They have reopened their Facebook page - the same one they used prior to the last elections after which they shut it down - and have started posting election campaign material to the page. After a little bit of controversy among the UTJ activists as to whether or not they should use this presence and if it is official, they decided to keep it active because some Haredim are using the social media sites even if they should not be and UTJ does not want to give upon even a single vote they believe should be going to them.
Today UTJ posted an attack on Betzalel Smotrich (Habayit Hayehudi) on their FB page.
They posted two quotes from Smotrich, each said just a couple of days apart form the other.
"Last Friday Smotrich said - we have to protect the Kotel according to halacha and the customs as determined by the Chief Rabbinate"
"On Sunday Smotrich said - 30 years of Haredi rule in the Chief Rabbinate has brought about a chilul hashem"
What happened in between? There was a poll that showed the movement of half a mandate from Habayit Hayehudi to Feiglin's party and that caused him to lose all his values and express an irresponsible denigration of the Chief Rabbinate.
Betzalel, you need to decide: the Rabbanut or polls?
The truth is those two statements are not contradictory. One can believe that the Chief Rabbinate should have the ultimate authority in setting rules and customs and behavior at the Kotel must follow those rules. At the same time, one can also believe that the people controlling the rabbinate have been doing so improperly and have caused a chilul hashem. According to Smotrich the control of the Chief Rabbinate must return to Religious Zionist hands (he said so explicitly - they only quoted the part of what he said that was relevant to them) and they will bring the Rabbinate back to its former glory. All the while, the rules of the Chief Rabbinate at the Kotel must be adhered to. No contradiction at all.
I get that they do not like that Smotrich was criticizing them and Shas for corrupt rule over the Chief Rabbinate (a period of time that has seen the decline in the authority of the Chief Rabbinate, has seen a Chief Rabbi go to jail, has seen numerous fights and scandals within), and they can fight back, but what he said was not in any way a contradiction. The Chief Rabbinate is in charge, but is currently corrupt and causing a chilul hashem. If he would say the CHief Rabbinate should not be listened to but ignored, because it is corrupt, he would lose its audience forever. Even if/when Smotrich leads the way in fixing the Chief Rabbinate (haha) and turns it into a model organization, if he says now that everyone should ignore them, he will not later have anyone following them. Nobody will come back once they have left.
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