Recently, several Religious Zionist rabbis in Israel have taken to discussing the matter of settler violence publicly, which is important, since the previous position of many was to deny that it exists, to label the perpetrators as “some troubled youth,” and other dismissive responses. When Rabbi Natan Slifkin had previously addressed this problem, there were voices in the Religious Zionist community who shamefully called Rabbi Slifkin a “Kapo” for stating the obvious, so it looks like we have made some progress. The reason this crisis can no longer be ignored are the weekly videos and images showing Jewish men with kippot, large beards, and pe’ot going into Palestinian villages, destroying property, stealing property, beating Palestinians up, and behaving in ways that shock the conscience of any decent human being.

Before addressing the actual issue of settler violence, it is important to understand the transformation in the Religious Zionist world that this shows. A few months ago the city of Tel Aviv elected a Haredi chief rabbi. When that happened, Rabbi Yuval Sherlo and Rabbi David Stav published an op-ed in Makor Rishon in which they pointed out the election of eight mostly non-Orthodox Israeli cities that had recently elected mostly Haredi rabbis. Rabbis Stav and Sherlo pointed out that after two years of war, in which army service has been so central to the Israeli ethos, many secular Israelis would rather have a Haredi rabbi who has not served in the IDF, nor will their children serve in the IDF, rather than vote for a Dati Leumi candidate. The rabbis said that is most likely because of the judicial reform and other legislative initiatives that have made liberal Israelis feel like an existential threat to who they are has come from the Religious Zionist community.

There is no question that over the past four years, the Religious Zionist community, represented in the Knesset by the likes of Ben Gvir, Smotrich, Rothman, Amichai Eliyahu, and Avi Maoz, has played a critical role in leading the most divisive four years Israel has ever seen. Secular Israelis have begun seeing themselves as an endangered minority; the ramming of judicial reform down the throat of Israelis in a time of war has certainly had a heavy price. While no one is surprised that Haredi parties signed off on various troublesome policies in exchange for budgets pandering to their base, Religious Zionism’s role in this near civil war has been by far the most significant and ideologically driven.

It is therefore no surprise, Rabbis Stav and Sherlo note, that liberally minded Israelis are distrustful of Religious Zionist candidates seeking rabbinic positions in liberal Israeli cities.

Simply put: Religious Zionism, which was originally meant to be a bridge between religious and secular Israelis, is at best no longer a bridge between the religious and non-religious; in many cases, it is even a wedge between the two.

Much has been written recently about the shrinking of Modern Orthodoxy in the diaspora and its relocation to Israel. While there are many reasons for this shrinking, many of which are economic, the hostile takeover the Har Hamor or Hardal branch of Religious Zionism........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)