9 Responses

1. It goes without saying that every single person who is eligible to vote should get out there and vote. Good for Rav Elyashiv!

2. Do you believe everything you hear on the radio? Especially a station that most (all?) of the gedolei hador are against? Also, is he the only gadol calling on us to vote?
   FYI, Rav Elyashiv’s letter is printed in the front page of Friday’s Hamodia and Yated.

3. Did he say who to vote for?

4. The chareidi chaveri knesset should focus not only on taking money from the government, but also on the Israelies education system which is feeding to the students ideas like:
   1. Do the jews have a right to live in the land 2. removing anything jewish from the government and the people(including the right of return)

   I understand learing Torah is a great Mitzva and will help in Hashems protection, but can we ignore what the people in charge are slowly doing to our nation? We can come up with ways to improve the situation without just saying Hashem will help. Hashem helps us only after we help ourselves as is stated in the Torah many times.

   Lets not ignore the present holocost and stand up for Hashems honor!!

5. I remember years ago Maran haRav Shach said those that don’t participate in the bechiros, shouldn’t start now .someone correct me??

6. According to the ruling of the Badatz of Yerushalayim, according to the laws of our holy torah it is strictly prohibited to vote in the upcoming elections for the goverment of the state of israel

7. What is really amazing is that in the 1948 elections the frumer only got 5 or 6 seats. Now 61 years later with all the exponential growth of the frumer population, we still only get 5 or 6 seats. This leads me to believe that the vast
   majority of the frumer do not vote for the frumer parties.

   As for those that do not vote. There is the Neturai Karta (maybe 100 votes), the Rav Aaralahs (maybe a few hundred) and the shtarka Briskers (maybe 75). So it does not really matter that they do not vote.

8. evbazarov, what happened between ’48 and ’78 is that a lot of the old frumme died, and their children weren’t frum. That’s what happened to Poalei Agudah; they used to be good for 2 or 3 seats, but their constituency aged, they never attracted young people, and the only chassidic group that voted for them was Chabad. In the end they were left with nobody but Chabad, and that wasn’t enough to sustain themselves as a party.

   Also there was a lot of immigration since ’48, and the majority of shomrei mitzvos in EY are sfardim. Many of them vote Shas, so you have to count a lot of Shas’s support as well as that of Yahadus. Meanwhile Chabad is worth about 3/4 of a seat, and while Poalei Aguda existed they used to vote for them, or if they ran together with the Agudah Chabad would vote for the joint ticket. Now they vote mostly for non-charedi parties like the Ichud Leumi.

9. Here is a letter from the previous Lubavitcher Rebbe, R Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn, from 1948, about the first Israeli elections. He writes that “everyone who is eligible to vote must certainly not waive this right”, and to vote for the most religious party (חבורת היראים יותר), but not for those who create machlokes while claiming to champion Torah.

   ב”ה ה’ כסלו תש”ט
   ברוקלין
   אל התלמיד מר …
   שלום וברכה!
   במענה על כתבו מי”ז לחדש מ”ח ששואל על אודות ההשתתפות בענין הבחירות לממשלה בארץ ישראל, בודאי חובה על כל אחד ואחד שראוי לבחור לא יוַתר על זכותו זה ועם מי להשתתף צריכים להשתדל להשתתף עם חבורת היראים יותר אבל לא עם אלו אשר כל ענינם הוא לעשות מחלוקת ופירוד לבבות ודוגלים בשם התורה והיראה והשי”ת ירים קרן אחינו בני ישראל ד’ עליהם יחיו באה”ק ת”ו ובכל מדינות הגולה ונזכה לביאת הגואל צדק משיח צדקנו אשר יקבצנו מכל ארצות פזורנו לאה”ק ת”ו.