Jewish Religious Extremism – a Threat to The

© Isi J. Leibler, 1991 Published jointly by World Jewish Congress 501 Madison Avenue, 17th Floor, New York, N.Y. 10022 and Australian Institute of Jewish Affairs GPO Box 5402 CC, Melbourne, Vic. Australia 3001 Produced in Australia ISBN 0 646 02848 0 PREFACE is monograph has its genesis in an article titled 'Moderation and Zealotry' which was widely published a few years ago in the international Jewish media. It created more interest than anything I have ever written and was translated into at least four languages. I have completely revised and expanded that article, and have made major modifications of the views expressed in the original. I may displease some readers, who will disagree with one aspect or another of my assess- ment. I stress, however, that the views expressed are exclusively my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publishers - the World Jewish Congress and the Australian Institute of Jewish Affairs. My intention is to stimulate thought and perhaps encourage action in relation to a burning issue which will undoubtedly have a major bearing on the future of the Jewish people. ISI LEIBLER Av5751 August 1991 PREFACE When I wrote this monograph five years ago I warned that religious national extremism represented the greatest threat to the Jewish people. But nobody could have foreseen the ultimate disaster of Yitzhak Rabin's assassination by a religious national extremist. Yet, in retrospect, we can now see that the seeds of that disaster were sown many years ago. It is as if the lines of the Psalm were reversed: It has not been a case of Hazorim b'dimah, b'rinah yiksoru - "They that sow in tears, shall reap in joy" but rather, to our profound national sorrow, "They that sow in joy, shall reap in tears". It is now clearer than ever before that it was the "joy", the euphoria and religious exultation which followed the 1967 Six Day War, which brought us undone. For it was not the election of a Labor Government committed to territorial concessions to the Palestinian Arabs in Yehudah and Shomron which suddenly brought mourning and tragedy upon the House of Israel. Those political changes merely accelerated the influence of the fanatical minority who had been poisoning the national religious camp for a whole generation. What is to be done? This supplement reviews the chain of events which brought us to this low point in Jewish history and calls for actions to restore our faith in the values of religious Zionism as understood by its founders. That great task, now the imperative of the hour, can only be undertaken by religious Zionists themselves. THE CANCER WITHIN RELIGIOUS Z I O N I S M evil cancer has invaded the religious Zionist camp. Unless the patient himself succeeds in surgically removing the infected areas from his body, the condition is terminal. Should the disease not be treated radically, the kippah serugah, once considered a proud symbol of all that is beautiful in Judaism and Zionism, will be regarded instead as a mark of Cain. We did not have to reach this point. And let us pray that we still find the courage and leadership to advance beyond it. But for that to happen we must understand how we arrived here. I grew up in a family steeped in the traditions of Mizrachi and Torah im derech eretz. In those days, the years immediately before and after the establishment of Israel, the national religious movement represented one of the most constructive forces of Jewish life in the Diaspora and in Israel. It harmonised Torah and Zion, acted as a bridge between religious and secular, and was renowned for its tolerance and moderation in religious practice and political outlook. Above all, it promoted the concept of ahavat Yisrael and ahavat Klal Yisrael. But today major segments of this movement have been transformed into a radical ideological group which promote an aggressive religious nationalism wholly inconsistent with its antecedents. The turning point can be precisely located in time: it began during the religious euphoria following the Six Day War. A movement within the Bnei Akiva-Mizrachi camp, headed by Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook, son of the saintly former Chief Rabbi of Israel, was swept up in the post-war fervour and became convinced that we were poised in history at the beginnings of the Messianic era. Those inspired by the new movement took a portentous step beyond faith and became embroiled in a political movement which put the Land of Israel at the centre of Judaism, not as one of a number of values, but as the "supreme" value - even more important than life itself. Furthermore, the movement's rabbis and rashei yeshivot began to speak and teach as if they knew, literally, what Cod wanted of observant Jews 2 in the day-to-day politics of Israel, with only one exclusive interpretation of halachah being considered valid. This was not the Likud, let us remember clearly which attached theological primacy to the Land of Israel, but an element within religious Zionism which was allowed to go unchallenged, except by a minority increasingly cowed by the zeal of those rabbis and leaders certain that they had acquired the mandate of Heaven. Today, in many circles, Likud is being blamed for having tolerated an environment of xenophobia which fostered and even nurtured an ideological legitimacy for the assassination. And certainly Likud leaders should have more forcefully condemned those indulging in verbal violence and character assassination; they should never have shared platforms or permitted the extremists to partake in demonstrations under their leadership. But, let us sadly acknowledge, responsibility for the polarisation of Israeli society does not lie with the opposition alone. Supporters of the Rabin government, including cabinet ministers, also indulged in vile and inflammatory attacks on religious groups and settlers without distinguishing between extremists and others. And during the Lebanese war, Begin was also defamed as a "traitor" and "murderer". Yet violent political rhetoric, dangerous and reprehensible though it may be, does not have the same impact as religious education. It has been that education which encouraged impressionable young people to believe that the leaders of Israel were acting against the Almighty's express wishes. It is in this area that the prime responsibility rests for paving the way to the disaster. Yitzhak Rabin's loathsome murderer saw himself as fulfilling "a sacred duty" and acting on "God's instructions". The facts about Yigal Amir have entered the national consciousness; indeed, they have seared its collective memory. He grew up in a middle-class religious Yemenite household, served in the elite Golani army unit, was educated in a Hesder Yeshiva, worked as a volunteer teaching Judaism in Russia, and when he committed the crime was a law student at Bar-llan university, and enrolled in the university's Kollel. 3 It will not do to regard the assassin as a solitary lunatic. Nor did his ideological roots lie with Likud. Alas, he was primarily a product of the perversion of the national religious movement. And that is not surprising. Anyone watching the anti-government demonstrations over the past few years would have noted that the vast majority of the protesters wore kippot serugot including those who incited to violence. Many of the most aggressive and obscene verbal outbursts against the leaders of Israel were articulated by members of the religious Zionist camp. And the silent majority, who stood by and failed to protest against the extremists, also share some of the guilt. It is not a time for recrimination, we are told. But that cannot be used as an excuse to avoid responsibility or a failure to sheet it home. For myself, I assign prime responsibility for tolerating, and in some cases, encouraging impressionable young people to believe that the halachah sanctioned acts beyond the law, to the zealous and sanctimonious rabbis and leaders of the national religious camp. They were the ones who provided a moral and religious legitimacy to such attitudes. Indeed, it is a matter of record that some yeshivot encouraged their students to see themselves as soldiers of the Almighty. They were led to believe, as did Rabin's murderer, that Cod had instructed them to follow a particular path. They came to the conclusion that those who "opposed God's will" should be dubbed son'ei Yisrael - enemies of the people of Israel. And the ultimate conclusion was that such "traitors" deserved death. This was not the outcome of some overnight flash of protest that took the responsible national religious leaders by surprise. It was years in the making and the responsible rabbis should have cried out against such a distortion of all that we should hold sacred. Those who did speak out can virtually be counted on the proverbial fingers of one hand. And yet we ask ourselves today: how was it possible that the rabbis did not know of the terrible dangers? Could they not see that when their schools and yeshivot encouraged the young to believe that they could ignore the rule of law, for what they arrogantly believe is a "higher law", that we were on the brink of evil and chaos? In truth, the writing was on the wall and in the publications of the movement for all to see as far back as the 1980s, when the so-called 4 machteret - the "Jewish underground" - justified the dreadful murders against Arabs it perpetrated in Cod's name. Here also, many of those directly involved were nurtured in religious Zionist backgrounds. For them the killings were a simple matter: they had been taught to believe that there was little distinction between Arabs of today and the Amelekites of the Bible.

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