The leftists have been shaken lately. They feel the ground shaking under their feet. Yes, this is the ground that has been completely stable since Herzl's vision.
They were the sovereigns, they were the decision makers, they were the ones pulling the strings, they excluded, without blinking, anyone who did not align with their positions. They pushed aside, without consideration, anyone who dared not stand still at their command.
They poured money into the working settlements, i.e. the kibbutzim, without holding anyone accountable.
They brought North African Jewry to Israel so that they could serve as woodcutters and water carriers. This is known and recorded in the minutes of a meeting that preceded Ben-Gurion's decision to bring them to Israel.
They worshipped Mother Russia, swore allegiance to Stalin, and implemented many of the principles of communism here.
But their equality tilted in favor of the Arabs and overlooked Yemenites, North Africans, and Haredim.
Mapam members who separated from Mapai made a big deal out of it because, to be Mapai members, they were too moderate and inclined to the West, God forbid. The Mapam members consistently and mystically supported the Eastern bloc.
Well, this left came to Israel to build the country with the goal of creating a new Jew here. A kind of experimental strain, a hybrid product, that looks like all nations and especially atheist, as the communist system demanded. But what can be done if the product of their hybrids turns out to be distorted. In the worst case, he abandoned everything and went to foreign lands and assimilated there, and in the best case, he returned to his roots and, mercifully, put a kippah on his head.
This is how it happened over the years, that the people who still remained in Zion were following tradition, and indeed - the ideas of the left seemed to them like suicide, like a prescription for the total extinction of the Jewish people.
It is no wonder, therefore, that we are now reminded of all the exploits of the left.
They fed the traditional people bitter things. They took their children to kibbutzim, of course in the name of re-education, so that they would not remain primitive. They learned the concept of 're-education', of course, from their idol Stalin. They also disappeared babies from families they believed were backward and they gave them, with great kindness, to enlightened, infertile families, so that something would come out of these children.
The end justified the means.
Not to mention the exclusion of the Haredi community. You could write a trilogy about the suffering of the Haredim under the yoke of the world, and still not everything would be written. Speaking of "the end justifies the means," I remember with horror when I heard a security official detailing, about two weeks before Rabin's assassination, the profile of the prime minister's potential assassin. He spoke on one of the morning shows, and admitted that the Shin Bet had a profile of the assassin, and he gave a detailed description: "Yemeni, short, curly!""
So, for God's sake, why, if they knew everything about him (courtesy of the champagne "planter"), did they let him freely enter Rabin Square and walk around freely? Because the goal was to eliminate the right, which was then in dramatic ascendancy, by criminalizing and defaming them.
Since then I have been very troubled. Also because of the silencing. No one mentions this detail. Because the worst thing is the silencing! The silencing of the kidnapping of Yemeni children, the silencing of Rabbi Meshulam, etc.
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And suddenly the silence is broken.
Suddenly, brave women and men arose on the right, who do not apologize, do not blink, and above all, do not exaggerate. They are no longer afraid. The order of dominating the ideas of the left through culture, through university lecturers, through the courts, through public broadcasting that was controlled by them, through the exclusion of interviewees from the right – the order of silencing an entire sector that was always on the defensive was eliminated.
The left is now fighting a war of attrition. The left knows that it is a war of to be or not to be.
Their problem is that they don't read the map correctly. They have long since moved far away from the launch pad. The people no longer listen to their opinions. The people don't stand behind them. The people openly mock their ideas. They can shout, curse, slander, threaten. No one is impressed.
Because indeed, Lenin doesn't live here anymore.
Suddenly, they no longer speak in fancy, enlightened, pharmacy words. They have taken off the gloves and are using nasty words in the war of words they are waging.
They cling to culture like the horns of the altar and are shocked that they want to exclude them. Them? Where has the elegance that was always woven into their way of speaking gone? Where has pluralism been suppressed and why is freedom of expression only possible when the expression is theirs?
Important reminder: In order for the construction of the land to remain stable, strict building rules must be observed. The foundations must be strong. Blessed is the enterprise in which the continuity of the building continues from the generation of those who laid the foundations, through the generation of those who built the courses, to the generation of those who installed the foundations. Blessed is the nation in which the chain of generations continues continuously, and generation after generation will speak and not turn its back on the generations that preceded it.
It is impossible to begin the history of the Land of Israel only from the days of Herzl. This is an absurd move.
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To strengthen my claims about the left's exclusion of other sectors, I will provide some personal examples.
At the time, when I started writing books, I had an ambition to reach the general public and not just the ultra-Orthodox public. I believed that just as secular people want us to get to know their 'culture', we also aspire for them to get to know us and our way of life, and there is no better way than through reading books.
I quickly realized that the door was locked in front of me.
When I spoke to publishers by phone, they spoke to me from Nofat Tzofim, but when I arrived with the manuscript and saw that I was Haredi, they found a number of excuses to reject me.
Only once did I encounter a human being who separated the author from his opinions and examined the material professionally. It was Dr. Shamai Goldner, z"l from Kibbutz Mizra, who replaced Nathan Yehonatan, who was editor-in-chief of the 'Sifriyat Hapoalim' publishing house, for a few months.
He sat down with me in a matter-of-fact manner about the book, suggested changes, and was very supportive.
While I was sitting down to make the changes, Nathan Yehonatan returned to the editor and was shocked by the fact that a book by a Haredi woman was about to be printed - and he immediately severed the connection. Since then, I have published eight books, but I have not been able to break through the ghetto walls in which the secularists surrounded us. The writer Ram Oren once told me: "If you want your books to be accepted by the secular public, you must write against your public. To slander. As long as you write with sympathy for the public, it will not catch on with us.".
Now I understand very well why Avishai Ben-Haim decided to create a horrifying series about the supposed disintegration of Haredi society. With ratings at rock bottom, they realized that when he sympathizes and caresses the Haredi public, it won't bring ratings. But defamation will increase viewership. That's how it works. That's the method.
And what I remember most as a frustrating incident was the time I decided to enter a prize-winning short story writing competition.
The competition was funded by a foundation in memory of one of the great judges. I invested a lot in writing the story and sent it in. The problem was that I didn't know that it is forbidden to step on 'mines' in Israel and my topic was a story of a courageous friendship between a Jew and an Arab in a car and the bitter end after the Arab joined a terrorist group.
And what do you think happened? That same year, the members of the prize committee announced that they were forgoing the first prize this year for reasons they kept to themselves and that this year they would only receive second and third prizes.
So please, don't dwell on exclusion and selection now. You have earned this honestly.
And we, the Haredim, the settlers, the Sephardim and the traditionalists, stand on the sidelines and watch from the stands as this culture war, which is anything but cultural, is waged.
Yours – Rebecca Detector
Who was always on the disadvantaged side –
Haredi journalist and writer.
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