Creating a Modern Jewish Society

By Moshe Feiglin

And Moses said to his father in law: When the nation will come to me to seek G-d. When they have a matter they come to me and I judge between a man and his neighbor and I make them know the statutes of G-d and His laws. And the father in law of Moses said to him: It is not good this thing that you are doing. You will surely wear away, you and this nation that is with you because this matter is too heavy for you, you cannot do it alone.

(From this week's Torah portion Yitro, Exodus 18:15-18)

The verses above may be a record of the birth of the first bureaucracy in the Jewish nation. But they are much more than that. They record the fist ginger steps of a nation as it realizes that it is no longer just a group of individuals, but a multi-faceted society bursting with potential that needs to find the way to run a country. How will the individual with questions get answers from Moses when there are tens of thousands of others with questions, as well? How will the court system work? How will this large group of people create a Jewish economy? How will the individual feel direct responsibility toward society in a modern state with government-run mechanisms?

The Nation of Israel has returned to its Holy Land. The greatest innovation of Zionism is its demand to take responsibility, its understanding that the redemption of Israel will take place through human beings who will set very human processes in motion. Sadly, this understanding has not yet fully permeated all levels of religious Zionism. The Religious Zionists have dedicated their souls to the Zionist enterprise. But they have failed to lead it to the spiritual renaissance that is essential to the re-establishment of a Jewish State.

Many people and organizations are busy bringing Jewish individuals closer to their heritage. That is excellent. But Manhigut Yehudit is the only organized movement that strives to bring the Nation of Israel, our society, back to our Jewish heritage as a modern state. Our court system must be restructured to reflect our Jewish values. (Click here for more). Our economy needs to be updated and modified to reflect Jewish ethics. We must begin to implement the laws of interest, shmittah and Jubilee on the backdrop of a vibrant, modern economy. How do we, as a society, deal with poverty? These new facets of our culture will surely open vast new horizons in the way that we relate to the Torah, how the Torah relates to our society and how we relate to G-d.

There is nothing about the smooth running of our society that does not need to be re-examined through the prism of Jewish values and heritage. As the State of Israel and its values slowly fade away, this is our urgent challenge.

Shabbat Shalom

The Show Must Go On

The law granting amnesty to anti-Expulsion protesters passed the Knesset this week with a large majority. 51 in favor and just 9 opposed. Barring the Arab parties, almost all the other MKs supported the law. And that means that something must be wrong.

The amnesty law is bad. What it actually says is that the show is over, and it is time for everyone to go home.
Those people who fought the battle for Gush Katif with the intention of winning are not included in the amnesty. The law does not include people who blocked roads or refused to obey army orders.

This does not mean that all the thousands of people who, with great self-sacrifice, spent days and nights at demonstrations, marches, Kfar Maimon and tent cities in Gush Katif do not deserve praise. They certainly do. But the bottom line is that there was never a real struggle for Gush Katif. There was never a real struggle because the settlers' rabbinical and political leadership prevented it and publicly deplored road-blocking, refusal of orders and any other potentially effective actions to save Gush Katif.

All that transpired in Gush Katif was one big show in which each side played its part and then left the stage. The goal of the army was to destroy. And the goal of the Orange Camp was to win points in public opinion. At the end of the show, Gush Katif was destroyed and the public was extremely sympathetic. Everybody got what they wanted and the curtain closed.

Now, the Knesset has legislated amnesty for the Orange actors in the show. Not for the people who really battled the Expulsion - just for those who kept to the script. That is why the Left is also in favor of this law. It assures us all that next time, everybody will continue to recite their lines.

For them, that is excellent, because the show must go on.

Manhigut Yehudit Legislative Achievements

As an ideological movement, Manhigut Yehudit has significant influence on sociological processes taking place in Israeli society. Sometimes, however, we are forced to work behind the scenes - all part of the political game. This week we are pleased to announce that two of our legislative initiatives have become official government decisions. We assume that it is no longer necessary to hide the fact that Manhigut Yehudit proposed and promoted these important improvements for Israeli society.

Land Distribution for IDF Soldiers
For years, we have been writing and speaking about free distribution of land to young couples who have completed their army or national service. This week, the government announced that it would distribute land to honorably discharged combat soldiers in the Negev and Galilee. This initiative passed directly from Manhigut Yehudit to Gila Gamliel, who is the Deputy Minister for the Advancement of Young People, Students and Women in the prime minister's office. We are pleased that both the Deputy Minister and the Prime Minister have adopted this important initiative.

Closing of Border with Egypt
A Manhigut Yehudit member who lives in Arad was dismayed to see his quiet town descending into serious crime and disrepair - the result of the illegal infiltrators who had flocked to the small city near the Dead Sea. His in-depth research revealed the plethora of organizations spawned by the New Israel Fund and the deception that they had passed off as fact - that every infiltrator looking for work was a refugee. This created a situation in which the public could not oppose the constant corrosion of their personal safety and the fabric of their town. After all, nobody would want to harm unfortunate refugees. With this lie, the leftist organizations managed to block any treatment of the problem and of the dangers that became part of life in Arad.
Manhigut Yehudit has already related to the issue of the infiltrators. For this particular public struggle, we chose to remain behind the scenes. We defined the goal for the first phase of the struggle as creating a clear delineation between true refugees, who should be treated with compassion by our society, and infiltrators who come to Israel against the law in an effort to improve their financial situation.

While this problem was brought to the attention of the MKs, a local leadership that understood that there was a chance to save the city sprang up in Arad. They stood at the forefront against the leftist organizations and in a short time, their struggle became a national issue. When MKs and the media began using the terminology 'infiltrators' we knew that we had created a crack in public awareness. Moshe Feiglin's article on NRG that exposed the fact that the infiltrators were prohibited by Israeli law from venturing past Israel's periphery and into the greater Tel Aviv area helped to convince Interior Minister Eli Yishai to remove that ban. As soon as the infiltrators found their way to Tel Aviv en masse, the problem became impossible to ignore and the government finally stepped in and allocated funds to build a fence along the Egyptian border to prevent infiltration. Although a fence is just a band-aid on a much deeper problem, we congratulate the Prime Minister and Finance Minister for taking practical steps to alleviate this problem.

How to Save the Settlements from Abandonment

By Moshe Feiglin
17 Shvat 5770
Feb. 1, '10

Translated from the article in Makor Rishon

More and more, it looks like we are headed for an Abandonment Plan.
In an article titled "Without Evacuation and Without Compensation," (Ha'aretz, Jan. 1 '10) Dr. Alexander Jacobson proposes setting a date upon which Israel will retreat from Judea and Samaria, abandoning the Jewish residents of those areas to the mercies of the new sovereign. Jacobson correctly understands that the expulsion of approximately ten thousand residents of Gush Katif will not work for the hundreds of thousands of Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria. Even if all the state's mechanisms would fully cooperate with the criminal idea of expulsion, Israel simply does not have the money to implement it. So with a mischievous wink of the eye, the friendly doctor falls back on the murderousness of our neighbors. "They will make the Jews' lives there impossible," Jacobson explains in laundered terminology, "but for that, the Law of Return exists."

It is reasonable to assume that we will see the old Yesha Council leadership - Wallerstein and Zambish - rise up again, over the heads of all the na?ve people who were called upon to be a part of the "new leadership"; in other words, to cover up the fiascos of the past and to pave the way for their return to positions of power. This leadership will then proceed to fight the previous battle or more specifically, the grandmother of the previous battle.

Yesha Council leaders like Zambish and Wallerstein cannot comprehend that the Zionist "mutant gene" of Peres, Alon and Galili, that allowed for the establishment of Elon Moreh, Beit El and Ofra has since been deleted from the establishment's genetic code. The open door of the Revisionist movement, through which the settlements of the early days of the Likud government were built, has also been shut tight. They continue to fight - not for settlement - but for public opinion, as if the Zionist spirit from which Gush Emunim drew its legitimacy still exists.

And so, with declarations of love, cherry tomatoes, door-to-door visits and heartrending cries in the face of the IDF robots, Gush Katif was destroyed. Now, as the Abandonment Plan takes form, the Yesha Council will pay millions to public relations experts and with the comfortable logic of the olden days of Gush Emunim they will explain how Yesha is crucial for security, how nice the settlers are and how uncivil it is to abandon them. They will project an image of the settlers as beggars - objects of pity and scorn. They will reinforce the demonization campaign that is already being waged against them, cement their second-class citizen status and ensure that nobody will give them a shekel in compensation.

There is only one thing that nobody from the Yesha Council will say. The truth.

The main obligation - and according to some, the only obligation - of a state toward its citizen is to provide them with security. If the State of Israel is incapable of upholding its basic contract with its citizens in Judea and Samaria, that is fine. But just as when a couple decides to divorce, their decision comes with a price tag, so too, when a state chooses to opt out of its basic contract with its citizens, there is a price tag attached. The state cannot leave with all of their shared assets. The settlers, who lawfully built their homes and paid with their taxes and lives so that they could get security from their state, deserve to get their investment back.

You want to leave? No problem. Just return everything that you have taken from us to help you provide us with your basic commitment. Give the settlers the weapons that were bought with their tax money so that they will be able to defend themselves.
This type of demand by the settler leadership will reveal the real motivation behind the Abandonment Plan; to use terrorists to force the Jews to flee. This demand will ensure that the public debate that will ensue when the plan is announced will focus on rights and not on pleas for mercy.

I have no illusions that somebody will really give the settlers who choose to remain in their homes their share of Israel's arsenal. It is reasonable to assume that ultimately, this type of debate will not help either and that if this evil plan reaches a practical stage, it will be implemented. The Yesha and Hesder yeshiva leadership will then get what they wanted: the government will have left the IDF out of the political debate and will not have pitted them against the citizens. Not one soldier will refuse orders and not one soldier will wave a sign. Everything will be simply wonderful.

Now that we know what to expect from the current government and what to expect from the Yesha leadership, we have only one small question: What can we do to prevent this madness? The simple answer is that anybody who thought that we can prevent Israeli retreats with convincing and love - or with demonstrations and a determined struggle, has to understand that those methods will not work. There is one way to prevent retreat and to change direction and that is - to rule. It is time to understand that he who rules makes the rules.

The faith-based public now has a golden opportunity to lead the country. Binyamin Netanyahu has initiated a new membership drive for the Likud. His goal is to strengthen his position against the ideological members of the Likud. He could not care less about the small, rightist parties. Netanyahu understands that at the end of the day, the only obstacle to his Abandonment Plan is inside the ruling party - the Likud.

"You have no idea how much influence you have," explained Chairman of the Knesset Committee, MK Yariv Levin in his speech at last week's Manhigut Yehudit dinner. "I do not want to think about to what lows we would descend without your large ideological faction inside the ruling party."

Everybody who holds the State and the settlement enterprise dear must register for the Likud now. Mass registration of the loyal public will ensure that the Likud will oppose the Abandonment Plan. But the registration will also accomplish something much more important. Netanyahu's chair is shaking. His wife's embroilment in scandal is just the tip of the iceberg. Registration now for the Likud will ensure that Bibi's successor will not continue with his evil plan.

All in our Heads

By Moshe Feiglin

It is all in our heads. Deep down, in our perception of ourselves. A person who thinks of himself as successful is also perceived that way by those who surround him. A person who considers himself a failure projects that image to his surroundings, even if he may look outwardly successful.

Now for a bit of mathematics. When the Jews made their break from Egypt, they numbered at least 3 million - and that is a modest estimate based on the fact that there were 600,000 males accounted for between the ages of 20 and 60. How many Egyptians chased them? At the very most - 1800. (Based on the 600 chariots that were reasonably carrying no more than 3 Egyptians per chariot). In other words, there were approximately 1600 Jews against every Egyptian. So what was the problem? Why did the Jews at the edge of the Red Sea wail? Why didn't they fight?

Stories from the Holocaust reveal the same phenomenon. How could small numbers of Nazi soldiers force tens of thousands of Jews to their deaths with total compliance?

It is all in our heads. On the day that the faith-based public will understand and integrate its real power, it will lead Israel. We at Manhigut Yehudit can explain, we can create the necessary political tools and we can work on public awareness. But the real reason that we have not yet merited a faith-based leader has nothing to do with technicalities or politics. We are big enough, we are talented enough and we are strong enough to lead the nation - if we really want to.

That is where the trouble lies. We don't really want to lead yet. The faith-based public still does not believe in itself.

During the previous primaries, the struggle between Netanyahu and me was justifiably perceived as the struggle of the faith-based public to enter the leadership arena. When I was elected to a realistic slot on the Likud Knesset roster, it seemed that the dam on the faith-based public's self-image had been burst wide open. A surge of enthusiasm engulfed the entire sector. Many were psychologically prepared to leave their sectorial way of thinking, to register for the Likud and to prepare the ground for leadership.

If that scenario would have played itself out, most of the Likud MKs today would have been ideological people. The Likud would have won 40 mandates, most of them MKs loyal to the Land and People of Israel. Even those less-than-loyal Likud MKs would have understood which way the wind was blowing inside their party. Strapped with a party with tens of thousands of faith-based members, Netanyahu would not have been able to make the political moves that he is making today. Even more important - in the next primaries a faith-based candidate would have been elected.

Sadly, though, the change in perception that we experienced was short-lived and immature. When I was demoted to the 36th place on the Likud roster, the faith-based public's comfortable, servile self-perception prevailed - and the rest is history.

Nevertheless, it is all in our heads. The wonderful dream that was shattered in the previous primaries could have held up just as well even if I were not in the Knesset. On the contrary - it is specifically when I am not in the Knesset that it is even more important to register, to increase our numbers in the Likud and to empower us for the next round!

When Netanyahu pushed me down to an unrealistic slot, the faith-based voter once again perceived himself as a second class citizen - a sector that does not deserve to be on the leadership arena. The faith-based votes returned to the comfortable but irrelevant sectorial parties.

Thank G-d, current events have opened the eyes of many faith-based people and registration for the Likud through Manhigut Yehudit is rapidly increasing. We will continue to develop our public's leadership consciousness as we prepare for the next round of voting.