Rabbi Dov Lipman was number 17 on the Yesh Atid list in January's Israeli elections. Before the elections took place, Yesh Atid was projected to take anywhere from 10 to 15 seats; there wasn't much hope for the Rabbi. Then came the news that Yesh Atid was the big winner of the election with at least 17 seats. Dov Lipman, born in Maryland, would be the only American born member of the new Knesset. Many claim the reason Yesh Atid was so unexpectedly successful was its centrism. The prediction was that Israel had effectively moved to the right, the pro-settler Jewish Home party, to which American Jeremy Gimpel belonged, the man who repeatedly talked about the destruction of the Dome of the rock, was projected to come in second place after Prime Minister Netayahu's Likud party. Yesh Atid is secular and calls for Hareidi, or Ultra-Orthodox Jews, to serve in the military. It claims to be a champion of the middle class and calls for less racism between the disparate Jewish communities. All seemingly moderate positions, but as is often the case in Israeli politics, there's a catch. The catches begin at the top. Yair Lapid, the leader of Yesh Atid and Israel's new It-boy, made comments to Rolling Stone magazine in an interview that border on the advocacy of ethnic cleansing. He also states that Palestinians are not to be trusted, and that is the reason Israel should talk to them. You make peace with enemies, not friends. It could be argued that Lapid's expressed desire to speak with untrustworthy Palestinian enemies concerning peace is a mark of his moderation but it may be better viewed as an indicator of Israel's ridiculous and needlessly continued Spartan existence. It must be surrounded by enemies. This fatalism is pervasive throughout Israeli society. If the Palestinians are bloodthirsty savages with whom negotiation is impossible, savages who only want Israel's erasure, then Israel is immediately absolved should it take extreme measures to deal with them. Another pervasive element is that of religious justification. Being from America, Lipman is a proponent of the separation of church and state, one of the most singular and successful pieces of the constitution of the United States. This is not the only aspect of the religion vs. government debate he brings from the States; distaste for “religious extremism" accompanies him. The term is in quotes because Lipman is a “moderate" Hareidi. It is paradoxical, and perhaps hypocritical, to claim to be a “moderate" Ultra-Orthodox Jew (or anything else, for that matter). Rabbi Lipman is something much more than moderate, as he shows in his article entitled “The “45 Hour Farce" brought to you by Netanyahu and Yaalon"; which was written for the notoriously rightwing Times of Israel. In the piece, Lipman compares the work schedules of soldiers in the Israeli forces and those of the “spiritual soldiers", the yeshiva, who protect Israel by “killing themselves in the tent of the Torah". Essentially, their study of religious texts is tantamount to the work of soldiers. The Rabbi does not discount its value, he believes that the God who promised this land to the Jewish people is still working and protecting the land of Israel. But he is a vain God; he needs to be satiated with praise and devoted study of his religious texts. His argument is that the 45 hour work week required for these spiritual warriors is far too light. He expects there to be parity between the 12-16 hour day of the soldier and the yeshiva. Here is his argument in three points: 1) Where is the “equality" here? 2) Where is the “killing himself in the tent of Torah?" 3) Assuming he gets a good night's sleep of eight hours, eats for another hour, and prays for another hour and a half, what is he doing with the other five and a half hours each day?” When the Rabbi studied the Torah, it was 16 hours for a number of years, some years were 12 hours Torah and 4 hours of university, and other years were a paltry 8 hours a day which left him with so much time he didn't know what to do with himself. Presumably, he filled the extra hours with more Torah. In another article entitled “Enough. Israel Crushes Extremism. Others Promote It.", written for notoriously right wing PJ Media, Lipman recounts the tale of Jewish extremists living in his hometown Bet Shemesh who were heckling adolescent girls attending an elementary school for not dressing to their standards of modesty. The Rabbi and others banded together to stop these extremists from causing the little girls further pain. A worthy cause and laudable actions. He goes on to list further examples of Israel's policies towards extremists: Fanatics want women to sit in the back of certain public buses? Now, women ignore those demands and sit in the front of those buses. Fundamentalists hang signs demanding that women only walk in certain places or dress in certain ways? Municipal authorities are now taking the signs down. Women dressed in burkas and the like? The rabbis issue warnings that this is not the Jewish way, which has always been to respect women."
Concerning the signs Fundamentalists hang demanding conservative dress and limited movement of women, they still hang. Not only do they hang, they hold permanent residence on the entrances to many Ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods. In illegally annexed Jerusalem, one frequently sees these signs while walking alongside the route of the streetcar. After this incident, the US State Department updated its travel advisory for Jerusalem to include a recommendation of modest dress when visiting Orthodox communities or complete avoidance due to many attacks on women deemed immodest. The example of women dressing in burkas comes from Lipman's hometown. There was an Orthodox woman dressing herself and her daughters in what more closely resembled a niqab. She belonged to a larger sect in Bet Shomesh that, through the study of Jewish religious texts, concluded that a full body cover is what's required of Orthodox Jewish women. It was referred to as a cult and the woman was named the “Taliban Mother" by Israeli media, a culturally insensitive moniker to say the least. The woman and her husband were convicted for child abuse in 2008. Oddly, a niqab is not far removed from the traditional dress of Orthodox women. Everything is covered except their face, and wrists. The hair must be covered after marriage and many women wear wigs in order to maintain the illusion of an uncovered head. Rabbi Lipman, much like many right-leaning ideologues throughout the world, views Israel with rose colored glasses. The state maintains itself with religious extremism. Religious extremism is ingrained in political discourse and civilian life at nearly every level. Netanyahu campaigns directly to settler communities who think that the theft of land is deity sanctioned. When settlers trying to uproot Palestinians are confronted with land deeds, they produce what is, in their eyes, more valid: the verses of the Bible promising Israel to the Jewish people. If you visit Israel and flip their 10 cent piece over you will see a landmass that stretches from Egypt to Iraq. The once and future Israel. It may not be as expansive as the caliphate from Spain to the Indus Valley which Islamists want to reinstate, but it is expansion in the name of God and his people. And efforts have been made; people often forget the Israeli settlements once housed in the Sinai as well as the decades-long military occupation of southern Lebanon. Bravo for combating extremism in Bet Shemesh, but why is the Rabbi not calling for this battle to be extended to fanatical settlers in the West Bank? Proposing that the Orthodox be required to serve in the military is farcical, why is the Rabbi not calling for measures to put an end to the need of conscription? The Rabbi is not a moderate. Yesh Atid is not a centrist party. All one must do is look at the policies advocated and comments made by its members. Israel is not combating its extremist elements; it is settling them in the West Bank. BN
