Israel Matzav

Does Naftali Bennett listen to his rabbis?

If Bayit Yehudi (Jewish Home) leader Naftali Bennett listens to some of the leading rabbis of the National Religious community, he's not likely to make that deal with Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid that one won't go into the government without the other. This is from the first link.

Rabbi Tzafaniya Drori, the municipal rabbi of Kiryat Shmona and a leading figure in the national-religious world, said on Wednesday that any plan to increase haredi enlistment by coercive or forceful methods would cause upheaval in Israeli society and wouldn’t work.

“Even [Yesh Atid chairman Yair] Lapid knows this,” Drori said. “Maybe his current position is a negotiating tactic, because anyone who goes down the path of coercion doesn’t understand Israeli society,” he continued.

The rabbi said that the plan proposed by Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya’alon of the Likud was a “more realistic” approach to increasing the number of haredim performing various forms of national service, and that the national-religious rabbinic leadership was strongly opposed to the idea of imposing quotas on the number of yeshiva students able to get exemptions from military service in order to study full time.

Drori emphasized the importance of physical and economic security alongside the spiritual well-being of the state, and added that Bennett “had been even sharper than me” in his defense of the importance of preserving Torah study in Israel.

He also noted that the rabbinic leadership was in ongoing contact with the Bayit Yehudi political leadership.

Rabbi Shlomo Aviner, municipal rabbi of Beit El, dean of the Ateret Yerushalayim Yeshiva in the Old City of Jerusalem and another leading figure in the national-religious community, similarly rejected the idea of imposing a universal draft on haredi yeshiva students but said it was a mitzva, a religious obligation in Jewish law, to serve in the army in order to protect Jewish lives, protect the Land of Israel and sanctify God’s name.

“We need to gain the trust of the haredi world and the deans of their yeshivas, in order to get more haredi men to enlist and we need to be tolerant because coercion won’t work,” said Aviner, adding that “men of faith and spirituality” were vital to the state.

Now, if only the Prime Minister would get over his wife's pique (Bennett had to publicly apologize to her before Netanyahu made Jewish Home the last party with which he met), maybe we could get down to the business of forming a government.

What could go wrong?

Labels: Binyamin Netanyahu, Haredim, IDF, Naftali Bennett, Yair Lapid

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:21 PM