MK (The Movement) Elazar Stern, who was a leading force in pushing legislation deemed unacceptable by poskim feels that Bayit Yehudi leader Naftali Bennett has still not changed enough regarding issues of religion and state.
Just this week Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi Dovid Lau Shlita exclaimed that in the past two years, the outgoing administration was responsible for a great deal of legislation that would undermine the future Jewish character of the State of Israel and the Chief Rabbinate of Israel. He cited that “legislation attacked giyur, marriage, Shabbos, and everything holy”. Rabbi Lau expressed his hope that the next administration will not follow suit but will prefer to work hand in hand with the Chief Rabbinate of Israel.
Stern used his Facebook page to attack Bennett, accusing him of failing to bring about the changes he promised voters. He lamented the fact that Bennett did not manage to capitalize “on the historic opportunity to elect Zionist Chief Rabbis of Israel and remove the chareidi rabbonim that have been serving for so long” and that he failed to push through sweeping change regarding conversions and other matters of religion and state as well as women’s role in religion.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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4 Responses
Hareidim want to be an autonomous minority group. If secular Israelis became sufficiently Americanized that they saw the existence of hareidim as non-threatening, the hareidi politicians would have no trouble getting along with the secular politicians. The zionist rabbanim want all Israelis to be religious zionists/modern orthodox, meaning they need to have the secular laws coercing all hilonim to act like orthodox Jews, which is impossible and sometimes leads to ridiculous results, such as easy conversions so non-Jews of Jewish descent are “officially” Jews will make all non-hareidim into safek goyim, requiring hilonim to marry according to halacha will result in all hilonim eventually becoming safek mamzerim.
Almost by definition there has never been a hareidi “Chief Rabbi” of the State, since even if someone is from a frum background, by becoming a government rabbi ones goes off the hareidi derekh.
This Stern guy who wears a yamaka is a disgrace, Bennett is much better.
#1 complete lack of knowledge of RZ agenda & how they view the State or its people. You have never accepted that neither the traditional or RZ or Chardei world is HOMOGENOUS. There is a lot of dayos in each camp.
” The zionist rabbanim want all Israelis to be religious zionists/modern orthodox, meaning they need to have the secular laws coercing all hilonim to act like orthodox Jews”
Actually Dati rabbis have not generally supported such laws. The Religious Zionist movement for the most part believes that it is better to *encourage* observance rather than to *require* it.