Franklin Floor Covering
Presents
Family-Proof Floors.
Religious Alternatives
In The New Government
Shimon Peres is moving to bring politically
moderate Orthodox leaders into power.
ERIC SILVER SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS
y co-opting the moderate
Rabbi Yehuda Amital to
his Cabinet and opening a
dialogue with the Nation-
al Religious Party, Prime Minis-
ter Shimon Peres is throwing
religious Zionists a lifeline back
into the pragmatic world of de-
mocratic politics.
Rabbi Amital, head of the Har
Etzion yeshiva, is the inspiration
of Meimad, which ran on a plat-
form of land for peace in the 1988
elections, but failed to win a sin-
gle seat. It sat out the 1992 cam-
paign. He is the first Cabinet
minister in modem Israel with
no base in the Knesset.
By appointing him Minister
Without Portfolio, Mr. Peres is
signalling to anguished religious
Zionists, asking "Where did we
go wrong?" after the assassina-
tion of Yitzhak Rabin, that there
is an alternative to the messian-
ic zeal of the Gush Emunim set-
tlement lobby. And by inviting
the NRP to support the Govern-
ment, if only from outside the
coalition, the prime minister is
telling the party that it is not too-
late to revive the "historic al-
liance" under which NRP minis-
ters served in every Labour-led
government from 1948 to 1977.
It will not be easy for the NRP,
which campaigned as the party
of Greater Israel in the last two
elections. But its leader, Zevulun
Hammer, took a first step this
week by acknowledging that the
Oslo agreements with the Pales-
tine Liberation Organization are
here to stay.
"While we still do not support
the agreements," he said, "we
have to realize that they have be-
come a fact of life, and that we
shall never return to Jenin and
Jericho." Or, presumably, Nablus
and Bethlehem, Ramallah, Kalk-
iliya and Tulkarm, due to follow
them into Yassir Arafat's arms
by the end of the year.
Under the "historic alliance",
the NRP left foreign affairs and
defense to the likes of David Ben-
Gurion, Golda Meir and Moshe
Dayan.
It concentrated its energies on
keeping the Jewish state as Jew-
ish as possible. That meant pre-
serving the monopoly of the
Orthodox rabbinate and exacting
as much of the taxpayers' money
as it could for its Zionist-Ortho-
dox schools and yeshivas. Its
B
CELESTIAL
More Americans every year choose Congoleum - vinyl floors to
share all the bumps, spills, and splashes that make a house a
Now Only
home.That's no surprise. Because, in addition to a wide selection
of colors and designs, Congoleum no-wax vinyl floors feature
?erPsq. Yd.
exceptional durability and are easy to care for. Available in either
satin-gloss for superior stain resistance or high-gloss urethane
that virtually eliminates scuffs, Congoleum has the floors that
• SCUFF-TUFF Wearlayer
are just right for your home.
$27
FIRST QUALITY
Virtually Eliminates Scuffs
Congoleum
Floors For The Way You Ulm:
PLUS
WAREHOUSE CLEARANCE SALE
ON EVERY ROLL OR REMNANT
IN OUR STOCK, YOU
SAVE 40 TO 70% DEC.
rig
9, 1995
rTh
Floor Covering Pius, Inc.
64
2258 Franklin Road, Bloomfield Hills, MI 48302
1 block East of Telegraph, North of Square Lake Road
(810) 332-9430
Hours: MON. & WED. 9-7, TUE., THUR. & FRI. 9-6, SAT. 9-3
Eric Silver is a senior writer for
the Jerusalem Report.
charter was the "status quo" in
matters of synagogue and state,
a balance it did not hesitate to tilt
when coalition bargaining offered
the opportunity.
The NRP began to change af-
ter the 1967 Six-Day War. Rab-
bis and graduates of , Jerusalem's
Mercaz Ha-Rav yeshiva, inspired
by the writings of Avraham
Yitzhak Hacohen Kook, hailed Is-
rael's spectacular victory as an
act of divine providence. Rabbi
Kook, Ashkenazi chief rabbi of
British-ruled Palestine from 1921
to 1935, preached that the return
to the Land of Israel would has-
ten the coming of the Messiah.
His disciples saw the conquest of
the West Bank, the biblical Judea
and Samaria, as a message from
God.
During the 1970s, they rapid-
ly took over the party's growth
points in the schools, yeshivas
and B'nei Akiva youth move-
ment. Rabbi Yehuda Ben-Meir,
an NRP deputy minister in Mr.
Rabin's 1974 administration,
watched the process with mount-
ing dismay. He is now Rabbi
Amital's leadership partner in
Meimad.
"Their doctrine," he com-
plained this week, "was to take
one issue — maintaining every
inch of the Land of Israel — and
make all of Judaism revolve
around that issue ... They said
that rolling back settlements was
anti-God ... They did not accept
the democratic decision of the
people of Israel.
"After Yitzhak Rabin's victory
in the 1992 elections, all these
trends were exaggerated. Their
style became violent — total dele-
gitimation of the Government,"
he added.
What, then, was Meimad's al-
ternative?
"We do not accept that there is
a clear halachic position on the
territories," he said. "It's not a
question for the rabbis to decide."
Rather, he said, the key issue
facing Israel is that there is "a
misrepresentation of Jewish val-
ues. The Land of Israel is not the
supreme value. In the hierarchy
of values, the People of Israel
comes first, the Torah of Israel
second, and the Land of Israel
third. What is good for the people
and the state of Isra comes be-
fore Greater Eretz Yisrael.
'What differentiated religious
Zionism from the ultra-Orthodox
was our total, unequivocal iden-
tification with the state of Israel.