dividing the Haredi parties more or less

The division in UTJ between the Hassidic groups and between the Litvishe has always been based on an historical agreement from when they first agreed to run together in one unified party. For whatever reason, they agreed then that the Hassidic group, Agudat Yisrael, would get 2/3 and the Litvishe group, Degel HaTorah, would get 1/3. It is more complicated than that, as the gareement also includes order of representation and heads of organizations and other aspects, but I am fine keeping it simple here and just talking in general about the hassidic groups getting more representation than the Litvishe.

There are disputes as to why it happened. Some say it was a compromise to avoid a fight, as each group thought they were larger than the other and the Gerrer Rebbe at the time said this is how it will be so everyone else agreed to not fight about it any more. Others say it was based on an actual evaluation at the time of the size of each group.

However it originally happened, the Litvishe have not been too happy about it since then. Every so often we hear them threatening to pressure the hassidic groups to agree to adjust the numbers and to threaten with forcing some sort of a primary or registration that would show "once and for all" who is really the larger of the groups. Each side seems confident they would come out on top of such a process.

Over the past few days there has been the annual conference of Degel Hatorah taking place. The above has been one of the major topics under discussion, and the talk of a primary or registration process is happening again. As well, there is talk about setting up a committee to figure out the numbers of today and redivide the power and representation accordingly.

Interestingly enough, the talk is not just about power and representation, but the Degel people are talking about how they do not want to feel humiliated any longer and they want fair representation. It might just be hyperbole and grandstanding, or maybe they actually feel humiliated and mistreated. I don't know.

A couple of comments in particular that I came across I found particularly interesting.

1. Moshe Gafni spoke about how we will not continue being run by [rabbinic-hassidic] courts and groups, but will be established by a committee that will take into account real numbers.

2. Menachem Eliezer Mozes suggested that in such a registration process, anybody who has an iPhone (or any smartphone) should not be allowed to participate. It seems Mozes is betting that there are more smartphones in the Litvishe community than in the hassidic community.

Perhaps it is time to do away with such representation altogether. Both Gafni and Litzman, and [at least some of] the other Haredi MKs regularly talk about how they are not sectorial, how they work for everybody, etc. If a Haredi can work hard to improve the life of secular and dati, and secular MKs can work for the benefits of Haredim and Datiim, and Dati MKs can work for the benefits of Haredim and secular, so why do we need sectorial representation at all?

But let's say we are not going to go that far. While in the larger picture they can each help each other,  they still want representation. Ok, fair enough. But why does the Haredi community need to have separate representation for Litvishe and Hassidim? (I would add Sefardim to that list, but the Haredi Sefardim political parties are not in the same grouping because they are more connected to masorati communities and not specifically Haredi, so they are a bit different in how they function.)

Are the needs of the Hassidim and of the Litvishe really all that different, on a national level, that we need such division and fighting over representation? Everybody is anyways working for everybody else, so why not just call them Haredim instead of breaking them down further?

Why can they not form one large party for Haredim and have the gedolim appoint some sort of rabbinic council that will be in charge of the party and they will appoint the MKs based on ability rather than affiliation, or go to some sort of internal primary process? And the selected MKs and heads of organizations, would represent all Haredi interests.

And if not, why not let the hassidic courts continue to each want representation, no matter how large or how small? Why break it down to Degel, Gur, Shlomei Emunim and a few others and not give representation to Etz and a larger variety of Hassidic groups? If Degel can represent all Ltivishe, and Gur can represent all the large hassidic groups and Shlomei Emunim can represent the small hassidic groups, why can't we just put them all together and let them all represent each other?

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