Rabbi Steven Pruzansky, Esq. is a rabbi, attorney and historian who lives in Israel and serves as the Senior Research Associate at the Jerusalem Center for Applied Policy (JCAP.ngo), Israel Region Vice President at the Coalition for Jewish Values, and is the author of six books, including “The Jewish Ethic of Personal Responsibility" (Gefen Publishing).
If political parties attracted voters simply based on the performance of their ministers, the Religious Zionist Party would be dominating the polls.
It is hard to argue otherwise. Betzalel Smotrich as Minister of Finance has steered Israel’s economy masterfully, and perhaps unprecedented in the history of war, left Israel in a better financial position with little added debt, increased foreign investment, a strong shekel, and a positive outlook for the future. Inflation has been kept to a minimum - far lower than in other Western countries.
As minister in the Defense Ministry in charge of settlement, and together with Minister of Settlements Orit Strook, Smotrich effected a revolution in Judea and Samaria, founding or legalizing over 100 new communities, expanding the Jewish population, and rendering the prospect of another Palestinian Arab state even more implausible.
And with other right-wing ministers, he emboldened PM Netanyahu not to succumb to the pressure - domestic and foreign - to end the war prematurely, with a fortified Hamas and Hezbollah ready to strike again, and a nuclear Iran ready to attack.
And much more.
There are other ministers who has been quite effective in their ministries - Amichai Shikli stands out for putting teeth and substance in the Ministry for Diaspora Affairs and Combatting Anti-Semitism - even as most ministers are place holders who leave no lasting mark.
So why does the Religious Zionist party struggle to attract votes?
One reason is that Religious Zionism is a victim of its own success. Candidates who claim to be Religious Zionists - however they define it - can be found in most of the parties running for office. The RZ mantra - “the land of Israel for the people of Israel according to the Torah of Israel" - is a mantle that is claimed by many. For some it is a good fit, for others less so. Whereas the political party is perceived (rightly or wrongly) as sectoral and parochial, the RZ ideology has permeated much of the nation and engendered a variety of interpretations. And some of its potential voters see themselves as too cosmopolitan to vote for a “religious" party.
There are some critics who yearn for the halcyon days when the National Religious Party focused on religious issues like kashrut and mikvaot, and some are enraged that those spheres (and the accompanying patronage) were abandoned to Haredi parties like Shas and Degel Hatorah. But the NRP of old was often castigated for being the “kashrut supervisors for the socialist state," consciously limiting its influence to matters of ritual and being uninvolved in the issues of state. That NRP has been supplanted by today’s Tzionut Hadatit party, which has a muscular platform that sees the realization of the Torah vision in the leadership and direction of the nation and not merely in the provision of religious services.
Another reason is that Israeli ministers are expected to opine on all issues, even those outside their framework. By contrast, American cabinet secretaries know how to stay in their lanes. The Secretary of Housing is not expected to offer his opinions on the war with Iran, and the Secretary of the Treasury does not weigh in on environmental issues. Such diffidence is unknown in Israel, where almost every minister has opinions on almost everything, and generally sees himself as a potential prime minister.
Thus, Betzalel Smotrich often comments on matters outside his immediate purview, always from a well-sourced Torah perspective, but such is anathema to those - even so-called religious Jews - who draw their moral system less from the Torah and more from the West. Some find his opinions strident, but the successful politician whose positions are mellow has yet to be invented. And, as I learned in the Rabbinate over many decades, when people cannot refute what you say, they will criticize the way you said it, style over substance.
I asked a number of young people, Religious Zionists all, what complaints they or their peers had against the Religious Zionists party, and their answers were quite illuminating.
The strangest among them was the contention that the party is too focused on "settlements", strange because one would expect the Minister of Settlements to be focused on settlements, not to mention both the fulfillment of the mitzvah of settling the land of Israel as well as the profound security advantage in breaking up the contiguity of Arab settlements in Judea and Samaria and thwarting the possibility of a Palestinian state arising. And there are still people who are bitter that the provision of religious services has been outsourced to Haredim, and Religious Zionists still struggle to become city rabbis or dayyanim.
Neither of these is the primary reason some people feel disenchanted with the Religious Zionist party, and the reason proffered deserves a response. Briefly, the RZ party is blamed for not insisting on a universal draft that includes Haredim and for tolerating - even entertaining legislation - that would exempt yeshiva students from the IDF or national service. Indeed, this is a searing, open wound that is polarizing our society, especially in the Religious Zionist world, which paid a disproportionate price in the ongoing war in terms of casualties and reserve duty.
Is the criticism fair and justified?
Two points are worth making. First, it is important to underscore that this issue will never be resolved. Never. The big lie of the campaign comes from those politicians who proclaim that they will insist that a law be passed that conscripts everyone and exempts no one. That is all well and good - except for the fact that such a law already exists. That is the current law. Yeshiva students once had a ministerial exemption that has now lapsed. No new law is needed, just enforcement of the existing law, and any politician who claims that such a law is needed and he will pass it is simply lying.
The question to ask is this: are politicians willing to enforce the law in the face of mass public protests (akin to those of the Kaplanistim) that disrupt the lives of ordinary citizens? Are politicians willing to incarcerate all shirkers? Well, there are roughly 50,000-60,000 eligible men who were exempt, but Israel has a maximum prison capacity of 20,000. Do the math. And which terrorists do you want freed from prison to make room for these former yeshiva students, who, if it suits them, can keep learning in prison?
The problem will never be solved via legislation because the Haredi parties exist to ensure that Torah students are not drafted (even though I struggle to find the Torah source that exempts a Torah student from a Milchemet Mitzvah, an obligatory war for the land of Israel, or a war of self-defense; please do not cite the Rambam, end of Seder Zera’im. If that were applicable, Rambam would have placed it in Hilchot Melachim U’milchamoteihem, the Laws of Kings and their Wars).
Haredi politicians are masters at stalling and delaying, from one election cycle to the next, knowing, confidently, that some constellation of parties will ultimately meet their demands in order to assume the reins of leadership.
You can take away their funding and their rights and their privileges and make life miserable for them, but that is not a good look for a Jewish state, and certainly not when there are plenty of secular shirkers who are not learning Torah.
And the problem becomes intractable when we realize that the Haredi world now largely deems IDF service a sin, even as Religious Zionists and others deem it a mitzvah. Change will come not from the rabbis who tell the world that those who are not learning Torah should serve and then stress privately that everyone should be learning and the IDF is a spiritual danger.
Change will only come from the people, when enough develop a sense of shame and feel responsible for the fate of the nation beyond their four cubits. And perhaps the new Haredi party can assist in that capacity and invigorate the grass roots.
Second, and consequently, should the onus of solving this problem be on the Religious Zionist party? Some answer yes and even insist that they should have left the government over this issue, notwithstanding that we are still are war.
But this is a classic example of what the great American economist and thinker Thomas Sowell called “Stage One Thinking." Sure, they leave the government and the right-wing government falls. It feels great. They made a real statement. They can pat themselves on the back. And then what?
That is Stage Two.
What changes? A left-wing government still mired in the conceptziya, that would have ended the war prematurely and thus endangering our future? A left-wing government that promotes policies that are inimical to our survival, hostile to Torah, and indifferent to Israel as a Jewish state? A left-wing government yearning for another Oslo, an expulsion of Jews from Judea and Samaria, and that will confiscate the guns licensed now to 300,000 additional Israelis? And there would still be no universal draft law which, as noted, is not needed because it already exists!
Stage One Thinking always feels good but leaves its practitioners in a worse state. Stage Two Thinking, seeing the consequences of our actions before we act, is how the sages (Masechet Tamid 32a) defined a wise person.
Those who castigate the Religious Zionist party for not leaving the government should ponder the consequences had they left the government: energizing our enemies, rendering the sacrifices of war meaningless, and jeopardizing the Jewish character of the state. And still no universal draft. Nothing changed - but it felt good… until it didn’t.
Leaving the government precipitously over this issue would have been a tantrum, not a policy, harmful theatrics rather than constructive substance, a populist but thoughtless act. Fortunately, the Religious Zionist party did not succumb, even as the issue remains contentious among their natural constituents. Sometimes there is a political cost for acting maturely, for doing the right thing.
No person and no party is beyond reproach, but respect should always be shown to those, in President Theodore Roosevelt’s words, who serve the public with dedication and are steadfast in their values. “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood…"
Politics is not simple, not beanbag, and usually involves compromise that leaves many unsatisfied, and even the compromisers with marred faces. But it is the only way that progress is attained and our values advanced, albeit gradually.
The natural constituents of the Religious Zionist party should return home rather than chase the chimera of new politicians and new parties that will promise everything and deliver nothing. That constituency consists of those who cherish “the land of Israel for the people of Israel according to the Torah of Israel."