Jerusalem – MK Gafni In Lengthy Interview With Secular Reporter Lock Horns Over Charedi Protests

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    Rabbi Moshe Gafni is an Israeli politician and Member of the Knesset for the ultra-orthodox party Degel HaTorah in a rare exclusive interview to secular reporter of MaarivJerusalem – “I am staunchly opposed to the demonstrations. I condemn them strongly. The violent demonstrations in Jerusalem ruined the reputation we worked so hard to cultivate over the course of 20 years,” said R’ Moshe Gafni, the veteran Degel HaTorah MK currently serving as chairman of the Knesset Finance Committee.

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    Though he rarely grants interviews – and almost never to the secular press – he agreed to meet with Sari Makover, a reporter from Maariv, one of Israel’s leading Hebrew dailies, apparently to do some damage control following the tainted image the charedi sector has acquired as a result of the unruly excesses seen in the recent protests in the capital.

    “Just this week, when I spoke in the Knesset about the violent crimes that have taken place in the country recently, MKs from Kadima kept shouting out, ‘And what about the demonstrations in Jerusalem?’ I told them not to talk about us, because they always considered Dudu Topaz a figure of high moral standing and a model for emulation. [Topaz was a famous Israel television personality who committed suicide last month following his arrest for paying to have a number of television executives beaten.] How do they soothe their conscience over the failed secular education system and the rampant violence in schools? They say, ‘Look at the charedi violence in Jerusalem.’”

    SM: Well, violent lawbreakers who injure policemen and destroy stoplights are not a very heart-warming sight.

    MG:
    There is a horrendous lack of understanding in the general population regarding who and what the charedi sector is. The secular population does not know how to draw distinctions between the typical charedi, who opposes the demonstrations, and the extremist protestors. At every protest held in Tel Aviv you can tell who is demonstrating and who is a passerby. But in Jerusalem the charedim have the same face and the same attire. The image of the entire charedi public is that we burn trash bins.

    The truth of the matter is that the vast majority of the charedi public has come out against the violent demonstrations. Charedi Jewry has engaged in just a handful of demonstrations against the court system, with half a million participants, with gedolei Torah on hand, with police permits and with exemplary order. The ones most damaged by the demonstrations in Jerusalem are the charedi population living in neighborhoods adjacent to Meah Shearim and that have been given collective punishment by the municipality and the police. The buses don’t run. The stoplights are broken. The garbage doesn’t get collected.

    SM: So why haven’t you or your colleagues come out openly with a public condemnation of the protests?

    MG: HaRav Yitzchok Weiss, the head of the Eidoh Charedis, did come out against the violence. So did we. But what does this issue have to do with me? Because I’m charedi, too?

    SM:
    [HaRav] Weiss got around to issuing a call to stop the violence just [last] week, after long months of riots and destruction, and as the protestors’ representative in the Knesset you can’t absolve yourself of responsibility either.

    MG: We were sent by gedolei Torah to represent the charedi public, but we recognize the differences and nuances that the police don’t see and we know how to make the proper distinctions. We can’t tell these people whether or not to go out and protest. They don’t listen to us. In fact I met with the Minister of Internal Security to point to the demonstrators and ask that he pinpoint the right people and take care of the matter rather than descending on the entire [charedi] public.

    SM: Who takes part in the demonstrations?

    MG: Extremist chareidim who live inside the walls of Meah Shearim in Jerusalem and who battle against us in every election campaign because they are opposed to the government and the Knesset. These are people who hung up huge signs against me in the streets and wrote that there is a drought in Jerusalem because I was appointed deputy minister of religious affairs [in 1990]. And right after the elections it poured, washing away all of the posters.

    These protestors are brought up to believe that the State of Israel operates against halacha and does things against what is written in the Torah, and that we, the representatives of the charedi public, who have the gall to cooperate with the state, are to blame for everything that happens here. We’re the ones who take the brunt of the attacks. Not the police or the secular public.

    Two [protestors] from Neturei Karta were held in a cell with a terrorist. The wives of one of them called me, crying to me over the phone to help secure their release. I went to the detention center on Friday afternoon, before Shabbos, with the father. I went in accompanied by the district commander. When they saw me they refused to go out on bail. They turned to the wall and shouted, “It’s your fault, it’s your fault,” and they wouldn’t even talk to me after I had come to get them released. That’s the way they’re taught. I’m not criticizing their education. Everyone has the right to educate their children as they see fit.

    SM: You can’t have your cake and eat it too. To condemn and then back off. The upbringing of the violent protestors, which you don’t want to criticize, has led to unbridled violence in the streets of Jerusalem.

    MG: Tell me something: Who lodges criticism against the secular upbringing that leads to violence in pubs and schools? I denounce the violence, the demonstrations, but I don’t want to hear the secular public laying criticism. Because their media, which is purely objective of course, depicts the protestors in Jerusalem as rioters, while the protestors in Bili’in [against the security barrier] are merely protestors. We already have someone who got run over while the police stood by doing nothing, and there has already been live gunfire.

    SM: Let me remind you that at other demonstrations, in October 2000, the police used live gunfire. Many of the protestors there got killed.

    MG: Thank you for the comparison. Does anyone imagine the charedi protestors would direct live fire at the police, as was the case in October 2000? And I’m not justifying any instance of violence. I’m against violence in all its forms. I blame the violent protestors and I the police, which did not act in an intelligent manner, and the Mayor who fanned the flames of this blaze. But I feel like Ahmad Tibi. There’s a problem with Arabs, why don’t you protest? I’m charedi, it’s true. And as a charedi I was taught good middos, Torah and derech Eretz.

    Just yesterday I went to visit my granddaughter on her first day of school. I always do this with my granddaughters and grandsons at the start of every school year. I have a light conversation with the teacher and with the rebbe. And my granddaughter, a girl in first grade, just two days in school and already the entire class stood up when I stepped into the classroom.

    When I step into classrooms in secular schools all of the students stand up – on the desks. When Yuli Tamir was education minister I accompanied her on a tour of a charedi school. All of the girls, 17-year-olds, rose to their feet. “What is this?” Tamir asked me. “They won’t sit down until you tell them to be seated,” I told her.

    SM: How does such a rigorous upbringing produce violent protestors?

    MG: Like in every societal group there are extremists, violent people out of control who commit serious acts that harm us most of all.

    SM: It’s not a minority. We’re talking about thousands taking to the streets.

    MG: There are innumerable cases in which men and bochurim were passing by on their way home from shul and took a roundabout route to avoid passing near the demonstration, and the police, who conducted themselves like a commando unit, nabbed them instead of the protestors. The police’s conduct has led to a situation where the charedi public hears about a driver who ran over a charedi man and about false arrests and live gunfire, and they start to identify with the protestors.

    SM: The police are trying to rein in the protestors and have arrested many people who admitted to taking part in the demonstrations, yet rather than blaming the protestors you blame the police?

    MG: I blame the police for conducting itself like a bunch of schlemiels. The police should have sat down with charedi public representatives, used their help to identify who to arrest and who not to arrest, and that would have prevented long weeks of demonstrations.

    The Mayor is to blame, too. Along comes Nir Barkat to the highly sensitive city of Jerusalem, where every little match sets off a huge bonfire, and he opens a parking lot. Nobody can figure out why the idea occurred to him now rather than, say, three years ago. In a loud, public way – anything to get the secular voters’ support.

    SM: The publicity is so that people know about the parking lot and come to Jerusalem on Shabbat. The loudness is to encourage tourists and the Israelis who fled Jerusalem to come back and tour the city.

    MG: I’m opposed to calling on people to come to Jerusalem and desecrate Shabbat in it. That’s not the task of the mayor in a Jewish state, especially in the holy city of Jerusalem. A person who holds a position of power does not have to tell people to come to desecrate Shabbat. Nobody has done that in the past. Previous mayors demonstrated sensitivity, but he comes along and does something to set the city ablaze. Because of him I don’t have stoplights in Jerusalem. He is directly responsible for what happened.

    SM: How will it all come to an end?

    MG: I hope the demonstrations are heading toward a solution. MK Uri Maklev [UTJ] and I sat down with [Internal Security] Minister Yitzchak Aharonovich and we have also been in contact with HaRav Weiss as part of efforts to pacify the situation.


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    31 Comments
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    Midwestern Guy
    Midwestern Guy
    14 years ago

    This interview was granted around six months too late. Gafni speaks for the vast majority of normal Charedim in EY. Too bad that voices like his get drowned out by the crazies out there.

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    14 years ago

    Finally someone is kicking these biased reporters in their pants. He answered everything with such emes and common sense.

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    14 years ago

    very wellsad good job!!

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    14 years ago

    great interview. thanks for posting it.

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    14 years ago

    He works for the medina and he gets paid by them. How can you trust this guy.

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    14 years ago

    אז עס טוט וויי שרייעט מען, עס איז נישטא קיין אנדרע וועג מיט די חברה, דאס איז די איינציגסטע וועט זיי פארשטייען, נאר פראטעסטען

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    14 years ago

    What he fails to say is that the police need to take a stronger hand in putting down the demonstrators. They need to have the same degree of fear of the police as the yiras shamayim they show in their daily religious lives.

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    14 years ago

    If the medinah are a bunch of goyim why do they care if they are nechalel shabat? Here in the us would anyone dear protest a open store on shabat?
    Why do the chreidim of israel think that they own the land, when they continuously denounce the government as sinners?

    TeaneckJew
    TeaneckJew
    14 years ago

    The critical issue is Gafni’s refusal to recognize the religious and ideological pluralism of modern Jewish life in Israel. Unfortunately most israeli Jews are not observant and want to celebrate the weekend as they see fit which means traveling by car and the need for a parking lot. Gafni’s attitude is no different than the protestors. Both want to legislate religious conformity. This will not work. And just brings more hatred of frum Jews. We need tolerence , compassion and outreach and siata dishamya to change the outlook of secular Jews. Laws and demonstrations to compel religion will and indeed makes things worse. I think Gafni did no help in his interview. Hiloni Jews see his refusal to allow pluralism and this only enrages them all the more.

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    14 years ago

    Gafni is “STRONGLY OPPOSED TO THE PROTESTS.” He’s obviously more concerned with his political career than with chilul shabbos befarhesia. Another religious Jew who compromises on Torah principles for politics and power. Shame!

    Who's to blame?
    Who's to blame?
    14 years ago

    Good interview? Are you guys kidding? The guy deflects every question and manages to blame everyone but himself and his like minded friends.

    Who is the cause of the problem? The police, the mayor and a “few” extremists. The communtiy leadership? C”V, they are all righteous, infallible beings.

    Och in vei if this is our representitive.

    anonymous
    anonymous
    14 years ago

    Rabbi Gafni is wrong in knocking the Mayor with the wrong reasons. What he should have said was that certain matters have to be worked out between the secular Mayor and the Charedi community PRIOR to causing such violent response regardless of the justification.
    The Mayor was totally insensitive to the community as Most seculars in Israel are.
    They are vindcitive because they feel threatened by the growing population growth, the increase ten fold baal tshuva Sfardic movement, increased exponential Army
    participation be Daatim and Chareidi members of the population. For years the govt discriminated against religious participation in the army by religious and politicians
    called the Chareidim “parasites”! Today the seculars are screaming “there are too many religious in the army”. Because they are Jew haters and the Mayor was brought up in that atmosphere and wanted to arrogantly show he is the boss , without any sensitivity. The UK just ruled that non-muslims must wear full attire in municipal swimming pools in Moslem neighborhoods. Yet the Mayor of Jerusalem is bent on rying to bring back the seculars. Hello! most seculars don’t want to serve in the army today and violence is taking over most of the secular society due to low moral and spiritual values. Tel Aviv is known as one of the most atheistic cities in the world , and they are not having kids. Only the chareidim and moslems are populating Medinat Yisroel. Even Meah Sheaarim is doing it’s part there.

    AuthenticSatmar
    AuthenticSatmar
    14 years ago

    As a member of the knesset why doesn’t he make laws that would prevent the mayor from doing what he did?

    The fact remains that in a Democratic society the majority rules no matter how right or wrong one believes they are. In Jerusalem the majority are shomer shabbos.

    AuthenticSatmar
    AuthenticSatmar
    14 years ago

    As a member of the knesset why doesn’t he make laws that would prevent the mayor from doing what he did?

    The fact remains that in a Democratic society the majority rules no matter how right or wrong one believes they are. In Jerusalem the majority are shomer shabbos.

    ShatzMatz
    ShatzMatz
    14 years ago

    I am sorry Rabbi Gafni. Your arguments to not hold water. When 1 mulim out of a billion blows himself up on a bus you blame all muslims. Even the ones who have no affiliation with the terrorist. Because you calim that thy should make it clear to the world that they are opposed to the actions of their compatriots. But when you have a sizable portion of the Chareidi public of Jerusalem act in the streets like animals, suddenly you expect the whole world to recognize the subtle differences in persuasion of the protestors.

    The fact is that you, and I, who lives 7000 miles away from Jerusalem need to hang our heads in shame over what has gone on. the only way to backtrack on this issue is to cease the protest completely and allow the parking lots to operate. Instead of protests you should set up a large banner near the parking lots inviting our Jewish brothers to join us in the beauty of shabbos and the holiness of Jerusalem.

    While we are at it, we should take the opportunity to condemn a mother who would hurt her defensless child and apologize to the dedicated healthcare and social workers who have been subject to baseless vilification of the worst kind.

    Shabbos is not for non-Jews
    Shabbos is not for non-Jews
    14 years ago

    I recall reading that there are many non-Jewish tourists who come to Y’lem on Shabbos and there is a need for parking for them. Also, that the parking area in question is deliberately away from the frum area. Also that it is operated by those who are not Jewish, so can work then. So why not let it be?

    A Person
    A Person
    14 years ago

    I all most got angry until I came to th last part of the artical.

    ” “
    MG: I’m opposed to calling on people to come to Jerusalem and desecrate Shabbat in it. That’s not the task of the mayor in a Jewish state, especially in the holy city of Jerusalem. A person who holds a position of power does not have to tell people to come to desecrate Shabbat. Nobody has done that in the past. Previous mayors demonstrated sensitivity, but he comes along and does something to set the city ablaze. Because of him I don’t have stoplights in Jerusalem. He is directly responsible for what happened.