Taking Stock: Rosh Hashanah 5769

We entered the year 5768 immediately following my highly publicized primary bid for the Likud leadership. The months that followed did not have great electoral campaigns, but they were chock-full of steady outreach activity. My articles, television and radio interviews and, no less important, countless meetings with the Likud membership throughout Israel have significantly heightened public awareness and interest in the faith-based leadership alternative. The complimentary poll results and the enthusiasm with which our ideas are now greeted strengthen our confidence that we are definitely on the right track and always progressing.

Our support in the Likud is now very broad-based and is not at all limited to the people who registered for the Likud through Manhigut Yehudit. Our outreach within the Likud has spilled over into the rest of Israeli society. As I have written countless times before, the Likud is a microcosm of Israeli society at large. The processes developing in the Likud are also taking place throughout Israel. Many more challenges still await us as we aim for leadership of the Likud. But it is clear that the path from leadership of the Likud to leadership of the entire nation will be considerably shorter than the path to the top of the Likud has been.

We are at the threshold of a number of very important struggles. If no new government is formed soon in Israel, we will be going to general elections, which will be preceded by Likud primaries for the Knesset list. Even if a new government will be formed, its future is hazy and we will nevertheless need to prepare for Likud primaries – which will take place no later than a year from now.

If general elections are not held soon, the Likud will hold elections for the Likud Central Committee. We must prepare ourselves for this important race. The Likud Central Committee is a highly influential body. For example, when it became clear that Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposal to parachute non-Likud, leftist celebrities into the top slots in the Likud would never make it past the Likud Central Committee, the proposal evaporated. Currently, Manhigut Yehudit has a significant number of members on both the Central Committee and the various other Likud committees. It is of utmost importance that we increase our strength in these committees in order to gain even more influence.

Another challenge that awaits us in the New Year is the restoration to active status of those Manhigut Yehudit people who have let their Likud memberships lapse. The Likud secretariat has decided to allow those people who stopped paying their dues to renew their membership status and will permit them to vote immediately (without serving another 16-month waiting period).

Our political activism is creating a Jewish revolution. Slowly but surely, we are bringing about a changing of the guard, ridding Israel of the tired, faithless and uninspired leadership that has led the State of Israel to date. Slowly but surely, we are transferring the leadership of Israel away from the elite that has controlled us since the birth of Zionism. We are restoring this leadership to the Jewish majority. That is why the ruling elites are trying so hard to remove me from the Likud Knesset list. They want to preserve their control, and they see me as a threat to that control.

5769 will be a revolutionary year. We are doing all that we can to prepare for the greatest revolution of all – the faith-based revolution.

We sincerely thank the thousands of Manhigut Yehudit supporters who constantly inject us with the strength to continue our struggle to provide Israel with authentic Jewish leadership. May God bless you all with a year of good health, happiness and fulfillment, and may all your aspirations become reality in the very best way.

I pray that we will have the merit to lead our nation in the coming year with genuine love of Israel and complete loyalty to God, the Land of Israel and the nation of Israel.
Shanah Tovah U’metukah.