The other wild thing that happened last night is MK Yisroel Eichler responded to PM Benjamin Netanyahu's comment about Uman.
Netanyahu had commented that it is dangerous to go to Uman and people need to be safe and responsible, and he also said that God hasnt always protected us, especially in Europe.
Eichler flipped out, as he is wont to do. Eichler went on an anti-Zionist screed that would put Satmar to shame. The only thing he forgot is that he and his friends swerve in the Israeli government and have representatives in WZO and perhaps it is time to put the fight from 80 years ago to bed.
So that I did not have to translate it, I took the recap of what Eichler said from
Times of Israel:
Eichler wrote that “for over a century, the God of Israel has saved the Land of Israel from the idolatry of power, vulgarity and assimilation of the secular regime.”
The Germans were halted on the way to conquer Israel by extraordinary miracles, not because of the Zionists, Eichler argued.
He went on to claim that the Zionists had in fact turned their backs on the Jews of Europe, thwarted rescue attempts and disdained “the Jews of the ghettos,” while adding that some had collaborated as Judenrat. Eichler said that the once-revered military had been revealed in its “incompetence and contemptibleness” in the Yom Kippur War in 1973, and that former top generals who oppose the current government’s judicial overhaul had recently shown themselves to be “rebels” who are “inciting a bloody [civil] war” in the country and giving it a bad name abroad “like the worst of our Islamic enemies.”
“When you see who the generals were, you realize that only thanks to the miracles of God Almighty do we survive,” Eichler fired.
He added that “some Zionists even called the Jews in the ghettos ‘Human dust, they should meet their fate.'”
“Be silent when you blame the God of Israel for your failures and crimes,” he declared. “If it weren’t for those who keep the Torah, Israel would have long ago been erased from the map of the Middle East.”
Just like the Zionists were not able to stop the Holocaust, neither were the Torah learners. We dont know why God sent us that punishment, and it does not serve Eichler well to blame it on the Zionists. Also, being a Belzer chassid, he should be grateful that the Zionists saved his rebbe, the Belzer Rebbe, who escaped Europe at the last moment through Hungary after having been granted a travel certificate from the Jewish Agency that were supposed to go to Zionists.
Regardless, the battle he is screaming about is one that took place back in the 1940s and is really irrelevant today. Today Eichler himself, and his other anti/non/somewhat Zionist peers serve in the Knesset and represent the government themselves! And as much as the State of Israel has supported Torah learning and helped it flourish over the past 50-70 years, this now is a government that is supporting Torah learning at unprecedented levels. Eichler would do well to take a breath. He can oppose what Netanyahu said without losing his mind.
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The fact that those who followed treif Zionism all survived and those who followed "da'as Torah" all died is a theological problem charedim have yet to face up to.
ReplyDeleteBoth of your "alls" are wrong - plenty of Zionists were murdered in the Holocaust, and plenty of adherents of "Daas Torah" survived.
DeleteYeah, I figured you would say that. But no. People who followed Zionism through and moved to Israel almost all survived. The only attack on Israel was an Italian air raid on Tel Aviv- attacked as it was British territory, not Jewish- which killed over a hundred people.
DeleteWhereas the vast majority of those who listed to the "gedolim" and stayed in Europe were murdered.
Yeah, lots of Zionists were killed, many of them serving as soldiers under the British and fighting the Nazis.
DeleteIn the Zionist community there was a debate, yes: concentrate on building up and protecting the Yishuv or devote resources to rescuing Jews from Europe. In the end both were done.
ReplyDeleteIn Eicheler's community, there was no debate - his "Gedolim" told their followers to sit put and say tehillim, then got on trains and boats and ran to Israel.
And in the case of the Belzer Rebbe, went back and edited from his speech the part where he told the Jews of Hungary to stay put and they would be safe, and saying he was going to Israel only because he loved it so much. The published version has "...and here the Rebbe talked about his love for Israel..."
DeleteIt was his brother's speech, citing his brother at one point.
DeleteWell said, Rafi. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteThe most puzzling thing is Eichler and other Haredi spokespersons ignoring the umpteen references in Tanach and throughout Jewish history to Hester Panim. Did they skip over those parts in their Cheder? Bibi's basic point is that we can't rely on miracles, and one shouldn't put oneself into harm's way: that is kind of Judaism 101. How are they all getting this so wrong??
ReplyDelete