The haredi Left's comeback
Jerusalem Post  | Jan. 22, 2005 | Pini Dunner
 

As a result of his unswerving determination to press ahead with disengagement, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon recently included the haredi United Torah Judaism party in his government, thus revealing the public face of a long-obscured ideological position and returning it to the heart of the Israeli political arena.

The ideology I am referring to is, of course, that of the left-leaning non-Zionist haredim.

In the 70s and 80s the late Rabbi Eliezer Schach of Bnei Brak, with his pro-peace, anti-settler rhetoric, was prominent in highlighting the existence of this group, but in practical terms he was happy to cooperate with successive expansionist Likud-led governments who made no secret of their adherence to the dream of a Greater Israel.

And, indeed, when it came to the 1993 Oslo Accord, Rabbi Schach refused to lend his voice in support, saying in a public letter that the real goal of the peace agreement was to give Israel's leaders the freedom to undermine Torah-true Judaism.

He added, too, that the then leaders of Israel were not capable of representing the Jewish people's interests properly because they themselves were ambivalent about traditional Judaism and its survival.

The recent decision by Rabbi Schach's designated "heir," the nonagerian Rabbi Yosef Sholom Elyashiv, to offer his support to a government that will begin the process of unraveling the Greater Israel project is an historic step and one that has only one precedent in the history of the state.

In 1948, with the declaration of independence an imminent fait accompli, the ever-practical David Ben-Gurion began negotiations with the haredi Agudat Yisrael party to obtain its tacit cooperation in the creation of the state.

This group had been a thorn in the side of Israel's founding fathers with its often bitterly expressed conscientious objection to Zionism. But it was quick to realize that for the sake of the many people it represented, noncooperation with Ben-Gurion was not a viable alternative.

To ensure and secure the uninterrupted continuity of the Torah-observant community and its institutions the party agreed, with certain conditions, to recognize the nascent state "de facto" but not "de jure" – that is, it would participate in the life of the state as long as it did not have to subscribe to the state's ideals.

This suited Ben-Gurion, who recognized that this visibly "Jewish" group would undermine the credibility of the emerging state if it publicly and collectively refused to become a part of it.

Since then, with some prominent exceptions, non-Zionist haredim have kept to themselves, allowing the religious life and direction of Israel to be determined by the religious Zionists.

This group – mainly represented by the Mizrachi party – had its origins in the 19th-century Hovevei Zion movement.

Its leaders, such as Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Hakohen Kook, argued that Zionism was part of God's plan for messianic redemption.

This was why – despite its flaws – Zionism represented the new and desired path of Judaism.

Citing biblical and talmudic sources as proofs, religious Zionism created a theology that blurred the lines between Judaism and Jewish nationalism to the extent that they have become, for them, one and the same thing.

This has now resulted in the greatest challenge faced by Israel since its creation – the linking by religious Zionist ideologues of Judaism with the dream of a Greater Israel.

Since the Six Day War, and especially since the election of the first Likud government in 1977, the religious Zionists have drifted inexorably from embracing the State of Israel toward believing that all of biblical Israel must be settled by Jews, and that any withdrawal is a sacrilegious act that denies the messianic redemptive process.

This group, originally apologists for every secular Zionist misdeed on the notion that Israel's needs superseded the needs of Judaism, has morphed into a group that no longer has the needs of Israel at heart but rather the utopian requirements of its warped religious views.

As such it is willing to promote civil unrest and even suggest military mutiny as legitimate forms of protest against the dreaded disengagement plan.

No longer the apologists, religious Zionists now find themselves on the fringes of Israel's political scene fighting to preserve their raison-d'etre before the house of cards comes tumbling down over their heads – as it inevitably will.

Ironically, though, the views of non-Zionist haredim are now congruent with the post-Zionism of Israel's majority and, as such, it is once again to them that those who care about Israel's future turn to achieve the required result.

With the pronouncement by Rabbi Elyashiv, the world's undisputed and most distinguished halachic expert, that it is halachically permitted to participate in the dismantling of Israeli hegemony over biblical Israel, the proverbial cat is out of the bag.

It is clear now for all to see that Judaism is not opposed to disengagement, withdrawal or to making peace with its sworn enemies, as long as the survival of true Judaism and the adherence to Torah remain the dominant priorities.