100%

Scanned image of the page. Keyboard directions: use + to zoom in, - to zoom out, arrow keys to pan inside the viewer.

Page Options

Share

Something wrong?

Something wrong with this page? Report problem.

Rights / Permissions

The University of Michigan Library provides access to these materials for educational and research purposes. These materials may be under copyright. If you decide to use any of these materials, you are responsible for making your own legal assessment and securing any necessary permission. If you have questions about the collection, please contact the Bentley Historical Library at bentley.ref@umich.edu

October 29, 1993 - Image 57

Resource type:
Text
Publication:
The Detroit Jewish News, 1993-10-29

Disclaimer: Computer generated plain text may have errors. Read more about this.

A Religious
Dove Keeps
The Faith

LARRY DERFNER ISRAEL CORRESPONDENT

Rabbi Yehuda Amital, head of
Israel's largest hesder yeshiva,
values peace over land.

t was the sort of event that was
bound to attract trouble. Hun-
dreds of religious gathered in
Jerusalem "to give religious le-
gitimacy to the peace process
and the agreement with the
PLO."
Foreign Minister Shimon
Peres was the guest of honor.
Almost inevitably, dozens of
Kach members barged into the
hall, roughed up a number of
the participants, turned over
their tables, cursed them as
"traitors," and, for good mea-
sure, jumped on Mr. Peres' car
as he was being driven away.
Rabbi Yehuda Amital has
put the memories of the melee
behind him. After Mr. Peres, he
was the "headliner" of the
evening, probably the leading
pioneer of Israel's religious
peace camp. As such, he is used
to catching flak from the right.
"Every attack strengthens
me," said the smiling, 69-year-
old Rabbi Amital during an in-
terview.
What makes Amital such an
irksome opponent is his impec-
cable credentials as a religious
Zionist. He is founder and co-
head of Alon Shout's Yeshivat
Har Etzion, Israel's largest hes-
der yeshiva, where young Or-
thodox men combine yeshiva
study with army service. He sits
in his yeshiva in one of the ma-
jor Jewish settlements, train-

ing thousands of youths, main-
ly from the West Bank and
Jerusalem, in devotion to the
Torah and to defending Israel,
and now he gives his blessing
to the deal with the PLO.
Rabbi Amital, and the reli-
gious peace movement as a
whole, seem an anomaly in Is-
rael, especially these days,
when the modern Orthodox, or
"knitted kippah" Jews, are seen
as the foot soldiers in the right-
wing's fight against the gov-
ernment's accord with the PLO.
They are the rank-and-file of
the West Bank and Gaza set-
tlers, and the dominant pres-
ence in all the demonstrations
against the peace plan.
But it is difficult to say how
accurate this stereotype is. On
the one hand, religious Zionist
leaders have lined up against
the accord. The Knesset mem-
bers of the National Religious
Party are among the govern-
ment's most vehement oppo-
nents. Two previous chief
rabbis, Avraham Shapiro and
Mordechai Eliahu, turned up
together at one right-wing
protest, and another, Shlomo
Goren, declared it a mitzvah to
assassinate Yassir Arafat when
he arrives in Jericho.
Yet from conversations with
a number of "knitted kippa"
Jews, it is clear that not all of
them go to the anti-government

demonstrations, and that many
place a much higher value on
peace than on holding onto the
territories, whatever their bib-
lical significance.
For the last generation, these
religious doves have been po-
litically homeless — the NRP
has become too right wing for
them, while the dovish parties,
Labor and Meretz, are irreli-
gious. In the 1988 general elec-
tion, Rabbi Amital tried to give
these people a political address
when he founded the Meimad
(Dimension) Party. But it got
fewer than 20,000 votes and
failed to make it into the Knes-
set.

Rabbi Amital
believes diminishing
the physical threat
to the Jewish people
is the highest reli-
gious dictate.

He folded the party, but af-
ter Labor's victory in last year's
elections, he reconstituted
Meimad as a non-electoral
movement. Together with like-
minded religious activists in or-
ganizations such as Netivot
Shalom (Paths of Peace) and Oz
VShalom (Strength and Peace),
Rabbi Amital believes that now,
with the Israel-PLO accord, the
Orthodox peace camp's time
may have finally come.
It is no longer a matter of

preaching to the converted, he
says, but of making converts
among the movement's tradi-
tional opponents on the reli-
gious right, including the
settlers.
"The religious Zionist move-
ment is in a severe crisis. The
settlers see that their dream,
their enterprise, is collapsing,
and they are afraid that their
children will turn their backs
on Zionism, or become haredi,
or leave Judaism altogether. I
am trying to save their chil-
dren," he said.
Rabbi Amital's approach
combines the lessons of the
Torah and what he calls a "re-
alistic" reading of Israel's polit-
ical situation.
To begin with, he says, the
Torah teaches that preserving
the Jewish people is the high-
est value, higher than obser-
vance of the Torah or holding
onto the Land of Israel.
Moreover, he believes, the es-
calation of the intifada, corn-
bined with the growing threat
of Islamic extremism, make the
preservation of the status quo
a prescription for war. Thus, he
argues, diminishing the physi-
cal threat to the Jewish people
becomes the highest religious
dictate.
After Rabbi Amital articu-
lated this view in the mass cir-
culation Yediot Aharonot daily,
the NRP gave the religious
right's rebuttal in its newspa-
per, Hatsofeh. Politically, it said,
the creation of a Palestinian
state promised to bring more

RELIGIOUS DOVE page 58

Back to Top

© 2024 Regents of the University of Michigan