Shield Your Eyes Lest You….What?

Shield Your Eyes Lest You….What? By Sherwin Pomerantz Picture this. You’re an Israeli entrepreneur (a wonderful example of startup nation) who’s worked for four months to get an appointment with a potential client in Manhattan who has the potential to double your business volume if things go well. The woman you are meeting is the CEO of one of the largest fashion design houses in New York City and you have developed a piece of software that will help her beat the competition, season after season. While it took a great deal of convincing and dozens of Skype calls and other contacts to schedule the appointment, you are feeling pretty good about the prospects. Sadly, given your family and professional responsibilities, the only choice you had was to take the red eye from Israel, landing at JFK at 5 AM with little time to rest up before the 11:30 AM appointment in the city. So, you rent a car, check into the Hilton Garden Inn at the airport, rest up a bit, shower, change clothes and off you go for the drive into the city. 35 minutes later (traffic was fairly light) you’re on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway approaching the exit to the Queens-Midtown Tunnel and there you see it. A bright red billboard with Hebrew lettering that says (translated for this blog) “Dear Jew: You are entering a dangerous place. Shield your eyes.” The last three words are repeated in English as well, just in case there are those in America (sic) who don’t read Hebrew. What to do? Do you turn around and go back to Israel so as not to be blinded by the dangers in front of you in Manhattan? Do you put a blindfold on as you exit the tunnel in New York and promptly drive into a wall or another car that you could not see because you were shielding your eyes? And if you only take the warning half-seriously and actually make it to the hard earned appointment, do you make sure not to look either left or right so as not to, God forbid, see one of the models dressed in less than modest clothing? And for sure, you don’t want to look your budding prospect in the eye, do you? What a dilemma eh? One has to wonder where the sponsors of the sign believe they are living. Do they really believe that Manhattan is such a den of iniquity that Jews are better off not going there? And what about those who have jobs there? Are they supposed to resign their positions? Are the dangers of Manhattan so great that community or private philanthropic funds can be justified to erect such a sign? Aren’t there better uses for the up to $25,000 per month that it costs to use this advertising medium? And if, indeed, it is so dangerous to one’s moral fiber to enter Manhattan, might not the better message be something like: “Jews, your place is in Israel, Come home!” Actually living in Israel we are used to this type of thinking which manifests itself in separate sections for men and women in retail stores in religious neighborhoods. Or, during the holiday season, fences which are erected on busy streets in parts of Jerusalem so that the men can walk on one side and the women on the other. Sort of enforced shielding of the eyes as it were. But warning people about the moral dangers in Manhattan? Are there less of those in Brooklyn? Or, for that matter, any large city in the US? Will the next sign we see be on the highway leading into Ben Gurion Airport warning people that America is dangerous and they should shield their eyes? Is there no end to this insanity? Perhaps Nietzsche was right when he said “In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs it is the rule.” Woe to all of us if this type of close minded thinking becomes the rule rather than the exception. (A picture of the billboard can be seen at http://truthpraiseandhelp.wordpress.com/tag/congregation-yad-moshe/) According to news articles the billboard is sponsored by Congregation Yad Moshe which seems to be associated with New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind.