And for the Toldot Aharon Hassidim, who considers the Munchausen's-by-proxy mother as one of their own, this is doubly true.For Toldot Aharon - perhaps the most insular, well-organized and cohesive of the groups that make up the Eda Haredit - any type of intervention in its domestic affairs is tantamount to a total usurping of the community's belief system.
And when the intervention is perpetrated by representatives of the evil Zionist entity - police officers, social workers, employees of the Jerusalem Municipality - the effect is literally explosive.
That's why the hassidic sect, which was established in Jerusalem by its founder Rabbi Aharon Roth in 1928, has developed extensive social and cultural barriers to protect it from the bustling secularism of Jaffa Road and Rehov Ben-Yehuda, located less than a kilometer away.
Roth, who died in 1947, started the tradition, which continues to this day, that every male member of the sect signs a contract obligating him and his family to abide by the strict dictates of Toldot Aharon. Clothing, customs, even how the hassidim spend their spare time, is carefully regulated. Cohesion is as tight as super glue.
In contrast, the outside world - especially anything affiliated with Zionism - is described as dark and evil.For a municipal social worker and police officers to enter the home of one of the hassidim is a desecration.
But when the person arrested is a pregnant mother who is being forcibly separated from her children, nothing short of a world war is in order.
Shlomo Guzmen-Carmeli of Bar-Ilan University's Department of Sociology and Anthropology, who is an expert on the Toldot Aharon Hassidim and is the source for the information here about them, says that the current rioting is, for the hassidim, a way of defining "who we are."
"Members of Toldot Aharon do not see themselves first and foremost as individuals. Rather, they see themselves as one organic entity," said Guzmen-Carmeli."No one would ever think of involving outsiders in internal issues of the community, let alone representatives of the Zionist entity, which is perceived as an apostate body inimical to the sect's belief system."The present unrest is actually an opportunity to strengthen themselves against outside influences and it is also a warning; it's as if they are saying, 'Leave us alone.'"