Last week, media outlets in Israel reported that Mickey Zohar of Likud met with leaders of the Noam Party in an effort to persuade them to withdraw from the elections since surveys indicate that the new party won’t pass the voter threshold.
Likud supposedly offered to cancel all agreements regarding the mixed-gender prayer area at the Kotel and all proposals to allow lenient conversions under a new government-appointed committee rather than the Israel Chief Rabbinate.
The Jewish Press spoke with Rabbi Dror Aryeh, head of the Noam Party, to learn more.
The Jewish Press: Are the media reports true?
Rabbi Aryeh: There was a meeting with a Likud representative, but I can’t discuss the details. We turned down whatever proposals they made. Obviously, we can’t trust Likud with protecting the religious sanctity of the Kotel or with preserving the Laws of Conversion.
It is precisely to guard the Jewish identity of the country and to uphold the holy lifestyle of the Jewish nation that Noam seeks representation in the Knesset.
Can’t Rabbi Rafi Peretz and Bezalel Smotrich of the Yemina party be trusted to guard those Jewish values?
They are both praiseworthy individuals, but they are not in charge of their party. They surrendered control to Ayalet Shaked and Naftali Bennett.
Shaked is not religious, and Bennett has consistently expressed his support for the goals of the Conservative and Reform movements, instituting new prayer arrangements at the Kotel in opposition to the Chief Rabbi’s office and allowing all sorts of liberal, pluralistic, anti-Torah platforms to infiltrate the school system in Israel while he was the Minister of Education.
Can you be more specific?
The New Israel Fund, and other radical left wing organizations in conjunction with the European Union, invest over $30 million every year to influence the educational programs of Israel’s schools. Fifty percent of school principals in Israel attend seminars run by the New Israel Fund. Over 400 graduates of the leftist Mandel Fund hold authoritative positions throughout the school system.
A large percentage of textbooks are supplied to the school system by the New Israel Fund, and 50 percent of the ones on Jewish culture are written by the Conservative movement. Teacher guides supplied by pluralistic organizations have been made compulsory for secular and religious schools alike, beginning in kindergarten. This material fosters positive perspectives on homosexuality, same-gender parenting, and Arab-Jewish marriages – all approved by former Minister of Education Naftali Bennett.
[Upon the suggestion of the Noam party leader, The Jewish Press took a look at the colorfully illustrated book, Everyone and His Family, which is taught to school-children in Israel. Among the families cheerfully pictured is one with two mothers. Here is a loose translation of one of the two-mother families described in the book:
[It’s true, sometimes I want to complain/ The feeling at home is too much the same/ And so I ask that if my mothers have time/ They bring me a brother who will be all mine/ Mother One laughs without getting mad/ And says, don’t be upset, it isn’t so bad/ Ask Mother Two to see if it’s fine/ It’s her turn today to be your mother, not mine.]
How do you explain the fact that a group of leading dati-leumi rabbis have publicly endorsed Yemina?
You will have to ask them. Perhaps they fear we won’t pass the election threshold and that the votes cast for our party will be wasted. But allow me to stay that many other leading rabbis have come out in support for Noam.
Before Election Day, if it seems Noam won’t receive enough votes to get elected, what will you do?
We will drop out of the race. But at the moment, we believe we have a chance. The average Israeli citizen is upset with the nefarious, foreign and leftist effort to liberalize the country and to forcefully change the Jewish identity of the state.
People understand the importance of maintaining the age-old belief in family normalcy with a father and a mother, as opposed to Parent One and Parent Two. Twenty years ago, who would have thought that the Israel Supreme Court would ban a sign saying: “Abba and Ima – that’s normal”?
These same anti-Jewish forces have infiltrated Tzahal as well. We have been conducting a country-wide telephone campaign to determine how many people are planning to vote for us. If we don’t reach the needed number, we will rescind our bid until the next trip to the polls, but our fight for the purity of our nation will continue.