Lipman Livid at Bennett for Working with Chareidim

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dov-lipmanDov Alan Lipman served as a member of the 19th Knesset with the Yesh Atid party, using the platform he was given to speak out against chareidim and the chareidi lifestyle. He even became an outspoken supporter of the Women of the Wall, among other controversial issues. This time around, he is not in the Knesset as an MK, but he has been announced as the new Director of Government and International Affairs for the Lone Soldiers Center in Memory of Michael Levin and Families of Lone Soldiers organization.

Meanwhile, this week, in a letter published by the Times of Israel, Lipman addressed Bayit Yehudi MK Naftali Bennett, strongly criticizing him.

“Please, please be strong, and don’t cave,” Lipman tells Bennett. “You are a man with values, and you represent a population that has strong principles. Represent them. And don’t give in just to sit in the next government.”

The first issue of concern, Lipman says, is the Religious Services Ministry: “How can you, representing religious Zionism, possibly allow control over religious services to return to the hands of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party? What happened to your commitment to a more moderate and embracing approach to religion, which our country so desperately needs?”

The second issue Lipman discusses is conversion: “Are you going to join a coalition which plans to rescind a government decision to make conversion more accessible, especially for the hundreds of thousands of non-Jewish Russian immigrants who moved to Israel under the Law of Return? What happened to your concern for the entire nation?”

The third issue, he says, is employment, general education, and army/national service for the chareidi population: “Are you really going to sit in a government that plans to shift funding back to rabbinic seminaries instead of employment training? Which will restore significant funding to ultra-Orthodox schools that don’t teach Basic English and math? Can you look yourself in the mirror after going along with planned changes to the draft law – which you and your party were such a major part of crafting and passing?”

Lipman continues: “And the fourth issue is the cabinet: I know Ayelet Shaked is an important person in your party, and an impressive leader. But will you really support undoing a law to reduce the number of ministers – which you voted for! – simply to offer her a ministry?”

He then tells Bennett that there comes a time when leaders “have to stand for something: Naftali, if you join the government and give in on all these issues, then what do you stand for? What will voters make of your word – you campaigned on representing secular Jews, but then turn your back on them just to enter the government?”

Lipman, by his own admission, wants to cut off government funding for chareidi schools that have the unmitigated gall to continue teaching the curricula that have kept the Jewish people alive and well for the past 3,400 years. They must toe the line, in Lipman’s opinion, and accept a more “modern” curriculum or fend for themselves.

Lipman has shown time and again that he feels that his black velvet yarmulke magically invests him with educational expertise and insight that eclipses that of the great Torah sages of both Israel and his native United States, who have unanimously condemned his views.

Lipman rode into the Knesset on Yair Lapid’s coattails and makes self-delusionary claims that he represents the best interests of the chareidi community.

He supports Yair Lapid’s policy of compulsory draft for yeshiva students, while expecting the undying gratitude of the religious world because he graciously has allowed for 1,800 full time yeshiva students to be exempt.

Lipman remains one of the most divisive figures in Israeli religious politics. His remark upon seeing an elderly street cleaner – “Why couldn’t a yeshiva student be doing that?” – was widely quoted several years ago as an example of Yesh Atid’s contempt for Torah learning. (Apparently, it did not occur to him that the street cleaner earned his living that way.)

In a widely circulated video two years ago, Lipman is seen leading a woman whose attire was guaranteed to provoke an angry response past a shul in the “Yerushalmi” neighborhood of Ramat Beit Shemesh. Just in case she failed in her task, he thrust his arms triumphantly in the air numerous times to provoke the desired response for this bit of filmed street theater.

Yet, Lipman told JTA that he took on the role of “peacemaker” in Ramat Beit Shemesh. Some peacemaker.

By the time he placed his film clip on Yair Lapid’s TV show of a woman walking her whimpering daughter to school to protect her against the same “Yerushalmis,” the events described in Ramat Beit Shemesh were three months old and the crisis had largely been resolved. The video, however, well-served the plans of Lipman’s future boss, Yair Lapid, to launch his political career at the head of an anti-chareidi party by tarring the entire chareidi community with the reprehensible behavior of some members of the “Yerushalmi” community.

Lipman has been an outspoken supporter of the Women of the Wall, disingenuously brandishing in the Knesset an old photo of men and women silently praying at the Kosel, without a mechitzah between them, to prove that the Kosel lacks the status of a bais haknesses. He failed to mention that the photo was from the period of the British Mandate, when the authorities banned a mechitzah and shofar blowing on Rosh Hashanah as well. The self-proclaimed goal of WoW is to “liberate” the Kosel from the shackles of the religious establishment and to liberate Orthodox women as well by providing models of women taking charge of their own religious experiences by imitating men.

Lipman has personally come out in favor of the most minimal standards for “kabbolas mitzvos” for conversion. It is enough, he argues, that the would-be convert take on a few basic mitzvos of identification, such as fasting on Yom Kippur and lighting candles on leil Shabbos. That position runs contrary to every major contemporary posek.

Unfortunately, Lipman continues to try to wreak havoc in the chareidi world, while spewing his anti-chareidi rhetoric at every opportunity and to whoever will listen.

{Gavriel Sitrit-Matzav.com Newscenter}


17 COMMENTS

  1. He is a RASHA BEN RASHA!!! To be so close to the Geula/Mashiach, and this Rasha is attacking Torah?!!! Pheh! What’s worse, is that he is a shona upiraish! Like Haman Harasha, he is takeh a lowly street sweeper.

  2. Remind me who is Dov Lipman again? I vaguely remember someone with that name. Is he trying to keep his nominal relevancy?

  3. No one in the charedi community has yet provided intellectual retorts to the actual issues and problems Lipman identified in our communities. All anyone in our community has done is cry heretic and bash him.
    It seems that we are all supposed to pretend, hide and create images but let substance itself rot in certain areas. Why not disagree with Lipmans hashkofos , spell out the gedolims hashkofos in clear terms and then bravely and openly discuss the big issues in our community.
    Let’s ask our gedolim and get the answers. Problem is that this isn’t happening, at least large scale. Pls be honest and don’t comment that the gedolim have given previse unified directions on all these topics and have arranged to enforce en massse. We can dislike and disagree with Lipman but still be smart enough to listen to and evaluate for ourselves under our hashkofos the points he raises.

  4. # 14 there are certain rules in yidiskait that don’t need to be clarified such as oy lerasha voh lscheno Lipman identifies himself with Lapid a man who has caused such pain and suffering to Klal Yisroel That Rav ovadia Yosef Z”l said more pain than his own childs petirah
    seems very clear to me he is a RASHA

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