Editorial: Keep an eye on the zealots
Issue of Dec. 25, 2009 / 8 Tevet 5769
Once again we seem to have proven to ourselves that the frum world is immune to no problem. This one is a doozy, unfortunately — a prominent practitioner of the holier-than-thou brand of Judaism caught, more or less literally, with his pants down.
Leib Tropper is not the first of this type to be undone in quite so public and humiliating a fashion. Televangelist Jim Bakker comes to mind. Tropper is just the first from our community and, we can probably all agree that we could have done without the experience.
Additionally, this case does not just add up to one man’s personal failure. Rather, it casts doubt and aspersion on a matter that is one of the touchiest in modern Jewish life: the validity of the conversion process. Even as he publicly sought to toughen the standards under which Orthodox conversions are performed — publicly embarrassing numerous eminent rabbis and regional rabbinates in North America in the process of consolidating his own power — Tropper was privately undermining literally all that he claims to hold holy. His conversations caught on tape with a woman who is not his wife make the word hypocrite ring hollow; it is not nearly descriptive enough.
Moderation in all things is a healthy approach to life; too much of anything is bad for you, parents tell their children. In other words, the lesson here may be to beware of zealots and be wary of the self-righteous.
Speaking of zealots, few in public life in this area have recently been more zealous than the small group of public school parents who continue to claim, against all evidence and reason, that the members of the Lawrence Board of Education, most of whom happen to be of the Orthodox community, have malign intentions for the public schools they lead.
Members of that group stand up at public meetings and make statements that more than cross the line to anti-Semitism. They hurl accusations that the board has “ruined” the public schools; that decisions are motivated by money and lowered tax rates alone; that shuttered schools are being set aside for yeshivas. Lawsuits are filed in a steady stream. It appears to be never-ending.
Finally, there’s some information that ought to end it because it definitively puts the lie to their accusations. A 98-plus percent high school graduation rate. What possibly could be better for the public schools than an end result dramatically-improved on this board’s watch? Aren’t high school graduates the whole point?
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