The attorney for the chareidi factions, Yitzhak Meron, was interviewed on Wednesday morning, 6 Menachem Av by Noam Zeigman on Kol Berama Radio, and revealed that he had proposed to MKs to arrange the recruitment of yeshiva students and introduce the significance and merit of limud Torah in the Nationality Law.

He also said that a few weeks ago he proposed and raised the idea that the draft law would be enacted with the rank of a Basic Law, to be called the Basic Law of Torah Study. “The issue of the Basic Law of limud Torah, its place could have been in the Basic Law of the nation, because what is more characteristic of the Jewish people than Torah study, and even if we do not regulate the specific issue of recruitment, there certainly was a place for this.”

“My dialogue with the chareidi parties was a legal discourse, I am not involved in political talks, and if you ask me what is right to do, it is true that the State of Israel must take the value of Torah study as the community’s flagship.”

Attorney Meron, who was interviewed on the subject of Nationality Law, said that he had a long conversation with the chareidi MKs yesterday, and said that the problematic clauses are those relating to Shabbos and ties with Diaspora Jewry, [which the chareidi leaders fear will lead to recognition of Reform Jewry].

“I think the Nationality Law lacks something very basic, and that is content. I assume that it was difficult to reach a political agreement, but one thing is missing, defining what is the essence of the State of Israel, and how Jewish content is to fill it in substance? When Ben-Gurion founded the state, he was not a religious person, but the vision of the prophets was important to him. And it is difficult to find many things in a democracy that were among the prophets.”

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)