Haredim joining the Zionist movement is good for Jews – opinion
These are not people who are merely using the system to gain funding for haredi causes. They clearly love Israel and are committed to its success.
By DOV LIPMANHAREDIM ON a Jerusalem street. Leading rabbis are asking ‘Does the death toll justify shutting down communal life?’ (photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
Theodor Herzl could never have imagined this scene, not in his wildest dreams.Representatives of the Reform, Conservative, religious-Zionist and haredi (ultra-Orthodox) religious movements sat beneath a picture of Herzl last week in the Ben-Gurion board room at World Zionist Organization headquarters in Jerusalem. There they joined all Israeli right- and left-wing parties along with the faction of General Zionists, which I represented, in signing an agreement to share the leadership and budgets of the international Zionist movement.Yes, haredim in the Zionist movement. An ultra-Orthodox party called Eretz Hakodesh ran in last winter’s election for the Zionist Congress and won 25 out of the 152 seats allocated to the United States. Just to put this in perspective: Those 25 seats came from approximately 20,000 votes, while the Reform movement received just over 30,000, and the Conservative movement a mere 14,000 votes. This is not to be taken for granted, given the strong stance against the Zionist movement advocated by the ultra-Orthodox since Herzl’s time and throughout the 20th century.Cynics will suggest that the haredim only joined in order to gain access to budgets, or to minimize the influence of the non-Orthodox streams in Israel, and that they don’t truly believe in Zionism. But in order to run for the Zionist Congress, Eretz Hakodesh had to sign the Jerusalem Conference, which among other things calls for:1) Strengthening Israel as a Jewish, Zionist and democratic state... marked by mutual respect for the multi-faceted Jewish people.2) Ensuring the future and the distinctiveness of the Jewish people by furthering Jewish, Hebrew and Zionist education.3) Settling the country as an expression of practical Zionism.A haredi party signing a document supporting these elements, and their signing a coalition agreement that includes official representatives of the Reform and Conservative movements, demonstrates remarkable progress in the quest for Jewish unity.But one has to look no further than some of the delegates of this haredi party – which received the blessings of top US haredi rabbis – to understand that their commitment to Israel has been strong for decades, even if it was not under the auspices of the official international Zionist movement.• RABBI PESACH Lerner served as executive-director of the National Council of Young Israel for two decades, and led efforts for the release of Jonathan Pollard.
• Shoshana Soroka is editor of The Jewish Home, a weekly magazine in the Five Towns area of New York that features a significant section dedicated to Israel news.• Steve Rosedale has contributed significant funding for the establishment and development of Nachal Haredi, which provides haredi young men with a framework to serve in the IDF and help them become educated and enter the workforce.• Shoshana Dessler Jacobs co-founded the Israel Medical Fund, which helps Israelis cover medical expenses not covered by Israel’s medical system, and funds research for cures to medical conditions with a high prevalence in Israel’s population.• Rabbi Yechezkel Moskowitz serves as a special assistant to Cherna Moskowitz, whose family foundation has contributed millions of dollars to projects in Israel including being a strong force behind the immigration of the Bnei Menashe from India to Israel.These are not people who are merely using the system to gain funding for haredi causes. They clearly love Israel and are committed to its success.Let me be clear. I am a General Zionist who serves as secretary-general for the World Confederation of General Zionists. I do not believe that the Zionist movement should be about religious streams or political ideologies. But once religious streams do have factions competing for seats in the Zionist Congress and for positions in the WZO, I am happy to see ALL such streams represented, including the haredim. I am also happy to report that the haredi party has already made an impact on the future of the Zionist movement. One of the items on the agenda when the Zionist General Council met this week was accepting the Jewish communities of Ecuador and Paraguay as official Zionist federations in the WZO. As General Zionists, we received word that some of the parties were planning on voting against this proposal due to internal politics.Given our philosophy – which seeks to widen the tent and bring as many Jews as possible into the Zionist movement – we could not sit by quietly. We reached out to other parties, including Eretz Hakodesh, to secure their support. The haredim were not particularly focused on these specific votes, but we explained the importance to make sure all their committee members voted in favor. And sure enough, theirs were the deciding votes to welcome Ecuador and Paraguay into the WZO.Which brings me back to the Ben-Gurion board room and the picture of Herzl. Could that secular Jew who was vilified by the religious ever have imagined that ultra-Orthodox members of his World Zionist Organization would be the ones to ensure the acceptance of two South American countries into the Zionist movement? Could he have imagined that haredi and Reform Jews would sign a Zionist document together?“If you will it, it is no dream” he famously said. And never has it rung more true.The writer served as a member of the 19th Knesset and is the secretary general of the World Confederation of General Zionists.
