We Have Our Work Cut out for Us
Anti-Zionism is now sadly the mainstream Charedi position.
We said so here:
Why is Eitan Cabel a leftist? Because it’s what’s left over from his Yeshiva days. Why do Charedi MKs vote with the Arabs? Rabbi Elazar Menachem Shach. Who encourages the state to expel Jews from their land and hand it over to their non-Jewish enemies (the definition of ‘Mesirah’, and then some)? The Rabbis (some).
And:
Rabbi Teitelbaum’s position “has become the establishment one, with mild practical exceptions, such as voting. Thank God, there are also increasing anti-establishment currents by now.”
An excerpt from a Cross-Currents account of how it happened, aptly titled The Day That Satmar Became Mainstream:
Reb Yoilish zt”l saw the victories of the Six Day War as the hand of the sitra achra let loose. He went so far as to prohibit his chassidim from approaching the kotel ma’aravi which had been freed by the kochos ha-tumah. The olam ha-yeshivos may not have accepted all of the Rebbe’s hashkafot, but, in general, his pronounced and total antipathy toward medinas Yisroel became mainstream.
While we might differ as to the permissability of benefiting from the State, we do not challenge the contention – at least openly – that we consider ourselves to be legal aliens in its confines. We vote in its elections to protect ourselves rather than to try to exert real influence – even at those times when political conditions offer us real power [the Begin years when there was a prime minister who was more than sympathetic]. We draw ourselves further and further into isolation – ostensibly because the external world has become more dangerous. But is that the real reason? Or is it possible that we subconsciously realize that we are incapable of offering practical solutions to the inevitable dilemmas and challenges of self-government and therefore prefer to retreat into a ghetto and wait for mashiach. We were challenged by the Six Day War and came up short.
Comment: Stop equating Zionism and the state!