MK Meir Porush gave his first interview, after resigning from his position as Minister of Jerusalem and Jewish Tradition, to Eliezer Shulman and Meir Berger - published in 'Hambesar', a Shlomi Emunim publication.

The interview took place in his office in the Knesset, where he has moved his activities in recent days, along with his activities at the Agudat Israel Center on Peres Street in Jerusalem, upon returning to his parliamentary position.

"We are in a state of religious persecution," he says at the beginning of the conversation. "The feeling of exile in the Land of Israel has never been so difficult and tangible. A group of officials who were not authorized by anyone, headed by the legal advisor to the government, sit down and decide to go to war. This is no longer a struggle, this is no longer an operation, this is a real war on anyone who calls themselves Haredi. They are trying to create a situation here where it will be impossible to observe Torah and mitzvot in the Land of Israel - to them I say: We were here before you, the Jewish community was here before the state. If you are unable to accommodate us, get out of the land, we will preserve the Land of Israel by the power of the Torah.

"Obviously," adds Porush, "I don't see that in the hands of a human being we will receive a law that regulates the status of yeshiva students, and therefore we are heading for a sharp and difficult confrontation. I envy the younger generation, I received a deferment from the army, because according to the arrangement that existed, yeshiva students were entitled to a deferment from the army. The younger generation will need dedication to receive a deferment."

After the sharp monologue, the interview actually begins. Since the outbreak of the Iron Sword War, he has imposed silence on himself. Except on very specific and specific issues, his voice is rarely heard. But now it seems he can't remain silent any longer.

"Ask any question, and I'll try to answer everything," he says. A kind of sign: Don't be shy, ask even the unpleasant ones. The public at home deserves answers to everything, even the less unpleasant questions, and perhaps the least unpleasant questions.

Why have you been silent until now?

"Over the past two years, we have been in a difficult time for the people of Israel, and even things that you and I take for granted, other people in the people of Israel, and God forbid those who are motivated by hatred and who should not be 'counted,' have been walking around with difficult feelings. Should we act with full force to regulate the status of yeshiva students in every situation? Yes! Should we talk about it loudly while soldiers are being killed in Gaza? Less…

"I never thought it was right to conduct discussions about regulating the status of yeshiva students in the media, and always when there were discussions in closed rooms, I kept it to a minimum outside. This is true in normal times, and certainly in times of war. Haters of religion exploited the discourse on the matter for an orchestrated and almost anti-Semitic campaign of incitement against Torah students, and in my opinion this was detrimental to us when it came to regulating the status of yeshiva students."

And now, why talk?

"The stage comes when it is no longer possible to remain silent. For the same reason that we also received an order from the members of the Council of the Grand Torah Shlita to resign from coalition positions. The stage comes when the Jewish heart cries out enough. This is not necessarily related to the issue itself and does not necessarily promote a solution, but it comes and says that there is a red line, beyond which it is no longer possible to behave with peace of mind and the Jewish soul cries out for help."

The mistakes along the way

When talking to MK Porush about the way we got to the situation we have reached, it is clear that he is in great pain since he warned in the early stages against a deterioration in this situation, and not because he was given a prophecy, but because there is no wiser than the one who has experience.

Were we not wrong when we did not insist on the enactment of a law that would regulate the status of yeshiva students even before the government was sworn in – as other parties did with demands that were important to them? Why did we not go all the way at that point in time?

"In my personal opinion, this is definitely a mistake. More than once and more than twice I cried out at the time that the exceptional situation should be exploited for lightning legislation to regulate the status of yeshiva students, including a clause bypassing the High Court of Justice. Unfortunately, at that time, within the camp, there was no attention to this matter, and it ended the way it ended. I have been walking around with this feeling of disappointment since the first day of the government's establishment. I think those who agreed to wait with this legislation were wrong. Although I did not know where it would deteriorate, but already at that time I felt uncomfortable and uneasy about postponing the regulation of the status of yeshiva students. In those days, we publicly warned about this on the respectable pages of the 'Hamveser' newspaper."

Here he moves on to describe for the first time the situation in recent years as he knows it exclusively from inside the room, both from the rooms in which he was present and from the rooms from which he was excluded, contrary to the position of the Council of Torah Sages. "At the beginning of the term, I acted on the basis of the mission assigned to me as the emissary of the Council of Torah Sages on the issue of regulating the status of yeshiva students, and we held many meetings on this issue with the government secretary and the security establishment, and we also had several meetings with the Prime Minister. In all the meetings, I presented a firm demand to immediately enact a law regulating the status of yeshiva students.

"The Prime Minister has never approached me to request delays in the enactment of the law. Whenever there were such requests, they did not go through me or in coordination with me. There were those who chose to advance agreement on delays and supported the request for delay. This was usually approved at a meeting of party leaders, and you know who was there...

"All of this was true until the outbreak of the war, after which the talks were halted for a period. When they resumed, I was informed about them from the media, and I heard that they were taking place in part with the participation of young and inexperienced activists who claim to represent the position of Agudat Yisrael. There is no room here to elaborate on the matter, but I updated the members of the Council of Torah Sages on the matter in real time."

"I have my sources in the inner chambers, and when I was asked by one of the rebbes to find out what was happening, I had my own ways of doing so, but at no point in the past year was I a participant in the negotiations on the content of the law that discusses the status of yeshiva students and the agreements reached by the participants in the discussions, and therefore I cannot take any responsibility for these conversations. As far as I am concerned, conversations that take place without the consent of the Council of Torah Sages of Agudat Israel do not bind us.

"I feel it is my duty to present to you, the public, the facts as they were firsthand," he says, moving on to a monologue that reveals for the first time in detail what happened in closed rooms. "The question is, how did we get to this serious situation? I would like to present my answer to this difficult question to you here today.

"As is known, before the recent elections and the formation of the current government, and after the High Court invalidated the previous law regulating the status of yeshiva students, for a long period, Haredi Judaism was in an ongoing dilemma that lasted several years, during which there were various discussions on various laws, including several election campaigns, and also a period of opposition during the Bennett-Lapid government - during which time the High Court repeatedly granted an extension to repeal the previous law.

"In the last election campaign, when it was already apparent that there was a possibility of establishing a right-wing government in partnership with the Haredi parties, it was clear to everyone, and we also assured the electorate, that our top priority would be to regulate the status of yeshiva students.

"With the opening of coalition negotiations, we made it clear in no uncertain terms that, from our perspective, the status of yeshiva students needed to be regulated first. Although the coalition had no problem with the matter at the time, and the issue did not cause a major uproar in the public, we knew that we had a major challenge ahead of us - then, as today, the legal system led the struggle in Torah Judaism, and we understood that we needed an optimal solution that would also overcome the expected petitions in the High Court of Justice."

"On behalf of the members of the Council of Torah Sages, by whom I was appointed several years ago to coordinate on behalf of Agudat Yisrael the entire issue of regulating the status of yeshiva students, we held numerous conversations and discussions on this subject - including several in-depth meetings that I held with Attorney Yitzhak Meron, who has earned the trust of the Sages of Israel as a legal expert on this matter."

"The outline that was formulated at the time was divided into two, as was later expressed in the wording of the coalition agreement: 'In light of the importance that the Jewish people have given and give to Torah study throughout the generations, the enactment of a Basic Law: Torah Study, which states that Torah study is a fundamental value in the heritage of the Jewish people, will be completed by the time the budget for 2023 is passed. It is agreed that this heritage must be continued in the State of Israel. At the same time, by the time the budget for 2023 is passed, an amendment to the Security Service Law will be completed to regulate the status of yeshiva students with the consent of all coalition factions. The United Torah Judaism faction announces that this matter, which concerns it personally, should have been regulated as a condition even before the formation of the government. However, out of awareness of the required procedures, it was determined that the enactment of a Basic Law: Torah Study and the amendment to the Security Service Law will be completed by the time the budget for 2023 is passed.' End quote.

"The goal was, on the one hand, to formulate a law that was agreed upon by the opinions of the great rabbis and rabbis of Israel, and on the other hand, to ensure that it would stand the test of the High Court of Justice, which invalidated all laws dealing with the status of yeshiva students on the grounds that this contradicted the principle of equality based on the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty. The enactment of the Basic Law: Torah Study was intended to address this concern."

"Even in those days, the agreement to wait with the enactment of the law until after the government was formed was not to my liking, and I also shouted from the pages of 'Hamveser' that we were making a mistake. In those days, the new coalition passed four different basic laws in a lightning process, each of which concerned the personal matters of the heads of the various parties - Netanyahu, Smotrich, Ben Gvir and Rabbi Deri.

"Moreover, in those first days of the victory of the right-wing-Emon bloc, the left was still shocked and the right was overjoyed, and there was almost no public opposition to the agreements submitted on the advice of all coalition members. The moves to regulate the status of yeshiva students could be advanced with unprecedented political calm."

"Having known the political system for several years, I warned back then and you could say I actually begged my friends: 'Don't let them smear us.' Now is the time to pass the law. It has already been proven that when desired, even complicated procedures can be handled in a relatively short time. Unfortunately, my call was not answered."

"In the period after the establishment of the government, while continuing to serve in the role that the members of the Council of Torah Scholars assigned to me, as stated, to represent them in matters of regulating the status of yeshiva students and on their behalf, I participated in a long series of discussions with the relevant teams, together with representatives of Degel Hatorah and Shas, and also the legal advisors at the Ministry of Defense, who then expressed their legal position on the agreements reached in the coalition agreement.

"In the meetings we held at the time with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, I demanded that the law be passed as soon as possible and that there should be no delay in doing so. I warned against violating the coalition agreement by transferring the 2023 budget to the Minyans before the status of the yeshiva students is regulated. The decision to agree to this violation was not made on my own initiative or in coordination with me."

MK Porush continues: "Some time after the terrible disaster on Simchat Torah and the outbreak of war, which naturally also changed the entire public agenda with respect to the issue of the army, discussions began in a working group that included representatives from the Haredi parties, behind my back, regarding a new version of the law that discusses the status of yeshiva students. Although it was well known that I was the representative of the Council of Torah Scholars of Agudat Israel on this matter, those who chose to exclude me from the discussions.

"During that period, I was also asked to sign as Agudat Israel's authorized signatory on a check for approximately 60,000 NIS for a new lawyer whom I do not know, and who ostensibly served as legal advisor for the new version of the law, and for some reason they did not hire the services of Attorney Miron, who, as mentioned, was hired during the coalition negotiations on the advice of the elders of Israel. To this day, I do not know what the essence of that legal advice was, and despite my requests, I still do not receive details about his services and the advice he gave regarding the regulation of the status of yeshiva students."

"At the same time, the date on which the previous law expired was approaching, and the High Court of Justice and the Legal Advisor to the Government began to exploit this situation to begin a campaign of persecution against the Torah world. At that time, the Prime Minister requested independent representation in the High Court and to this end brought the matter to the government's approval, at a meeting held at the beginning of the month of Nissan 5744.

"At that meeting, the ministers were presented with the expected response from the High Court of Justice, which includes a statement by the Prime Minister that there is significant progress with the Haredim in formulating a draft law. To this end, I asked to know during the government meeting what this significant progress is.

"In response to my question, Cabinet Secretary Yossi Fox said the following: 'These are significant recruitment targets and economic sanctions for not meeting the targets. This is the package.' In response to his words, I noted that the Agudat Yisrael Council of Torah Sages has not been asked about targets and sanctions in recent months. 'I tell my opponent (Justice Minister Yariv Levin), the Agudat Yisrael Council of Torah Sages was not asked and there is no consent,' I added. Minister Levin replied to me in these exact words: 'And how was it, of all three councils.' I repeated and asked to clarify at the cabinet meeting: 'I am talking about what you are proposing today.' Minister Levin insisted and slammed me: 'You cannot rewrite history.' In order to remove an obstacle, and since I am very particular about these details - especially when it comes to speaking on behalf of the Agudat Yisrael Council of Torah Sages, I recently went to the Cabinet Secretariat and asked to see the transcript verbatim. The quotes I am quoting here Before you are precise quotes recorded in the minutes of the Government Secretariat.

"And what is this history that cannot be rewritten? I recently inquired with those who were in the negotiating rooms and they told me that this was agreed upon by representatives of the three Haredi parties: a target of 4,800 recruits in the first year; a target of 4,800 recruits in the second year (later updated by the Ministry of Defense to 5,700); a target of 50 percent recruits within 10 years; institutional sanctions on the Torah world in the event of failure to meet the targets; personal sanctions (it was agreed that there would be personal sanctions, but details were not yet entered into at the time – as happened later in the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee).

"These are the things as they are," concludes MK Porush, and adds: "Individuals from Agudat Yisrael sit and conclude, and even mislead the Likud into thinking that it is the opinion of the Council of Torah Scholars, about 50 percent targets and sanctions on the world of Torah and personal sanctions on Torah students. I warned even then because I understood that this was a slope that would lead to demands for additional flexibility.

"In real time, I wrote to the secretary of the Council of Torah Scholars, reminding him of the council's decision in my case, and moreover, that the matter had been re-examined a few years ago, and I warned him that this would be unthinkable. Recently, it became publicly clear that not only did the secretary know and remain silent about the actions of those who dealt with the matter without authority, but that he himself dealt with the matter. In my opinion, this is very serious."

You are raising very serious issues here, let's clear this up once and for all. I apologize for the impertinent question, but the answer is important enough - there are a lot of allegations regarding Rabbi Meir Porush's discipline of the Council of Torah Sages. How do you respond to such allegations?

"I am a politician and I am used to being slandered. But if there is any slander that hurts me, it is this false and unfounded claim. My comfort is the knowledge that the members of the Council of Torah Sages themselves know the truth very well, but perhaps this is definitely an opportunity for the members of their communities to also hear the truth once and for all."

"I keep a 'Council of Torah Sages' binder in my office. There is a record of dozens of cases over the years with the positions of all members of the Council of Torah Sages in relation to significant public decisions. In recent years alone: two hostage deals, our position in relation to the removal of MK Ayman Odeh, just this week in the vote on applying sovereignty to Judea and Samaria, and of course, resignation from the government.

"By the way, even if there are members of Knesset with whom I rarely speak, before the vote on the abductee deal, I asked the representative of the Rebbe of Gur, Shlita, in the government about the Rebbe's position. There is no significant vote that I vote on without knowing the position of all members of the Council of Torah Elders."

"If we are talking about regulating the status of yeshiva students, the current law is in the Knesset following the government's approval to apply the law of continuity to it. I did not vote on that proposal because I did not have the position of the members of the Council of Torah Sages on the matter. I cannot vote in the Knesset or in the government on such an acute matter without receiving Torah advice."

Rabbi Porush takes out a binder and shows us how he wrote down in his handwriting immediately after the cabinet meeting the following: "The religious ministers were not present at the cabinet meeting for some reason when we discussed this section. I was present at the discussion, I did not participate in the vote, and when asked by the Deputy Cabinet Secretary what I was voting for, I told him that I was against Minister Tropper's demand that the law of continuity not be applied to this law, and I am not voting in favor of such a law because I did not receive such a directive from the Council of Ministers." This is in his handwriting from that day.

It is interesting to note that in those days, some told members of the Council of Torah Scholars that they should support the application of the law of continuity, even though it was a law that the Haredi parties opposed in the previous government, on the grounds that in the discussions that would take place in the Foreign Affairs and Security Committee, it would "undergo improvements."

"Moreover," Rabbi Porush summarizes the important issue and adds: "Even in local elections, where there are those who think that they can do whatever they want, this is not the case with us. There was no significant move during the entire local election period that we held in Shlomi Emunim without receiving Torah advice."

You have been involved in the subject for many years. If things were left in your hands, what plan would you formulate?

"I will not sit here and give hypothetical scenarios. When the mission was in my hands, I acted in accordance with the careful guidance of the learned members of the Council of Torah Sages, Shlita, and apparently if they continued to trust me in this matter, then I did what was incumbent on me to their satisfaction. The assignment of the mission remains, and has even been sharpened again for those who needed to be sharpened. But unfortunately, as mentioned, some have chosen to act contrary to it and the results so far are as they are, and that is a shame."

"There are those who are going around today and handing out statements regarding such and such demands, while at the same time they or their assistants agreed on their own to completely different things in closed rooms, and the things are now known and clear. Those people are now blaming those with whom they made deals behind the backs of the faction members in the situation. I don't know how to judge and I don't deal with it, but I definitely suggest that the public think carefully about what is behind all sorts of headlines from all sorts of political figures."

The main accusation

It is impossible to miss Rabbi Porush's harsh language against the legal system in general and the legal advisor to the government in particular. This includes the obsession, the intense discussions, the ignoring of the lack of feasibility of detaining tens of thousands of yeshiva students, and more.

You attribute most of the crossfire regarding the restriction of the steps of Torah students to the Attorney General. Why?

"Anyone who doesn't see how the Attorney General has made the persecution of religion her main concern - probably hasn't lived here in the last year. This is an Attorney General who is being dragged left and right into endless procrastination on every issue that comes to her table, but there is only one issue where she doesn't miss a single discussion, doesn't give up on every possible opportunity, and won't skip a single headline - the status of yeshiva students. There she is the hardest worker in the government. Suddenly she has time for regular monthly discussions, to issue directives, to send her deputies to the High Court of Justice, her assistants to discussions in the army, she has time for everything. It seems that it is more important to her even than Israel's victory in the war.

"When you add to this obsession the fact that she takes every opportunity to harm the world of Torah - for example, in the story of Ofek Hadash, and in a host of other cases of this kind, she actually takes every opportunity to persecute religion. This is not legal advice to the government. I can't figure out where it's coming from, but it just feels like a crazy run amok. Just persecution for the sake of persecution."

You have been in the public arena for quite a few years. Do you remember a legal advisor so opposed to government policy as the current one?

"Legal advice has always been a problematic issue. Even when I was a member of the Jerusalem Municipality, I had to deal with attempts by the legal advice to fight my activities on behalf of the Haredi public in the city. In the government, too, it was always an obstacle, but without a doubt it's on a completely different level. It's no longer just removing obstacles, but a real war against the will of elected officials."

"I must note that in my role as minister, I worked with various legal advisors, both in my office and with elements of the government's legal advisory board - and, to tell the truth, most of them are professionals who only want to do their job faithfully and are very helpful in carrying out the tasks. This is true, among other things, in the legislation we were required to do in Meron, and in other issues.

"For example, and I am not expressing a personal position on the matter but merely presenting the facts - the legal advisor to the Ministry of Defense, who naturally has always been involved in discussions regarding the status of yeshiva students, was told that she was prohibited from being involved in the matter, including a ban on discussing it with senior officials in the ministry. Where have we heard of such a thing? There has never been such a thing."

Do you think it will be dismissed in the end? Or will the High Court stop the entire process and freeze it, again, contrary to the elected government's policy?

"I have very little hope for the impeachment process. It has already been proven that the High Court is the one who really runs the country here, and I don't see a situation in which this decision is not invalidated. In fact, until we address the High Court's problem, we will not have a real solution."

For several years now, the Haredi delegation has been in political contact with right-wing parties, including one term in the opposition. And many in the public are wondering whether this is to our advantage or disadvantage. In the current situation, it is definitely a question to be discussed anew.

Perhaps the problem lies in the decision of the Haredi delegation to go into government with the right and the Likud movement in Israel. Perhaps if the Haredi delegation had gone with the political center and perhaps even with the left, yeshiva students and avrechim would have benefited from deferment of service without anyone being compensated?

"There is a mistake in the actual wording of your question. It is not the Haredi delegation that decides who to go with and who not to go with. Such fateful questions are determined by the great men of Israel, and from time to time they are definitely discussed and decisions are made according to the situation."

"As a commentator only, I don't think that with the current members in the opposition we have partners, certainly not with Lieberman, who has dedicated his life in recent years to persecuting religion, nor with MK Kariv who threatens to harm our educational institutions, nor with Lapid who is looking to make political capital on the back of the Torah world."

"I don't know how to get into the question of 'what if'. The decision to go with the right, which represents the traditional public in Israel, was wise because their platform does not include public transportation on the Sabbath, the destruction of the institution of marriage according to the Mosaic and Jewish law, harm to the holy places of Israel, and so on. I don't think the left would give us everything we want on a silver platter, certainly not when you see their burning hatred for everything holy."

"Does this teach about the future? No. In every future constellation, we will have to reconsider all the considerations and bring the matter to the decision of the rabbis and ministers of the Torah and the Hasidic scholars, may God have mercy on them."

I ask this because, frankly, the Haredi public has no interest in the right or the left. We, the Haredi public, have been in the political system since the establishment of the state with the goal of being able to live our lives without the state interfering with us. So maybe the fact that we have been with the Likud since 1977 was, in retrospect, a mistake? Should we go with those who have the power to allow the Haredi public to continue to maintain their way of life without interference, and that is unfortunately the center and the left?

"First, in 1937, only after it was clear that Shimon Peres had no chance of forming a government did the great men of Israel instruct us to sit down with the Likud for negotiations. But even after that, we didn't always go with the right. Since Menachem Begin came to power, there have also been other coalitions. But I don't think we can ignore the fact that most years we were more comfortable with the right.

"The fact that we first entered a coalition (except for the first government after the establishment of the state) was an initiative of Menachem Begin, who wanted the Haredim as partners. We were in a coalition with Ehud Barak in the government he led and we were forced to leave it because he disrespected the sanctities of Israel. On the other hand, in Netanyahu's first government I was acting housing minister and we were privileged to do a lot for the development of Haredi Judaism throughout the Land of Israel - so there are two sides to the coin."

"In addition, it is impossible to say that we have no interest at all. It is no secret that many of the great Hasidic Jews have expressed strong positions over the years regarding the Land of Israel. Again, I am not talking about the future, but if you are asking about the past – I do not think it was a mistake. As for the future, time will tell."

What is the answer to representatives of the national religious public who claim that they sacrifice their lives in war on the one hand and on the other hand study Torah in Hesder yeshivot, unlike the Haredi public?

"I will divide my answer into three parts. 1 - There are those who speak out of hatred, I have no business with you. 2 - I greatly respect those who are in personal pain over the death of a relative in the war and, God forbid, do not intend to argue with them. 3 - With regard to the public figures with whom I am in dialogue, I say something simple and obvious: Just as I have supported you over the years in right-wing demands since they are considered experts in this matter, I expect you to support us in Torah demands in which we are experts.

"When there was a question about whether Ministers Smotrich and Ben Gvir should be members of the war cabinet, my position was clear – those who represent those who are fighting should be around the decision-making table. In Torah Judaism, they have never sat in the cabinet, and I have never demanded it either."

"In the same vein, I ask and expect them to support us in demanding that we respect the path we see fit in studying Torah. The Haredi public has its own way of sustaining the world of Torah and yeshiva, and I demand that anyone who wants to be my partner respect this and support me and assist me in maintaining this path."

Despite the fact that the acute issue of regulating the status of yeshiva students has not been resolved – the Gedolei Yisrael ordered to remain in the coalition until last Monday in order to spend a fortune on a variety of issues important to faithful Judaism. Did we really succeed?

"I am not sitting here to crown myself, nor to the heads of my faction members or the Haredi parties. Apparently, if we stayed, there were good reasons for that, and it was all at the discretion of the great rabbis and rabbis of Israel, Shlita."

"This is not the place or time to start detailing one by one what each of the members of the faction managed to accomplish in each week that we continued to serve in the positions from which we resigned last week by commanding from a high table. We will do that on election eve. But certainly – and without forgetting for a moment the fact that the top priority for all of us was always to regulate the status of yeshiva students – we worked day and night to maximize achievements for the public that sent us, each in their own field and together on issues that concern our soul bird."