CLOSE-UP
`In Separation
There Is Strength'
Orthodoxy's aggressive lobby, Agudath Israel of
America, is establishing a Washington office,
and the organization is accustomed to playing
hardball for its strong conservative views.
JAMES D. BESSER
Washington Correspondent
n Orthodoxy, the tension between in-
volvement and insularity is an age-
old story. On one hand, observant
Jews have always sought to insulate
themselves from a hostile and im-
pure outside world. But in a pluralistic
society—and in a democracy in particular
—insularity is a luxury few groups can
afford.
Agudath Israel of America, the 66 year-
old Orthodox group, walks this precarious
line with agility. In the last few years,
Agudah representatives have played poli-
tical hardball on Capitol Hill with an effec-
tiveness that makes their opponents in the
liberal Jewish organizations gnash their
teeth.
The right wing of Orthodox Jewry is
flexing its political muscle with new
authority, and Agudath Israel is at the
head of the pack. According to both sup-
porters and opponents, the group's effec-
tiveness is directly tied to the clarity and
pinpoint focus of its message. "We're not
all over the board," says David Zwiebel,
director of the group's Office of Govern-
ment Affairs. "We work on issues that have
a very direct connection to our member-
ship."
Rabbi Moshe Sherer, Agudath Israel's
longtime leader and one of the most
charismatic figures in modern Judaism,
suggests a deeper cause of the group's
straight-ahead momentum.
"We are committed to the very idea that
decisions in Jewish life all stem from cer-
tain outlooks," he says. "The important
decisions in Jewish life should be made by
those who have the credentials, on the
I
24
FRIDAY, JULY 1, 1988
basis of their wide knowledge of the total-
ity of Jewish history and Jewish life. We're
opposed to the current system—where
serious decisions are made by officers
whose only credentials are that they are
major contributors."
It is the Torah scholars and rabbinical
sages who make the decisions for Agudath
Israel.
The Spirit Of Torah
Formed in 1912 in Kattowitz, a small
Polish town near the border with Germany,
the organization was charged with creating
a central body uniting the different fac-
tions of Orthodox Jewry, and to bring
together under a single umbrella Jews from
Eastern European shtetls and cosmopoli-
tan cities in the West.
Agudath Israel was designed to provide
a central reference point for the application
of Torah principles to the demands of
everyday living in the different environ-
ments in which Jews found themselves.
The goal, according to the founders, was
"the solution of all problems facing the
Jewish people, in the spirit of Tbrah."
The new organization was also a
response to the growth of secular Zionism.
From the beginning, Agudath Israel
fought ferociously against what they
regarded as a rejection of Torah by leaders
of the Zionist movement.
The clearest expression of Agudah's
unique approach was its Moetzes Gedolei
HaTorah, the Council of Torah Sages, the
panel of top rabbinical sages who set policy
for the group. (The late Rabbi Jacob Ruder-
man, who headed the Ner Israel Rabbinical
College here, was a member of the Council
until his death last summer.) Even today,
the Council determines Agudath Israel's
positions on every important public policy
issue.
Agudath Israel of America was founded
in 1922 in response to the same pressures
on Jewish life—and in particular to the
lack of yeshivas in this country. It came in-
to its own as an organization in the terri-
ble days of World War II, when it played
an important role in rescue and resettle-
ment activities. In working to save
Europe's tortured Jews, Agudah leaders
began the serious cultivation of useful con-
tacts in the federal government.
This period also shaped the attitudes of
Rabbi Sherer, Agudath Israel's longtime
president, who attended Ner Israel Rab-
binical College in Baltimore. "In Baltimore
I saw Orthodox Jews who were looked on
as second-class Jews by the Jewish
establishment," he says. "Especially in the
war years, when they were so concerned
with laws, with regulations. I felt we
needed an arm so the Orthodox would
speak with clarity and integrity. I saw the
price we paid because of those who put
technicality and laws in front of Jewish
survival."
The theme of the abandonment of
Europe's Jews by the mainline organiza-
tions is a thread that still runs through the
group's activities. With anger undiminish-
ed by the passage of more than three
decades, Sherer tells about the time
Agudah offices were picketed by members
of the American Jewish Congress—
because Agudath Israel was smuggling
food packages to Jews in the Warsaw
Ghetto, a technical violation of the boycott
against Germany.
Today, Agudath Israel's activities en-
compass the whole range of Jewish life.
The group is the hub of a network of