On Thursday, Haredi rabbis, legislators, and commentators debated whether to attend the right-wing rally outside the Israeli Knesset in Jerusalem on Thursday evening.
Yated Ne’eman’s editor, Yisrael Friedman, penned a critical editorial against protesting.
Friedman claims that engaging in such a protest shows a conviction in “the power and the strength of my hands” (Deuteronomy, 8,17),
Which contradicts the party’s claim that only its top rabbis can discuss politics. Unlike mass rallies, which act on “outburst of emotion,” these rabbis make choices based on decades of Torah study and are the party’s final authority.
Friedman stated that the haredi parties are aligned with the right because the rabbis told them to since they represent the majority of traditional and religious citizens. He argued that haredim are neither right nor left, and that Thursday night’s right-wing protests do not require them to join.
A haredi newspaper editor sharply denounced demonstrations.
Our rabbis ordered us to join the Right, yet we don’t belong and aren’t fighting together. We support the government’s judicial reform and oppose liberal terrorism’s dictatorship over people’s lives. Haredi people cannot enter.
“When acting beyond the Torah arena, it must be lit, like a flashlight, by the guidance of the rabbis, shepherds of Israel… Right-wing protesters are not our neighborhood. Nobody here. Period. “His citizenship in God’s house is revoked,” Friedman wrote.
Friedman’s opponents are haredi.
Hassidic “Agudat Yisrael” is the other UTJ faction. Aryeh Erlich edits Mishpacha, the Jewish Family Weekly, for Agudat Yisrael.
Erlich chastised Yated Ne’eman for representing all haredim.
Yated Ne’eman and Yisrael Friedman will not withdraw haredi citizenship. “Everyone should decide whether to go to the protests,” Erlich said, adding that “the warped culture of selectors sitting at the gates of haredi society and deciding who is legitimate and who is not” has ended.
Haredi automobiles with megaphones broadcast pro- and anti-protest messages. A Jerusalem video urged listeners to protest the “destroyers of religion,” while a Bnei Brak video advised listeners to avoid “licentious” protests “against the way of Torah.”