Life for chareidi lawmakers is difficult enough when things are good. They are subjected to harsh criticism from their colleagues, voters, and of course, the secular parties who accuse them from being “parasites” and blame everything that’s wrong with the world on their lifestyle.
Making things significantly worse is the lack of achdus, now seen in both Agudas Yisrael but more visibly in the litvish faction of Yahadut HaTorah, Degel HaTorah.
Let’s begin with Netzach, known more commonly in Israel as the “Yerushalmi branch” of Degel. In actuality, some of the members of this faction perceive themselves as being in a faction under the Degel umbrella and they do not see themselves as having broken away, perhaps analogous to the Moshe Feiglin’s Manhigut Yehudit faction which is officially part of the Likud. The leaders of Netzach however appear to be leaning to breaking away entirely, running under a different ticket in the elections but this is yet to be decided and we have to hear what the gedolim have to say on the subject.
What is known is that the Netzach leaders have submitted the paperwork to the Central Election Committee so the separate party option is a viable one. For now, despite a number of “urgent meetings” and the major motzei shabbos kenos in Bnei Brak, Netzach appears to be taking the cautious route and it has not broken away from Degel officials.
What About Belz, Vishnitz and the Others?
Once upon a time, Belz was part of Degel back in the early days. The chassidus also split from the Eida, and today, remains independent, voting ‘Gimmel’, the Yahadut HaTorah ticket which to date included Agudas Yisrael and Degel HaTorah. Who knows what tomorrow will bring. There are matters to work out here too regarding the placement of Rav Yisrael Eichler, the Belzer Rebbe’s Shlita representative in umbrella party. This is not as simple as it may appear, for there must also be a slot for Vishnitz, Gur, and Meir Porush. That is only the Agudas Yisrael side of the equation. The headaches facing the litvish faction are described above.
Vishnitz is sitting quietly for the time being, but has already flexed its political muscle, citing it is larger than Belz and therefore, must receive first pick regarding placement and rotation. Vishnitz points out there has not been a census of members since the election of 5749 so it is difficult to know the actual numbers pertaining to the factions involved in Agudah, including Shlomei Emunim and the central faction. If they decide to begin crunching the numbers, it could get very interesting for some chassidic courts have grown while others have become less influential. What will be the status of many of the chassidic courts? Once the box has been opened, it is difficult to know how it will end.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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5 Responses
Who does Chabad vote with?
Zionflag, officially Chabad is nonpartisan, and does not get involved in elections. The previous Lubavitcher Rebbe explicitly said that Lubavitch is nonpartisan (bezparteine in Russian). There was only one exception to this rule: in 1988 the Rebbe officially endorsed Gimmel and Chabad in Israel went all out to campaign for Gimmel, bringing it 2-3 additional seats. The reason was hakoras hatov: That was the year Degel split from the Agudah because the Moetzes Gedolei Hatorah stood up for the Rebbe’s kovod. But the Rebbe made it clear that this was a one-time departure from the chassidus’s long-standing policy and would not be repeated.
However Lubavitchers as individual citizens vote, and obviously would ask the Rebbe how to vote, and he would usually answer that they should vote for “the most charedi party”. How to interpret this was left to the chassidim, and usually they would end up supporting Poalei Agudas Yisroel, back when it existed. In more recent times, because the Rebbe made shleimus ho’oretz such an overriding concern, Lubavitchers have tended to vote for such parties as Moledet, etc.
Moledet has been gone for at least 4-5 elections.
Zionflag, on the contrary, Moledet was alive as recently as the last election, running on the Ichud Leumi list.
Netzah is only threatening to become another party. In this way Degel will give them a higher listing on their list. They will not succeed to get one seat if they run alone and degel/agudah will just lose one seat if they do.
It is a dirty ploy to get their buddies listed higher on the list, but, hey, isn’t that what politics is all about?