The following opinion piece was authored By D. Stein, Matzav.com
Over recent months, attention has been drawn to the World Zionist Organization elections. The WZO is an organization comprised mostly of Americans who identify as Reform and Progressive Jews whose agenda is to infiltrate Israeli society and do away with much of the chareidi influence when it comes to policymaking.
Every five years, the WZO holds elections to determine the makeup of the organization, which decides on policy and funding distributions. A question arose as to whether Torah Jews should participate in these elections, thus gaining a presence in the organization. Unfortunately, there has been much misinformation spread recently, some of it deliberately, so the following article will seek to provide a comprehensive background of this issue and clarity as to what is at stake and what the current gedolei Eretz Yisroel have advise.
To comprehend the question at hand, we must first understand the situation years ago and the situation now.
Zionism was founded during the time of Rav Yehoshua Leib Diskin zt”l and the Bais Halevi zt”l. The point was to help Jews leave Europe and settle in Eretz Yisroel, which was then under Turkish control. The movement was shunned by the gedolei Torah for several reasons, first and foremost because it was not only secular but also anti-Torah. There was a yishuv in Yerushalayim, and the Zionists’ focus was on other cities and farmland, but they also tried to settle in Yerushalayim. The old system was to send money to support the yishuv in Eretz Yisroel and the Zionists looked to fund moving there and building the roots of what became the state of Israel. All this was done without consultation of gedolim and rabbonim, and the Zionists even undermined their authority and the hold that halacha had on the kehillos in Eretz Yisroel.
The rest is history.
Rav Yehoshua Leib Diskin moved to Yerushalayim and established a bais din that would avoid any connection with the Zionists. Later, the Chazon Ish arrived in Bnei Brak and led the klal in the direction of association with the state in a cautiously cordial relationship which was accepted by Agudas Yisroel.
At that time, the entire state was under the firm grip of the Histadrut, known as the World Zionist Organization. They were in the government as the left, and they had control of the banks, education, land, hospitals, industry, trade – basically everything. They also had control of the state affairs outside of Eretz Yisroel through the Jewish Agency and the Jewish National Fund.
The famous Law of Education of ’52, which led Rav Aharon Kotler zt”l to form Chinuch Atzmai, was primarily intended to destroy the Histadrut’s biggest threat and political enemy, known as the Revisionists. As the game played out, the Revisionists came to power and began to “send the train down the same tracks in the opposite direction.” Gedolei Yisroel recognized the opportunity to help the Torah community and directed Agudas Yisroel to join with them in the government. They saw the loosening of the Zionists’ grip on the country as a positive development.
Soon after, the left was forced into a power-sharing arrangement with the right. After some back and forth, the prime minister came to power as a Revisionist protégé and embarked on privatization of the government-owned assets. This led to the prosperity we now see in Eretz Yisroel. However, as the economy boomed, the Zionists’ decline became more accelerated, because they could no longer explain to their rank-and-file members why they needed to own and control everything, nor could they address why during the thirty years that they ruled everything, the government and the economy were broken and corrupt and why all that changed when they lost their power. Anyone remember the Shekel Chadash scandal?
In the summer of 2007, the straw that broke the camel’s back of the Histadrut was when the Knesset passed a law that the Histadrut may no longer make unlimited and undisclosed withdrawals from the Central Bank. The Histadrut since then underwent a major shift in focus and policy, as it had to adapt to an open and highly competitive education and economy inside Eretz Yisroel and a high rate of intermarriage – or no marriage at all – among its donor base of secular Jews in the Diaspora.
The first to recognize this weakness within the World Zionist Organization were the American Reform Jews. They had been battling the kiruv and chinuch systems in the Israeli courts and saw an opportunity to establish a concurrent presence in Eretz Yisroel. True, the government would fund Torah learning, but, so they claimed, they, too, were an alternative to the real thing. Backed by 152 out of their 500 delegates to the World Zionist Organization who were assigned to America and were up for grabs in the 2015 election, they forced their way into the state as a side-by-side alternative to the true Torah, something that was unheard of in the days of the Brisker Rov zt”l, Rav Elazar Menachem Man Shach zt”l and Rav Yosef Shalom Elyashiv zt”l. The medinah that the Neturei Karta battled was secular, yet it funded true Torah and only true Torah. Suddenly, this was a new threat that, through lobbying and litigation, was trying to prevent the growth of the teshuvah movement in Eretz Yisroel. This is why the current threat is primarily about military draft, geirus, kashrus, chinuch, religious affairs and the Rabbanut. The government is involved in these issues and the Reform are trying to force the government to recognize them and give them a place in Eretz Yisroel’s society, education, community and politics because of their position in the WZO, which is the forbearer of the state and still controls the land, the immigration and other institutions, which are so powerful inside the state and abroad.
Rabbi Pesach Lerner, former Vice President of Young Israel has registered the Eretz Hakodesh slate in the WZO elections, which aims to guarantee the kedusha of Eretz Yisroel. Rav Lerner traveled to Eretz Yisroel and visited Rav Gershon Edelstein and Rav Chaim Kanievsky to present his plan. They gave him a brocha to be successful in his fight against the Reform.
The popular Orthodox delegates Rabbi Lerner has lined up will do their utmost to continue the WZO’s mission of helping Jews who are making aliyah and for qualifying mosdos to get the funding they are entitled to. The uninvited and unencumbered thrust of the Reform inside of Eretz Yisroel which has caught the unprepared secular Israeli society off guard must be challenged. By investing 2 minutes and for a nominal fee of $7.50, which covers the cost of taking and counting the votes, one can have a share in building Eretz Hakodesh the Torah way.
{D. Stein-Matzav.com Newscenter}
