Venezuela Raid Celebrated in Middle East
Another week has gone by, and so many things have happened that I can’t possibly hope to cover all the news in this column. Every week, I have to choose what to report to you, and I find it very difficult to pick developments to omit. This time, the biggest news actually came from America. Of course, I am referring to the capture of the dictator Nicolas Maduro and his wife in an American raid on their mansion in Venezuela. After their arrest, Maduro and his wife were flown from Venezuela to New York.
Make no mistake: I am not expanding the focus of my column to American news. I will not be writing about things such as the latest moves of Zohran Mamdani or even happier news, such as the acquisition of a school in Jackson by Beth Medrash Govoha. Why, then, am I writing about the Venezuelan president? The answer is that Maduro’s story isn’t solely American news; it has ramifications for Israel as well. The daring operation that led to his capture certainly demonstrates America’s military capabilities and those of the Delta Force in particular. (Capturing a dictator alive and transporting him from Venezuela to America is even more difficult than killing predatory beasts such as Yahya Sinwar or Hassan Nasrallah on their home turf, as complicated and challenging as those operations may have been.) Moreover, Maduro’s fate should serve as a warning to other dictators who are still trying to sow destruction, such as the rulers of Iran, Turkey, and even Russia. Israelis are celebrating the American operation partly because of its ramifications for the entire Middle East.
Meanwhile, the religious community in Israel is still grappling with its usual woes. The judges of the Supreme Court continue raining blows on the government, with the chareidi community caught in the crossfire and absorbing the ricochets. For instance, the court recently blocked the transfer of all budgetary allocations approved in the Knesset Finance Committee over the past two weeks. Funding transfers are a standard practice at the end of every calendar year, when surplus funding can be transferred from one budgetary item to another with the committee’s approval. This year, the Finance Committee approved the transfer of several million shekels to the chareidi school networks (Chinuch Atzmai and the Shas school system). These funds were actually owed to the two school networks and had been held up on account of bureaucratic tyranny. The approval process was completely legal and legitimate, but Yair Lapid and the Yesh Atid party decided to petition the Supreme Court against it, and the court issued an interim order prohibiting the transfer of funds. This evoked outrage in the chareidi community, partly because it demonstrated once again that the chareidim are easy prey, but mainly because the repercussions will be disastrous. These funds, which totaled about a billion shekels, would have been tantamount to an infusion of lifegiving oxygen for the chareidi schools. The injection of funding was sorely needed.
And in related news, the power struggle between the government and the Supreme Court is still in full swing. For instance, the judges decided this week to freeze the government’s decision to close the Galei Tzahal radio station and to bar the state comptroller from continuing his investigation into the lapses leading up to October 7. The more the government tries to curb the Supreme Court’s power, the more the judges push back by stretching the limits of their authority.
Record Tensions Between the Government and the Judges
Tensions between the government and the Supreme Court reached new heights last week. In a speech delivered to his party during its weekly conference, Finance Minister Betzalel Smotrich declared, “Yitzchok Amit is a violent, aggressive megalomaniac who has stolen democracy from the citizens of Israel. The result will be that we will run him over.” Yitzchok Amit, as you know, is the chief justice of the Supreme Court, although the government does not recognize him as such. In the government’s eyes, Amit is only an ordinary justice, whose appointment as head of the Supreme Court was opposed by the minister of justice, Yariv Levin. Smotrich’s statement evoked a storm of indignation. President Yitzchok Herzog was quick to condemn him. “The violent discourse is disturbing and very dangerous,” Herzog said. “I forcefully condemn the use of a violent term such as ‘running over,’ a dangerous phrase that has been directed against the president of the Supreme Court. Our elected representatives have an obligation to engage in proper, clean discourse.”
The judicial branch went on to release an unusual public statement of its own, harshly criticizing Smotrich for his words: “Comments that express threats against the judges are not part of legitimate public discussion. This was a very serious statement whose entire purpose was to increase the violent and incendiary discourse against the judiciary and the person who heads it, and it was especially severe coming from an elected official.” There was plenty of condemnation from the opposition as well, but some voices were heard in support of the finance minister. For instance, Minister Shlomo Karai said, “The finance minister’s words must be translated into action. The time for action came long ago. We must reject the Supreme Court’s unlawful orders and save Israeli democracy.”
The chorus of attacks on the government was joined by a man who might be considered the “spiritual leader” of secular Israel: Professor Aharon Barak, the 89-year-old former chief justice who has the dubious distinction of having introduced the concept of judicial activism to Israel. Barak invented the doctrine that anything and everything is subject to judicial review; he was the first judge to strike down laws passed by the government, and he succeeded through trickery in passing the Basic Laws, which were later recognized by the Supreme Court as a quasi-constitution and have been exploited as the basis of many of its later rulings. A fierce diatribe recorded in Barak’s home was played at a demonstration on motzoei Shabbos. “Israel is no longer a liberal democracy,” Barak declared in the monologue that echoed in the street. “This didn’t happen in a single dramatic event. It was a process in which the essential components of democracy have come under severe attack, and democracy has been weakened…. Our regime now is the dominion of a single political entity, which is led by one person. That person controls the government and the Knesset. That person is the prime minister. For his dominion to be complete, he also needs to take control of the one entity that is capable of putting checks on the government—the court. It is no wonder that the first stage of the judicial revolution focused on the appointment of judges and their authority to strike down laws and government decisions. When the court is theirs, the rule of law will no longer exist. It will be replaced by the government’s control of the law.” Barak called on the public to take to the streets. “The court, on its own, will not be able to prevent our deterioration in the long run. Only the people, who are at the center of a liberal democracy, can stop this decline.”
Barak’s words caused a major stir. On the left, his speech was cited as evidence of the gravity of the situation and the degree to which democracy is under attack. The right, on the other hand, cited it to demonstrate how the judges have become dictatorial and despotic. After Barak spoke, government ministers began calling openly for verdicts of the Supreme Court to be violated. Indeed, that seems bound to happen within a very short time.
Ben-Gvir Fires Back at the Attorney General
There has also been record-breaking tension between the government and the attorney general. The ministers of the government decided long ago that they do not recognize her authority. As far as they are concerned, Gali Baharav-Miara has been dismissed from her position, and even though the Supreme Court froze her dismissal, the government ignores her. The latest chapter in the saga of Baharav-Miara’s conflict with the government came this week and concerned Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. The Supreme Court was petitioned to order the prime minister to fire Ben-Gvir (or at least to explain why he isn’t dismissing him; the judges have several reasons of their own for insisting that he should be dismissed). The standard procedure when the court receives such a petition is to ask for the government’s position, which is relayed by the attorney general, who is responsible for representing the state before the court. In this case, Attorney General Baharav-Miara notified the court that her position is that the government should accept the petitioners’ claims and fire Ben-Gvir. Ben-Gvir’s immediate response was to denounce the attorney general as a criminal and to declare that he would pay no attention to her.
Gil Limon, the deputy to Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, showed up at the cabinet meeting on Sunday to explain why Ben-Gvir’s actions are considered problematic. For instance, Limon cited Ben-Gvir’s backing for the police officer who killed a Bedouin during a police operation to restore governance in the south. Netanyahu disagreed with him. “The minister of defense and I likewise support IDF soldiers even when they are accused of killing innocents,” the prime minister said. To make a long story short, Limon came under fire from every direction in the cabinet chamber.
Minister Yitzchok Wasserlauf, a member of Ben-Gvir’s party, declared, “The attorney general and the prosecution always prevent such moves, but now you want to fire Minister Ben-Gvir. This isn’t only against him; it is against all of us.” Cabinet Secretary Yossi Fuchs said, “There is no precedent for firing a government minister without an indictment. This is a tantrum, not a genuine legal move; it is the end of democracy.”
“They tried to blackmail me,” Ben-Gvir himself said. “Someone in the attorney general’s circles warned me that if I didn’t promote Rinat Saban [an officer in the police who wanted a promotion that was blocked by Ben-Gvir] they would have me fired. And you, Gil Limon, know who that person is.”
Education Minister Yoav Kisch denounced the moves against Ben-Gvir as “an absurdity,” and Deputy Minister Almog Cohen declared, “We need to tell them that this is the limit.”
Limon denied Ben-Gvir’s claims that he had been threatened or blackmailed. “Ben-Gvir is lying,” he said. “We disagreed with the policy on Har Habayis; the prime minister said that the status quo must not be changed, but Ben-Gvir is making changes.”
“We said there would be no change in the status quo, and Ben-Gvir’s changes are not altering the status quo,” Netanyahu retorted. “He is acting in coordination with me.”
Minister Nir Barkat said to Limon, “You are the one politicizing the police.”
“If we are speaking about interfering with investigations, then you [Gil Limon] are a criminal,” Ben-Gvir added. “You interfered in the investigation of the military advocate general, which was forbidden for you. You sent a letter about it when you were in a forbidden conflict of interest.”
“I sent an e-mail; I did not interfere with the investigation,” Limon replied.
Ben-Gvir laughed. “It makes no difference if it was an e-mail or a letter,” he said. “You interfered and you tried to exert pressure.”
Netanyahu concluded, “I suggest that you reevaluate your position carefully. Ben-Gvir will not be dismissed.”
The cabinet also discussed the enforcement of the draft against yeshiva bochurim, and Limon repeated the attorney general’s position on the subject and took it even further, insisting that the government is in violation of the law for disobeying the Supreme Court’s order to impose even stricter enforcement on yeshiva bochurim.
There seems to be little question that we are watching the chevlei Moshiach unfold before our eyes!
One Hand Washes Another
In case you were wondering what was behind Gil Limon’s exchange with the cabinet about his e-mail, let me fill you in on the latest developments in the investigation into the former military advocate general, Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi. Justice Minister Levin made multiple attempts to appoint an external official to oversee the investigation, but he was not successful, since every candidate he suggested was disqualified by the Supreme Court. At first, the attorney general insisted on supervising the investigation herself; she claimed to have the authority to give orders, ignoring the justice minister’s position that she should be disqualified since she herself was a potential suspect. Despite Baharav-Miara’s protestations, the Justice Ministry’s legal advisor opined that she did have a conflict of interest, and the justices of the Supreme Court were forced to accept the argument. Nevertheless, instead of being overseen by someone else, the investigation has no oversight at all, since the police officials who would have been the natural picks to lead the investigation were arrested on various charges and barred from overseeing it. The general impression is that everyone in this story is trying to cover up for everyone else; the attorney general is shielding the former MAG (her friend) and the judges as well, and the judges are protecting the attorney general, who may have known all along that the MAG was the one who leaked the doctored film to the media and then falsely claimed to the Supreme Court that she had investigated the matter and hadn’t found the culprit.
Last week, Gil Limon asked the police for an update on the investigation. This was probably an illegitimate move on his part, since he is likely in a conflict of interest just as much as his boss, Gali Baharav-Miara. One week ago, the media also reported that Sharon Afek, Baharav-Miara’s deputy and a former military prosecutor, had met with Tomer-Yerushalmi in her home. If a serious official had been heading this investigation, both men would have been questioned and possibly arrested, and Baharav-Miara herself would certainly have been questioned as well. But the person heading the investigation is a high-ranking official with close ties to the attorney general. In fact, he announced this week that the investigation had been wrapped up and indictments would soon be filed, and he added that the attorney general herself is not suspected of misconduct. One must wonder how he was able to reach that conclusion, especially in light of the fact that she was never questioned. The chief of police quickly announced his disagreement, asserting that only he has the right to decide when an investigation has concluded, and, in his view, this investigation is still open.
Justice Minister Levin voiced the thoughts that are on everyone’s mind: This is a blatant conspiracy among the supposed guardians of the law to cover up their own misconduct. “Judge Wilner [who disqualified the retired judge chosen by Levin to head the investigation] was appointed by Amit, so she owes a favor to him and to the attorney general, for whom the judges are covering up in the MAG case,” he explained. “This story sounds like something taken out of a criminal file. It all began when Judge Amit’s friend, Judge Wilner, was appointed to the Supreme Court with his blessing. After that, in an outrageous and unlawful ruling, Judge Wilner conferred the title of chief justice on Judge Amit. Next, serious complaints were filed against Judge Amit, and then Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara entered the picture and made it possible for the cases to be closed in the blink of an eye. And now the time has come for payback. Amit and Wilner have rejected every judge who was appointed to oversee the investigation. They are preventing the exposure of the truth about the involvement of Baharav-Miara and her subordinates in the MAG case. Those who call themselves the gatekeepers and guardians of the law are actually protecting each other. They are hiding the truth; they are afraid of it being revealed. But it won’t help them. We won’t give up until the truth comes to light.”
One thing is clear: The Israeli judiciary has reached an all-time low!
Is the Draft Crisis a Ploy to Bring Down the Government?
The controversy swirling around the Supreme Court and the attorney general has ramifications for the religious community. Everyone in the community will be very happy if the government manages to clip the proverbial wings of the judges, who are leading the battle against Torah learners. Everyone will also rejoice if the government manages to get rid of the attorney general, who is constantly creating hardships for the Torah world. Now, Baharav-Miara is confronting the army with a demand for it to toughen its enforcement against “deserters.” She is evidently not satisfied with the arrests that have taken place thus far, and she wants to see more yeshiva bochurim hauled off to jail. But I have to wonder what she is thinking. Does Mrs. Baharav-Miara think that the use of brute force will convince yeshiva bochurim to enlist in the army? This seems more like a quest for vengeance or a move made out of spite. Or perhaps it’s a political ploy. After all, the attorney general and her cronies are well aware that the persecution of bnei yeshivos might lead to the fall of this government.
Meanwhile, yeshiva bochurim are still being arrested, and the chareidi community is at a loss as to how to respond. No one has gotten used to the situation; every arrest of a yeshiva bochur, regardless of the yeshiva he attends or where he lives, wounds all of us. In fact, when baalei teshuvah are arrested, it is in some ways even more painful; it is hard to digest the fact that their enormous sacrifices and spiritual growth have led them to be thrown into jail. And the situation is even more infuriating due to the fact that there is no end in sight for any of these bochurim. The army has the right to punish a yeshiva bochur who is apprehended and found to be a draft evader, and the punishments have been growing increasingly harsh; the last bochur to be arrested was sentenced to 17 days in military prison. Even worse, after a bochur is released from prison, he is still legally classified as a draft dodger and technically subject to the draft, which means that there is no legal impediment to arresting him over and over again. Last week, a bochur from Yeshivas Chevron named Yehuda Ben-Amram was arrested for defying the draft, and Rav Dovid Cohen, the rosh yeshiva, hurried to meet with Rav Moshe Hillel Hirsch to discuss how to respond. The rabbonim decided against launching massive protests in response to his arrest; however, hundreds of yeshiva bochurim gathered on their own accord for an atzeres tefillah on the grounds of the yeshiva. During the atzeres, they recited Tehillim and sang songs of protest in a sign of solidarity with their friend and an expression of their pain and outrage over his arrest.
When bochurim are arrested, the community makes every effort to support them. The members of the Knesset have begun paying frequent visits to the military prison and to the homes of parents of arrested bochurim. And the show of support continues when the bochurim are released as well. At the beginning of this week, dozens of yeshiva bochurim turned out to celebrate the release of Yair Saada, a talmid in Yeshivas Kisei Rachamim in Bnei Brak, who was treated to a beautiful reception when he was sent home after ten days in prison. Saada was arrested at his home in Beer Sheva just a few hours after returning from yeshiva with a high fever. Despite his illness, the military police decided to take him into custody. Saada’s father joined the bochurim in dancing to celebrate his release. At the same time, Yitzchok Revivo, a bochur in Yeshivas Rabbeinu Chaim Ozer in Bnei Brak, was released as well after serving 17 days in military prison. Revivo was arrested outside his home in Ramat Gan immediately after lighting Chanukah candles together with his family. Three weeks before the successful arrest, the military police had made a failed attempt to take him into custody on the border of Bnei Brak and Ramat Gan.
An Order Targeting Yeshiva Bochurim in Jail
Another bochur who was recently arrested and imprisoned is Michoel Atlan of Yeshivas Orchos Daas. Three members of the Knesset from the Shas party—Michoel Malchieli, Yosef Taieb, and Yoni Mashriki—visited his family’s home to show their support, and Michoel’s father, Rav Shalom Atlan, thanked them warmly. “My son is an emissary of Klal Yisroel and the entire Torah world,” he declared. He related that he contacted Aryeh Deri after Michoel’s arrest, and Deri immediately leapt into action, working hard to assist the family in their adverse circumstances. The visiting Knesset members informed him that his son had been transferred to a wing of the prison designated for bnei yeshivos, which was established due to their own advocacy. They also discovered that the army had first dispatched one of Michoel’s relatives to attempt to entice him to enlist. The Knesset members related that they personally derived strength and encouragement from the family’s emunah and indomitable spirit.
An army officer who belongs to the national religious community claimed that the IDF has made a conscious decision to imprison yeshiva bochurim under extremely difficult conditions. Dovi Yudkin, a native of Kfar Chabad, is the brother of Captain Yisroel Yudkin, who was killed in the Gaza Strip over a year and a half ago, has been serving in the IDF for over 13 years and performed about 500 days of reserve duty during the war, and he claims that he decided to sound a public warning about what he perceived as an imminent disaster. “I am sounding this warning a moment before the tragedy happens,” he said. “When it occurs, none of those who are sitting at the top will be able to say that ‘our hands did not spill this blood.’” Yudkin claimed that he has received dozens of distressing reports about events occurring in the field. He claims that due to instructions from the upper echelons of the IDF and decisions made in the courts, a situation has been created in which the prisoners’ basic rights are systematically violated. “An order has been given from above to humiliate and trample on chareidim and to violate their basic rights,” he asserted. “This includes a lack of proper medical treatment, withholding phone calls with their families, and obstacles to proper legal representation.”
Yudkin added that even chareidim who approached the authorities on their own volition to enlist in the IDF have found themselves locked up in the detention facilities of the military police—which, he claims, is also due to the orders handed down from the highest levels of the IDF. “The system is creating chaos and waiting for the moment that a tragedy occurs to one of the detainees. Of course, such a tragedy would expand the rift in Israeli society significantly. The blood of chareidim has become hefker,” he concluded grimly.
Hypocrisy Cries Out to the Heavens
Something is strange about the uproar over the draft law that is shaking the country. The law’s critics have repeated repeatedly that it will encourage draft evasion and harm the reservists, and not a single media figure has confronted them with two glaring questions: First, the war is over; why are they continuing their shrill condemnation of the bill? Second, the same people who are decrying the bill today were the ones who voted for it under the government of Bennett, Lapid, and Lieberman. One must wonder why the supposedly savvy reporters have suddenly become obtuse and are seemingly unaware of these obvious questions. Furthermore, every politician interviewed in the media has claimed that the draft law will not encourage chareidi enlistment and will only have the opposite effect, and no one has bothered to ask them to explain their claims. Why, in fact, do they expect it to lower the rate of enlistment?
To be honest, the only enlistment taking place here is that of the biased media, which is all to eager to sign up for a one-sided campaign against the chareidi community.
Speaking of the media and the draft law, I have to point out that hyperbole can be found in the chareidi camp as well. For instance, one headline in a chareidi newspaper proclaimed: “The Iron Curtain Is Back: Torah learners are to be imprisoned in Israel without the ability to leave.” The author added that this type of draconian decree, which he dubbed “a totalitarian closure that causes disproportionate harm to the freedom of religion, such as visiting kivrei tzaddikim, and the freedom of movement, such as traveling abroad for family simchos or medical treatments,” exists only in countries such as North Korea. Now, I believe that it was always the case that a yeshiva bochur who received a draft deferment was barred from leaving the country. Under certain circumstances, it was possible to receive special permission from one’s yeshiva, the Vaad HaYeshivos and the army to travel abroad, but that option remains applicable even today. So while there is plenty to lament about the draft law, what reason is there to invent new complaints?
But let us turn our attention back to the hypocrites who spend their days assailing the Torah community. Yair Lapid and Avigdor Lieberman are probably the most vocal critics of the country’s Torah learners, yet neither of them has a particularly impressive military record of his own. Moreover, the current bill, which is under discussion in the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, is based on a law that passed its first reading under the government of Bennett, Lieberman, and Lapid, and that Netanyahu resurrected with the continuity rule. How can they possibly attack their own law?
But that is not all. Here is a fact that has eluded many people: Yair Lapid and his party submitted a bill to the Knesset during this term titled “Proposed Security Service Law—Integration of Male Yeshiva Students.” And that bill is identical to the one under discussion in the committee. This week, I asked a chareidi Knesset member why his colleagues parties haven’t publicized the contents of Lapid’s bill to expose Yesh Atid’s hypocrisy. He replied, “The bill was introduced before October 7, and they will simply say that the circumstances have changed.”
However, I checked the dates and discovered that this is not true. The bill was placed on the Knesset table on the 24th of Adar Rishon 5784/March 4, 2024. The bill also states explicitly that the law was originally approved in its first reading in the 24th Knesset. In other words, this is the exact bill that was brought back to the Knesset by Netanyahu and that Lapid has been tirelessly denouncing. And Lapid himself submitted the same bill at the same time.
Is there no limit to this hypocrisy and wickedness?
Visitors from Canada Sing with Former Hostage
When a chorus of voices began singing Lecha Dodi in my office in the Knesset, I couldn’t help but turn around to take in the sight.
A large group of young visitors from Canada had gathered in the Shas party’s offices. They were brought to the Knesset as guests of a Zionist organization and on the initiative of several Chabad shluchim, including Shimmy Segal, the new shaliach in the Knesset. At some point during their stay, a visitor arrived—Segev Kalfon, one of the survivors of the horrors of Hamas captivity in Gaza, who had come to tell them about some of his horrifying experiences. I politely stayed at my desk instead of joining the group to listen to him, but when Segev began speaking about the emunah that had sustained him in captivity, I couldn’t help but listen, not to mention wiping away the occasional tear. Segev Kalfon and other former hostages have been repeatedly describing how they clung to their faith with the last vestiges of their strength, and their stories are astounding. I sometimes wonder if there will be a single moment, like Yosef’s historic declaration of “ani Yosef,” that will suddenly tear away the veil and lead us all to understand the reasons for the bewildering events of the past two years. But even now, we can see Divine Providence at work, and the stirrings of spirituality among the people of Israel may have given us at least a partial understanding.
Perhaps the most dramatic moment of that visit, though, was when the group suddenly began a powerful rendition of Lecha Dodi. Segev was speaking about the Shabbosos spent in the darkness of the tunnels, and how he and his fellow hostages sang Lecha Dodi as it had been sung every week in his parents’ home. As he spoke, he began singing the tune, and the rest of the visitors joined in, the stirring words of Kabbolas Shabbos filling the air on an ordinary Monday afternoon.
When the emotional event was over, I showed Segev a picture of his father in the Knesset shul leading tefillos on his behalf during his time in Gaza. Segev gazed at it in silence for a long time and then said, “My father suffered so much!”
Nonstop Incitement
It is both astounding and saddening to witness how the media repeatedly works to manipulate public sentiment. Last Thursday, I came across identical headlines in several newspapers referring to a “legislative blitz” in the Knesset. Maariv reported, “In a session shortened due to the constraints of the holiday [Chanukah], a series of bills that the Netanyahu bloc intends to promote were brought to the Knesset and approved in preliminary readings one after another.” One must wonder what, exactly, is wrong with this. Should the tone of the news report be taken to mean that the coalition was expected to pass laws favored by the opposition rather than their own bills? And what is so significant about the fact that the laws were passed “one after another”? Furthermore, the writer claims that the votes were rapid, but if anything, the voting was unusually slow; every vote was conducted by roll call, which is naturally a more time-consuming process. This is merely a skewed narrative designed to cast the Knesset’s activities in a negative light.
Yediot Acharonot likewise used its front page to dramatically announce a “legislative assault” and the expansion of the “blitz of legislation,” adding that “the decision of the chareidi parties to resume voting with the coalition following the advance of the draft evasion law [as they always refer to it] opened the floodgates.”
Again, this newspaper seems to find fault where none truly lies. Is there something wrong with the chareidim halting their own boycott on legislation? Furthermore, the boycott caused dozens of bills to become stalled; the laws that were approved on Wednesday were only a small portion of the large number of laws that have been postponed from week to week. It is not reasonable at all to refer to this as a “blitz.” In the same newspaper, an editorial spoke about “legislation on steroids,” describing the Knesset’s activities as a “hysterical frenzy of work” and “voting run amok.” I was flabbergasted by these descriptions, which were sheer nonsense. On that particular Wednesday, the number of bills approved by the Knesset was relatively small when compared to an average Wednesday. Only twelve bills were approved, most of them unanimously. In contrast, there were 42 bills on the Knesset agenda for Wednesday this week.
The anti-chareidi incitement in this country is led by the media, which provides platforms to politicians, jurists, and askanim who exploit the chareidim to score points with the public and do not balk at using the lowliest tactics. Of course, the media also makes its own contributions to further fan the flames of incitement. There is a reason that journalists insist on referring to the “draft evasion law,” rather than calling it simply the “draft law.” There is also a reason that they publish dramatic reports about every allocation of funds for chareidim, in an unmistakable effort to portray the chareidim as thieves. I recently cited two examples of divisive rhetoric in the media; well, here is a third, fresh off the presses. In a newspaper this week, a front-page headline read, “Property Tax Reform: The Shas party looks out for chareidim while raising the deficits of local governments.” To the average reader, this makes it appear as if the Shas party is plundering the coffers of local governments to benefit the chareidim; it implies that the average citizen will pay higher property taxes so that the rates can be lowered for chareidim. But this is pure slander; property tax discounts are based on family size and income level and do not distinguish between citizens based on their religious affiliation. Anyone who meets the criteria for eligibility will receive a discount, regardless of whether they are secular, Arab, chareidi, Russian, or Christian. The writer even admits at one point, “This time, at least, the non-chareidi middle class will benefit as well,” signifying that he understands that the property tax reform is good news for everyone, chareidi and non-chareidi alike. Nevertheless, the facts apparently cannot be allowed to get in the way of slandering the chareidi community, since the overall thrust of the article is negative.
A couple of pages later, another misleading headline is emblazoned across the page: “The Property Tax Reform Protects the Shas Party and Burdens Local Governments.” Perhaps they could have instead congratulated the Ministry of the Interior for broadening the eligibility for property tax discounts and thus benefiting the weaker sectors of society. But that is not their agenda, and the subliminal messaging tends to take root in the reader’s subconscious. The average newspaper reader doesn’t necessarily read every word, and an incendiary headline such as this one leaves him with a single impression—that the rest of society is suffering on account of “the chareidim.” If the reader (or viewer, in the case of televised media) happens to be a police officer or member of the Border Guard, then he might vent his rage on the next chareidi he encounters. And if he is a hotheaded potential criminal, one might expect the result to be a horrific act of vandalism or shul desecration such as what we witnessed recently in Kadima-Tzoren, Givatayim, and Haifa, or several years ago in Kiryat Yovel and elsewhere.
The Fruits of Incitement
The time has come for a conversation about incitement against the chareidi community. In fact, the time has come to take action against it. We all know that words can kill; words can incite to violence, and the results can be horrendous. Two weeks ago, a video was widely publicized that showed a member of the riot police chasing a yeshiva bochur into a building and striking him with great force as he ran. The soldier took out his rage on the young bochur and then simply walked away as if nothing had happened. This week, another appalling video showed a Border Guard officer beating a young boy in rage. The only difference between him and the other violent policeman was the color of his uniform. But how did these two officers develop such powerful hatred for chareidim? One can assume that they are both normative people with families of their own and children who go to school, possibly even attending religious schools. They surely weren’t born as monsters, and they did not grow up in a European country drenched in antisemitism. What led to these appalling acts of violence? The only possible answer is that we are witnessing the rotten fruits of the incitement that pervades the media.
This week, many people were appalled when a vandal was caught on video placing tefillin, siddurim, and tallisos that had been destroyed at the entrance to the Bais Yosef shul in Givatayim. Rav Shlomo Batzri, the rov of the shul, was deeply aggrieved, particularly since the shul is a thriving center of kiruv and ahavas Yisroel. The two chief rabbis of Israel issued a joint statement decrying the heartbreaking act of vandalism and declaring that “an assault on sacred objects is an assault on the heart of the entire Jewish people.” Exactly one month ago, we were all appalled by a similar incident in the Yemenite shul in Kadima-Tzoren, where the mispallelim arrived on erev Shabbos to find that vandals had ripped up the siddurim and chumashim and had thrown the sifrei Torah on the floor in disgrace. All the contents of the shul had been destroyed. In both cases, it was clear that the vandals had been motivated by pure spite; they had nothing to gain from their crimes. Again, one might ask how such fierce animosity developed in our midst, but the answer is the same: It results from incitement in the media! Incitement has the power to make people behave irrationally and hatefully; it can bring out the worst within a human being, even the drives that he would generally keep under control.
The incitement has spread its venom into the Knesset as well. Certain members of the Knesset are unmistakably driven by pure hatred. Anyone who has visited the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee during the discussions over the draft law has witnessed the unbridled hatred. In the Finance Committee as well, any measure that might provide even a single cent to a religious person becomes grounds for the most horrific rhetoric. Even a law that would allow a high school student to wear tefillin without interference somehow became the impetus for a vicious conflict. Listening to the screams and imprecations, one must wonder what gave rise to this fierce hatred. In this case, the answer is more complicated, since there are some members of the Knesset who are both guilty of incitement and affected by it. But the bottom line is that it would be a mistake to disregard this phenomenon. When a shul is desecrated, it reflects negatively everyone. When a police officer delivers a ferocious beating to a young man, it is a stain on the entire country. If the incitement and its fruits are not halted immediately, through any means possible, there is no telling where it will lead.
