him.
4. And every second that Angel did not post any comment only proved how justified this boycott was. In my opinion, by the way, the most serious point in the story of Omar Bar-Lev and Angel is the fact that the man was appointed to be the chairman of the company’s board of directors. What about the failed minister – whose voters themselves just kicked him out in the Labor Party primaries – and managing a huge public company?
In a statement published by Yaron Angel, the CEO and controlling owner of the company a few weeks ago, when he appointed Bar-Lev as chairman of the board, he said: “Omar is very talented, he held very important positions both in the army and after his military service and was the best minister of internal security that was in Israel”. In order to say this sentence and not understand how funny it is, you have to be deep on the left. And this, in my estimation, is the reason why CEO Yaron Angel agrees to lose a lot of money and not publish an apology, or even a clarification, which, as mentioned, would close the story in an instant. Look at how quickly and efficiently El Al CEO Dina Ben Tal Gennasia closed the captain’s account of the process ID on the day of the Holocaust. And there it was much more serious than Bar Lav. But the company published a clear condemnation message signed with the moving words: “El Al is the airline which carries the Israeli flag on the tail of its planes, and as such reflects the entire Israeli mosaic.”
Angel’s mindset is probably different. And the one who said these things explicitly is the CEO’s nephew, Yoel Spiegel, in his post this week. They eat for free and pay the pancha, dodging, dark in their opinions and mostly hypocrites!”.
Wait, what are you shocked about? He said “part of the ultra-orthodox public”. not everyone. We will continue: “The reaction of the carrion-eating public is due to fear and hysteria because the rope is getting tighter and tighter around their necks.”
Hello, Yoel, due to the amount of hatred exploding in your head, you got the terms a little confused. Let’s be clear for a moment: the ultra-Orthodox public (meaning “a part of the ultra-Orthodox public”) does not “eat carrion.” vice versa. He is very careful about eating carrion. Accurate in the facts.
“The days of free eating are over,” he concludes. “Doomsday is near and coming… the bakery will survive, I’m sure of that, but if you also oppose the boldness and brazenness of the ultra-orthodox public tomorrow (yes, not all of them are like that), take action and buy a loaf of Angel bread today – at their own risk.” End quote. Actually not the end, because originally another rude curse appeared here.
do you understand Who and what are these ultra-Orthodox, the eaters of carrion and carrion, compared to the glorious hundred-year heritage of Angel Bakery. We will never apologize to them. We won’t even clarify. Even if we lose millions.
5. Five years ago, in the winter of 2017, Amr Bar-Lev, then a member of the Knesset, published the following post: “I came last night to demonstrate alongside the residents of Ramat Hasharon (the city of my childhood), who have been struggling for several months against the religion taking place in the local public space – in the schools , the synagogues, and at events to mark the holidays and dates in their city. What is happening at the local level, in Ramat Hasharon and other cities, cannot be separated from the religiosity that is happening at the national level. Watch what I said last night at the demonstration.”
How did I get to this post this week? very simple. I remembered him. I remembered the inciting speech that Bar Lev gave at a demonstration by the extremist organization ‘Free Ramat Hasharon’ against the wonderful families of the Torah nucleus in Ramat Hasharon, where we were privileged to live and see their activities up close.
-And notice how there Barlev, in the same speech, speaks not about the ultra-orthodox who evade the army, but about the religious-nationalists who take over the army: “Religion in the State of Israel is related to nationalism, and the religion that is related to nationalism is related to a very small party in the State of Israel, which in my opinion today leads the State of Israel : The Jewish Home. Unfortunately, a large number of Likud’s Knesset members are attached to it. This is the nationalist religion.”
-All 15 protesters (and the dog) standing in front of him nod in agreement, and he continues: “And one of the saddest examples today of this religion, speaking of which next week we will mark 22 years since Rabin’s murder, is that the Ministry of Education, headed by Naftali Bennett, issued a circular to secular schools about Rabin’s murder, where it is noted that Rabin was murdered against the background of ‘political tensions in Israeli society.’ The fact that rabbis issued a persecutory verdict against Rabin, the fact that politicians came out against Rabin, the fact that the abominable murderer said that the spirit of the rabbis that those rabbis gave him… he wore a kippah, this Related to a certain sector. All these things are not mentioned. I mean, there is another attempt here to reconstruct history.”
a scandal The Ministry of Education chooses all kinds of vague formulations that obscure the fact that the rabbis are the ones who murdered Rabin (by the way, until this moment, not a single rabbi has been found who supported Yigal Amir’s idea of murdering Rabin. What’s more: Amir spoke in his investigations with great contempt for the rabbis and their opinions. He not one who asks them).
“And this is just one example,” continued Bar-Lev. “Is there religion in the IDF? The answer is yes, there is religion in the IDF. I’m not against the blessing of the Gomel. I’m not against anything like that. But as soon as a regiment deviates from its path in an orderly manner, at the expense of the tax payments we pay, and in fact requires the entire battalion to go up to the Wall and say the blessing of the Gomel , this is religion. I can say in this matter of the IDF that the current Chief of Staff is making supreme efforts to reduce the process of religionization, which has at least continued for the last 15 years in the IDF.” Do you understand where the State of Israel is deteriorating? The blessing of the Gomel at the expense of the taxpayer (By the way, I went to check who was the Chief of Staff in those years. Well, Gadi Eisenkot. He deserves credit, doesn’t he? He made “superior efforts to reduce the process of secularization”).
You should hear the tone in which Barlev speaks to the handful of protesters. He does it with the intonation of a commander who is being briefed before a decisive battle. A life or death battle. “This process continues and it does not stop, and it is increasing, but we must not rest, we must not rest, because this struggle at the national level is not at its beginning, it has already been going on for quite a few years, but it is very far from abating… At the national level, our struggle is certainly far from over From victory, and part of its success is embodied in your local struggle, yours and other citizens’, don’t give up, keep fighting!”
6. I appreciate that the boycott of Angel is not only for ultra-Orthodox. I am sure that many other people who identify with the religious group spontaneously joined the disorganized protest. Standing in the grocery store in front of the Jewish bread cabinet, they chose a bartender. Because they understand the story. They understand what the big fight is about.
Which, unfortunately, cannot be said about some commentators in religious Zionism, including even rabbis, who were shocked this week by the ultra-Orthodox use of the boycott, and even more so in the midst of the Sifora days! (In which we mourn the 24,000 students of Rabbi Akiva who, as we know, died in the plague because they did not respect the products of companies whose presidents incite against them). How long will you focus on style and ignore the big story, the overall campaign? You really don’t understand what the fight is about here? After all, today it’s a campaign against these ultra-Orthodox who don’t enlist, and tomorrow they’ll go after the heads of the knitters. In fact, most of the time they will go on the head of the knitted ones, because they are a much bigger threat.
Why? Because the religious Zionist public is mobilizing in a big way. Because the members of the sector want to be the connecting hyphen, to integrate, to be a part. Please note: there is “religion” and there is “nationalist religion”. And it is the greatest fear of the Hamar Bar-Lavim, veterans of the General Staff patrol, who see who now fills the ranks of the army. Okay, so Winter not before this week. They managed to postpone the end a little longer. But the minority that still controls the top of the army, the justice system and especially the media , understands where this is going. And he will fight for his control of the country, against the majority, until the last drop of ink.
7. And that is exactly why there is another boycott, very important, these days. And it, God willing, happens completely spontaneously, without any organization or even a campaign: the boycott of the media. The one that has been engineering the consciousness of millions of its consumers for years, but in the last few months has crossed all the limits. The fact that this week, after the successful elimination of the three senior members of the Islamic Jihad by the IDF, published a headline: “With the Prime Minister’s approval – women and children were killed in the attack tonight”. (from us). The one who only a few days ago organized, actually initiated and led the desecration of the Day of Remembrance for the Fallen of Israel’s systems. The one that causes young people like Yoel Spiegel, the next generation of the Angel family, to publish such texts, after years of consuming divisive and inciting media that washed over him the brain
How comforting to know that this boycott is gaining momentum day by day. Look at the ratings, sales, viewing and listening data. This is the direction. If in the case of Angel the boycott is on the products of the bakery because of one of its executives, in the story of the boycott on the media we also have a problem with the management, also with the employees, but mainly with the product itself. The bun is spoiled. Full of mold. How can you eat it?
Let’s do and learn?
This coming Thursday hundreds of thousands of members of the world gold club of the daily page will start the Gitin Mask at a good and successful time. It moves me every time to imagine the people who are now reading this column on the couch on Saturday, not knowing that they are going to be part of the story. that the good-and-successful hour is their hour.
I used to be like that too. Actually, why defame you? Unlike me, you probably open a book from time to time and study. Me – I didn’t win this one either. What to do, the Gemara with the dense and non-stop text made me black in the eyes. She reminded me of the class. Not to mention the corner of the classroom.
But enough, how much can one give up the taste of life in the name of pseudo-childhood traumas? We already have school age children and we are still stuck there?
And besides, times have changed and endings have changed. The black in the eyes went. Open one of the accessible editions – Steinzaltz, Schottenstein, Oz and Hadar – and you will see how beautiful it is. Everything is punctuated and dotted and spacious.
Ototo is the holiday of Matan Torah. Shavuot is not just cheesecakes (wow, how I suddenly feel like a barman’s cheese bar). For the price of one page per day, you can arrive at this day completely differently. Full of satisfaction, a sense of success. Not worth the effort of half an hour a day?
And that’s even before we talked about the sanity and stability that regular and mandatory study will bring into your life, and of course about the mitzvot of Talmud Torah and the special benefits you get from studying it.
so it’s a date? Thursday, one page. just one.
