"Israel has become the direct cause for the suffering of masses of Jews..."

"The Calamity of Independence"

The quotes and caricature presented on this page are just samples of feature articles and editorials published in the mainstream ultra-Orthodox media this week.

05/05/2017 02:05

Tags: Yom Ha'Atzmaut ·  Israel Independence Day ·  Yated Neeman ·  Moshe Gafni ·  Degel HaTorah

"Not only has the State of Israel not solved the problem of anti-Semitism, but it has become the direct cause for the suffering of masses of Jews scattered in Jewish communities across the globe."

Not surprisingly, the ultra-Orthodox media this week generally disregarded both Israeli Memorial Day and Independence Day. In breach of the law that mandates Independence Day as a national holiday, during which schools are closed, many ultra-Orthodox schools that receive State funding nevertheless carried on as usual.

The quotes and caricature presented on this page are just samples of feature articles and editorials published in the mainstream ultra-Orthodox media this week. They relate to Israel's independence, as we celebrated Israel's 69th Independence Day this week. The 'Yated Ne'eman' newspaper, for instance, is the organ of Degel HaTorah, MK Rabbi Moshe Gafni's political party, which is a key component of the United Torah Judaism faction in the Knesset and a key partner in the Government Coalition. Gafni himself is the all-powerful Chair of the Knesset Finance Committee, dictating his will to his Coalition partners who bow to his demands, as we have had recent occasion to point to financial spoils he extracted and his successful demand for legislation to undo the Supreme Court ruling regarding the use of state funded and managed ritual baths by non-Orthodox converts.

This week, Gafni is on record demanding legislation that would undo another Supreme Court ruling - the one upholding Tel Aviv municipality ordinance on Shabbat. We've often pointed to the tension and contradiction between the ultra-Orthodox parties' outlook, and the values of the State of Israel as a "Jewish and democratic" state, as well as the will of the majority of its population. As we marked Independence Day, we had another opportunity to view the vast chasm, unknown to most of our Diaspora readership and many in Israel who are not fully aware of it, for the politicians representing the ultra-Orthodox parties cleverly polish its jagged edges; and Jewish Diaspora leadership is reluctant to discuss and/or expose this if it can be avoided.

The disparity between the pride Israel's Government Coalition takes in its Zionist backbone and its absolute dependence upon the anti-Zionist, ultra-Orthodox parties is glaring. Hiddush has often pointed to the tension and contradiction between the ultra-Orthodox parties' outlook, and the values of the State of Israel as a "Jewish and democratic" state, as well as the will of the majority of its population.

It's notable that in regards to the Arab-Israeli conflict, the Israeli Government insists strongly that we pay attention to what the Arabs say and write among themselves, rather than what they utter for public consumption. Hiddush believes that this very same yard stick should be applied to the ultra-Orthodox political parties in order to truly understand the ugly challenge Israel is facing from within.

 

Rabbi Yehezkel Sarna (d. 1969) was the head of the prestigious Hevron Yeshiva, and a member of Agudat Yisrael's Council of Torah Sages. An exposition of his was the key article in the issue of ‘Yated Ne'eman’ on the Eve of the Day of Independence this week. The following are his words:

"Anyone who violates the foundations of the Torah loses his right to be crowned as a leader of Israel (even as he still is considered a Jew, so as to be punished for his violations, even the most minor ones), and he is regarded as a gentile. The bread that he makes is gentile bread, and the wine he produces is pagan wine, and this is the case for public Shabbat violations. But even violating Shabbat discreetly is among the most severe offenses, yet even those who struggle for the sake of Shabbat don't dare demand that in our sacred land, Shabbat would not be violated at all, as they ought to do. And this not only because of their own sin, but because of the public danger it poses. As we read in the Bible regarding the one who gathered brush in the desert, and violated one prohibition on one Shabbat, among a generation of 600,000, and millions all together; he delayed the redemption, as stated by the sages... and if the one who desecrated Shabbat discreetly is viewed as not only harming his own soul but undermining the Jewish people and depriving them of great good, all the more so, the public should prevent even an individual from desecrating the Shabbat."

 

We must bear Rabbi Sarna’s admonition in mind, as we now face Rabbi Gafni and his fellow ultra-Orthodox leaders' demand that not only will convenience stores operating on Shabbat be eliminated in the future, but that this be applied retroactively to repeal the Supreme Court ruling that legitimized a limited number of stores to operate in Tel Aviv.

Rabbi Sarna continues:

"Our courts [i.e. the courts of the State of Israel] are worse than gentile courts because gentiles in their courts are doing a good thing and fulfill the mitzvah of setting up a judicial system, which the Noahides were commanded to do, and it is only if a Jew turns to them for remedy ‘he is evil and it is as if he is cursed and reviled and has revolted against the Torah of Moses’ (Maimonides), but when we legislate gentile laws, it's the legislators that are revolting against the Torah of Moses, and they are the ones who place the Torah as despised and in mourning, and they uproot themselves by doing so from the rock of Torah, and plant themselves among the saplings of the gentiles and their laws. And this calamity that happened to the Nation of Israel is the ‘Calamity of Independence’ because it is only independence that gave the strength to these foes to have such ‘success’.”

 

The editorial accompanying Rabbi Sarna’s exposition on the 2nd of May ends with:

"Particularly on the days that the air fills up with ‘national’ slogans, it is important for us to repeatedly remind ourselves that for us what is important is the continuation of the existence of the Jewish People, according to the path of the sacred Torah, until the coming of the Messiah and the end of the exile - and no hollow ‘independence’ that relies on vain declarations and a feeling of ‘our might and strength of our hands’ that today everyone sees how worthless it (independence) is."

 

Another article on the 2nd of May alludes to Diaspora Jewry and the Law of Return:

"The Zionist ideologues, aspiring to assimilate the Jewish People so as to remove any distinction between them and the 'nations of the world'... enthusiastically support the bringing of hundreds of thousands of gentiles into the country so that they undertake the Zionist religion of army service and the waving of the flag of the State, so long as they are not Palestinians or dark skinned. They also support the local judicial system, which asserts that any gentile from around the world can wave a fictitious ‘conversion’ certificate, signed by one who calls himself a rabbi, and will automatically become a citizen of the state if he only wishes that."

 

Yated Ne'eman Editor Yisrael Freedman wrote:

"Israel, in its secular version, has not found a solution to the Jewish problem, but only enhanced the smell of blood in the nostrils of the gentile wolves."

"Not only has the State of Israel not solved the problem of anti-Semitism, but it has become the direct cause for the suffering of masses of Jews scattered in Jewish communities across the globe."

 

In justifying the reprinting of Rabbi Sarna's exposition, written decades ago, he maintains that these were prophetic words, which cry out with regard to today's reality:

"When did we have true independence? When our kings sat on God's throne. Because the people and the king followed God's ways, and the nations of the Earth saw God's name upon the Israelites, and they feared them, as it is written: 'And the Land was Quiet' (Judges 3:11). In the days that the kings deviated from God's path, and misled the people, and God's shade was removed from them, and they sought 'the staff of a bruised reed' (Isa. 36:6) from among the nations around them, and the land did not quiet down, but was full of inner strife and wars from foes outside."

"This isn't just about the irking Shabbat controversy - Shabbat is just the current controversy on the public agenda. These are but recent x-rays of the inflammation that is spreading through the body of Israel... the loyal Judaism, as a representative of 'the Jewish People' has no part in the 'non-Independence' of the Israeli People."