For the past 12 years, Rabbi Uri Maklev has served as a Knesset member for Degel HaTorah, which, together with the chassidic-oriented Agudat Yisrael, comprises the Yahadut HaTorah (United Torah Judaism) party.
He was close to Rav Elazar Shach (1899-2001) – he actually helped him form Degel HaTorah in 1988 – as well as Rav Yosef Shalom Elyashiv and Rav Aharon Shteinman. Today, he is close to Rav Chaim Kanievsky and Rav Gershon Edelstein. Seeking to gain greater insight into the “Litvish” view on Israeli politics, The Jewish Press recently spoke with Rabbi Maklev.
The Jewish Press: What is Degel HaTorah’s view of the State of Israel?
Rabbi Maklev: Leading up to the creation of Medinat Yisrael and afterward, the official Zionist establishment scorned and belittled Judaism and Torah-true Jews and even tried to uproot belief from the hearts of Jews. Regarding this form of Zionism – which negates the eternal truth of the Torah – we are opposed.
At the same time, it must be remembered that the first pioneers who returned to Eretz Yisrael in modern times were charedi Jews, students of the Vilna Gaon. Moshavim were established by religious Jews, many of whom sacrificed their lives draining disease-ridden swamps or were murdered by Arab marauders while working in their fields. No one can preach to us about building the Land. Ben Gurion himself worked on a moshav founded by religious Jews.
We have a great love for Zion. But we reject a political Zionism that seeks to separate Judaism from a Jewish government in the Land of Israel and that endeavors to weaken and eradicate our allegiance to the Torah.
We don’t take a part in the leadership of the state nor identity with the state on an ideological basis. If the Left hadn’t been the so-called founders of the state, with their anti-religious bias, things might have been different. With the rise of Menachem Begin and the leadership of the Right, the situation became immensely better. But we still have a long way to go.
But you are an integral part of Israel’s government. You sit in the Knesset, you are represented in political coalitions, etc.
Before the founding of the state, the Jewish Agency approached the United Nations and asked to be recognized as the body that represents the Jews in Palestine. The UN refused, stating that the Jewish Agency didn’t represent the large ultra-Orthodox community, so Ben Gurion had to come to us for our agreement, which we made conditional on three basic demands – that Shabbos be guarded in all public and government matters; that we have our own independent charedi system of education; and that matters surrounding marriage and divorce, and the like, be based on halacha.
That was the beginning of the status-quo that is being consistently violated these days and that continues to exist only due to the influence of the charedi parties, which are engaged in a constant war to defend the Jewish character of the state against enemies of Judaism who seek to terminate our influence and silence the voice of Torah in a great variety of ways.
What kind of ways?
The drafting of charedim into the army is one example. Besides uprooting Torah students from their learning, in whose merit the entire nation of Israel is blessed, and for which we owe whatever successes we have achieved in the country to date, it is almost impossible to keep the Torah in the anti-Torah atmosphere of the Israeli army.
Even the dati-leumi community is up in arms against all the liberal “educational” and feminist programs that have found their way into the IDF via the leftist elite whose poisonous influence has continued to reign since the beginnings of the state, and through the pressure of reform movements and an inpouring of enormous funds from anti-Israel groups overseas.
These so called “enlightened” movements have also gotten their tentacles into the Israeli school system and pressure independent charedi schools via the secular courts to adopt secular courses of study. How can it be that there are leaders of political parties, like Lapid and Lieberman, in a country that calls itself the Jewish state who express rabid anti-Semitism against the charedim that is as ugly as the worst hatred of Jews amongst the goyim?
They slander the charedim, mock Judaism, and seek to impose new laws to turn Israel into a completely secular country, allowing hundreds of thousands of gentiles into the state from Russia, and constantly gnawing away at the few halachic laws that we have managed to preserve on a national public level, like kashrut and Shabbat, and the laws of marriage and conversion.
Some commentators on the charedi-secular battles over drafting charedim is really political in nature since the IDF doesn’t need them.
It doesn’t. We live in an age of technology. Wars are won by missiles, advanced aircraft systems, and computer science. Israel has enough soldiers without enlisting the charedim. Official military documents reveal that within the next few years, the IDF will have more soldiers than it knows what do with because of the new age of warfare.
Under the banner of an “equal share of the burden,” the secular community seeks to place charedi youth in an environment diametrically opposed to spiritual growth, to purposely weaken their faith. Certainly the country needs a strong army, but it needs an army of Torah scholars as well. The Torah is the soul of Am Yisrael and the source of our material and physical blessing. Yissachar and Zevulun – each in his own place.
The dati-leumi community views army service as a mitzvah beholden upon everyone. They see it as a fulfillment of the commandment to conquer and dwell in the Land of Israel and defend the Jewish people against enemies who rise up against it.
The dati-leumi community has a different ideology than we do. They embrace the state in all of its facets and try to influence it from within. But we see the turmoil today within the Religious-Zionist movement, the in-fighting and division, the breakdown in leadership, the inability to stop the onslaught of liberal ideology that has seeped into their educational institutions and the army, their frustration that the leftist army echelon won’t let kippot srugot join the general command, and the absurdity of some of their leading political representatives favoring changes in marriage and conversions and not even being religious themselves.
They reach out to include the Reform movement, which seeks to destroy Judaism from within. In the last election, the more Torah-minded segment in the Religious-Zionist camp called for people to vote for us, understanding that we alone remain the guardians of both the Torah and Eretz Yisrael. Our way has proven to be the right path.
That’s why in the previous election, we opened our doors to our dati-leumi brothers who want to guard the way of Torah and our sovereignty over Eretz Yisrael, and that’s why we call upon everyone who wants to preserve a rightist government from the dangers of the Left – even those who don’t agree with all of our beliefs – to vote for United Torah Judaism in the upcoming election.
You speak of Israel not properly reflecting Torah values, but one hardly ever hears the charedi community talk about turning Israel into a Torah state. Such calls only come from certain segments of the dati-leumi camp.
Why speak about it when there is no one to talk to? At the moment, the subject is completely not relevant. Talking about it does more damage than good as it merely increases the lies and incitement against us.
The people who speak about a halachic state don’t know what they’re talking about. It isn’t a question of adding more religious judges and deciding court cases according to Jewish law. It means re-establishing the Sanhedrin with all the repercussions, including punishments for transgressors.
The people who make headlines for themselves in the name of a Torah state don’t understand a thing. With the return of the Kingdom of David, the situation will come to pass. Of course we yearn for a Torah kingdom as promised, but to turn it into a matter of public debate serves no positive purpose.
Last week, 40 world leaders gathered in Jerusalem to show respect for the Jewish people and to vow to wage a war against anti-Semitism. Do you see in this historic gathering a fulfillment of biblical prophecies, a sign of atchalta d’Geulah?
What prophecy is there in this? What atchalta d’Geulah? The prophets of Israel spoke about the nations of the world coming to the Beit HaMikdash, not to Yad Vashem. They spoke about the Sanhedrin and a national return to the Torah, while the majority of Israel’s leaders don’t observe Shabbos, and Judaism is viewed as outdated dribble, Heaven forbid.
The prophet Yishiyahu forecasts the day when the non-Jews will come to Jerusalem to learn the ways of Hashem. Who is going to teach them today – Lieberman and Lapid?
Still the world gathering in Jerusalem was not an everyday event.
I don’t mean to minimize the truly amazing fact that not only did the leaders of European countries who despised the Jewish people 75 year ago gather in Jerusalem to pay homage to Israel, but so did the leaders of countries from India to Japan. They recognize the miracle that, from the ashes and valley of dry bones of the Holocaust, Israel has become one of the most prosperous and powerful nations in the world.
The Left has exerted an enormous effort to bring down Netanyahu, but with the help of Heaven, he has managed to win world respect for the nation in Zion. I don’t think he attributes this all to the physical might of Tzahal and to the strength of our hands. He understands that he is a shliach dependent on the help of Heaven.
Without a doubt, we have witnessed miracle after miracle since the Holocaust in our victories over enemies who want to destroy us and in the economic rebirth of the Land, but to say that this is geulah – a Jewish State where the Torah and its faithful adherents are scorned by a large segment of the country and where public bus lines operate in Tel Aviv on Shabbat while the government turns a blind eye to this national chillul Hashem – this claim of geulah is, in our opinion, unfounded.
Do you recommend that Jews in the diaspora make aliyah?
Everyone has to examine his own situation. Certainly we encourage all Jews to make aliyah. There are thriving Torah communities in the Holy Land where a Jew can live a completely kosher life.
There are challenges and battles and spiritual dangers, but those dangers exist in the Diaspora as well. The more religious Jews here, the more the Torah community will influence the future of the State – that’s a certainty.
What’s your prediction concerning the upcoming election?
Unfortunately, Netanyahu hasn’t been able to shift the focus away from the criminal charges against him to his economic and international achievements. Bibi could return to Israel with a free, unconditional grant of 100 billion dollars from the U.S. Treasury and the Left would still hate him. That’s why we are praying for another miracle to keep the Right in power.