More Neighborhood Nastiness

Krum has a post up regarding an issue that I have been following doggedly (to the apparent chagrin of some of my readers), my community's upcoming local school board elections. He answers some questions that were raised recently in the community as well as right here in my comments section, of whether Orthodox Jews should be advocating for a specific outcome in this election. To wit, from a comment left here in the name of one "Yaacov Gross":

Voting against the public school budget and non-Orthodox school board candidates appears to have become almost an article of faith among many in our community. Too bad. That's what happens when Jews begin to act in a manner that comports with the "power politics" standards of a secular society rather than with their Jewish values.

... In our community, the school budget and board battles have now become proxies for a much uglier clash, one that pits Orthodox Jew(euphemistically referred to as "private school parents") against everybody else. That should disturb us on many levels. As Torah Jews, we have a mission to the world, and Chazzal have been adamant in insisting "chachomim -hizaharu biDivreychem". Wise people should be cautious in how they speak. "Divrey chachomim biNachat nishmaim". The words of the wise are spoken with gentleness. We cannot hope to fulfill our mission to the world through aggressive and hostile conduct - even if we believe it to be politically expedient or "more effective". The Torah approach is one of "darchei shalom", the way of peace.

Krum disagrees with the premise, however, that the Orthodox community's action of aligning themselves as a voting bloc is the incorrect way to behave:

Second, while the rhetoric surrounding the upcoming vote may have sometimes crossed a line (and I include my community in this assessment), the notion that Orthodox Jews should refrain from advocating forcefully on behalf of their own interests because of the “what the goyim/non-orthodox might think” is outdated and wrongheaded. If we learned anything from the Holocaust it is that the “Court Jew” approach to Jewish advocacy exlemplified by people like Stephen Wise – who despite being the most influential and well-respected American Jew of his generation, was afraid to forcefully advocate the plight of European Jewry to FDR -- is ineffective and leads to disaster. Orthodox Jews have a unique set of needs – and like any other interest group -- should feel free to advocate for the interest within the bounds of constitutional, democratic and religious principles. I am not naïve enough to think that those who might speak ill of us as a result would have thought of us any differently had we sat on our hands and kept our mouths shut instead.

I agree wholeheartedly. Indeed, I have seen many examples in the past few weeks that prove Krum's last point. There is an e-mail list of "key communicators" that circulates throughout the community, between the public school administration and members of both the private and public school community who wish to be kept "in the loop", as it were. (I might add, as a parenthetical, that I was on that list for a while, under my Orthomom e-mail address. Apparently, someone did not like what I was posting, because my name was unceremoniously dropped from the list, and I no longer receive the e-mails. Being as there are both other anonymous addresses on the list, as well as members of the press, there isn't any other conclusion to draw aside from the one that they didn't like my kind of communication - i.e., public criticism of the present board and its policies.) Ostensibly, the point of the e-mail list is to foster a greater level of understanding and communication among community members, presumedly working toward the goal of providing equitably for all district children, in a way that satisfies all voters. Instead, the rhetoric that has been circulated among the list's members has become heated - and very telling. An example (in response to reasonable and perfectly justified questions raised by a member of the Orthodox community about the disparity between the numbers of students receiving special ed in the private school vs. public school populations):

How could anybody living around here be suprised at the behavior of these people. Isnt it ironic that Bruce was chastised for trying to help us challenge these people? Perhaps now you see that they are capable of anything. What I don't understand is why you think you can reason with them.

"These people"? "Capable of anything"? Um...what year is this exactly? What country am I living in? When people talk in this offensive and stereotypical manner regarding a certain group, they have nothing to blame for it but their own bigotry.