BARBARA'S TCHATZKAHS

by Yakov Horowitz On Sunday, Elhanan Buzaglo was sentenced to four years imprisonment for the vicious beating of a woman nine months ago in Jerusalem's Ma'alot Dafna neighborhood. Buzaglo, a member of a haredi mishmar hazniyut, a self-appointed modesty squad, pleaded guilty as part of a plea bargain struck with the State Attorney's Office. Buzaglo, who broke into the 31-year-old divorcé's apartment along with four other men, was convicted of receiving $2,000 from the mishmar hazniyut for his role in the attack, which was intended to intimidate her into leaving the predominantly haredi neighborhood. Judge Noam Solberg wrote in his decision that "the punishment must reflect the abhorrence of his acts... and deter him and others like him." Even though the Jerusalem District Court described the assailants as an "armed militia," Buzaglo, 29, was the only defendant to be convicted in this barbaric attack. According to newspaper reports last October, a ser...

A mishmeret tzniut , roughly translated as "modesty squad," is a vigilante body, usually with some form of rabbinic license, that has taken upon itself to enforce normative ultra-Orthodox behavior. The mishmeret tzniut derives its power from its ability to identify and manipulate the zealotry of the haredi majority. There are a multitude of such bodies representing different haredi sects that deal with issues from the eradication of MP-4 and DVD sales in strictly haredi neighborhoods to the fight against ultra-Orthodox pop concerts, from the creation of separate seating in the waiting room of the local post office to the strict supervision of women's clothing stores to make sure no tight-fitting or otherwise immodest apparel is being offered to haredi females. All the crusades chosen by the various modesty squads are no-brainers for the majority of the haredi populace. After all, who is not against the sale of potentially lascivious movies in one's neighborhood? And ...