Temper tantrums a call for attention
Despite appearances, the current wave of haredi protests are not about any substantive issue worrying rabbinical or political leaders, but they are reflective of an internal power struggle within the ultra-Orthodox community over the very nature of that society.
The spate of demonstrations and civil disobedience over the last few months has been orchestrated by a political splinter group known as the Jerusalem Faction, which broke from the mainstream political grouping of “Lithuanian,” non-hassidic, Ashkenazi haredim – Degel Hatorah – in 2012.
(Degel Hatorah and the hassidic together make up the United Torah Judaism faction in the Knesset.)
At that time, the head of the “Lithuanian” community, Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, died and the head of the Jerusalem Faction, Rabbi Shmuel Auerbach, challenged Rabbi Aharon Leib Shteinman for leadership of the sector, a challenge won by Shteinman.
Ever since, Auerbach and his group, thought to be some 10% to 15% of Ashkenazi haredim, have sought to claw their way back into a position of influence and importance within the ultra-Orthodox community and regain their ability to determine its nature and direction.
After all, the Jerusalem Faction once had the ear of the leader of the haredi world; they edited the Degel Hatorah mouthpiece newspaper Yated Ne’eman; MKs consulted with them; and they effectively controlled the haredi community because of their proximity to Elyashiv, his predecessor, and Degel founder Rabbi Elazar Menachem Shach.
Today, in contrast, they have no representation in the Knesset and are unlikely to get any; they are shunned by mainstream haredi leadership; and they have diminishing influence over the mass of haredim.
Most important, they are powerless to hold back changes to a society in which more men are steadily leaving study hall benches to get a higher education, join the workforce and even go to the army.
According to Shahar Ilan, an expert on haredi society and a reporter for the business newspaper Calcalist, the real struggle being waged by the Jerusalem Faction is against these changes, in accordance with what they believe was the path of Shach, and to preserve the haredi community as one that studies Torah to the exclusion of everything else.
The mainstream leadership in no way encourages military service, employment or leaving yeshiva study; Torah study is still the pinnacle in haredi society. At the same time, that leadership is not really opposing such trends.
It is Auerbach and the Jerusalem Faction’s inability to influence and sway haredi society toward their vision that is most troubling to its leadership.
But the group has carved out one highly sensitive area of the haredi agenda for itself, emphasized by its demonstrations, riots and civil disobedience by which it grabs headlines – and hopes – relevance: military service.
Even though the current government gutted the previous government’s haredi conscription law, and even though no haredi yeshiva student is being forcibly drafted, and even though state financial support for yeshiva students is at all-time highs, the Jerusalem Faction leadership pretends there is some kind of crisis over conscription in order to rally its soldiers and dominate the news agenda.
The group cannot grab headlines, stage demonstrations and cause chaos over haredi men voluntarily choosing to go to the IDF, study in college or university and get a job. It would be impossible to fire up its foot soldiers on such issues.
But it can fight the state, call the police “Nazis,” stop traffic and cause mayhem over military conscription, even if it is on totally false pretenses.
This fight at major highway junctions and central city thoroughfares is therefore not about conscription at all, but is first and foremost an internal power struggle, as well as a desire for relevance and a fight to influence the direction and very character of haredi society.
The timing of the current protests would appear to be largely circumstantial. It is also a function of the Jerusalem Faction’s instructions to their yeshiva students to not even report to IDF offices for preliminary processing in order to receive their military service exemptions as mainstream yeshiva students do.
Anyone failing to report for preliminary processing is, by law, a deserter liable to arrest by the military police.
After one yeshiva student is arrested, the leadership instructs other students to protest and riot. Frequently, these students are arrested for disturbing the public order, attacking police and other misdemeanors, but are then found to be deserters and placed in military detention.
The increasing number of yeshiva students who are now formally deserters plays into the Jerusalem Faction’s hands, as it gives them ever-increasing opportunities to take to the streets and protest.
But are these protests working? Are Auerbach and the Jerusalem Faction becoming more influential because of them?
According to Yisroel Cohen, a senior journalist at the Kikar Shabbat news website, most of the haredi mainstream is turned off by these pointless, violent and vitriolic demonstrations.
“Most of the mainstream haredi community thinks they are shooting themselves in the foot, distancing themselves from the sane Lithuanian community, and these people are asking themselves, ‘Is this our culture? Did we grow up like this? Do I want to be associated with this?’” said Cohen.
It is significant that the mass demonstration on Tuesday night, as others have been, was held in cooperation with the even more fundamentalist, anti-Zionist Eda Haredit communal organization.
The Eda has long been seen as a marginal, extremist group, even within the broader haredi community, with almost no influence over that society.
But by mimicking the Eda’s modus operandi and worldview, the Jerusalem Faction is effectively turning itself into a carbon copy of the Eda – radical, violent and irrelevant.
According to Cohen, until recently there have been significant numbers of people within the haredi mainstream who once had sympathies with the Jerusalem Faction, but the radical group is now losing them due to its extremism.
By its very radicalism, this group is pushing itself further from the mainstream, making itself less relevant to the average haredi, and damaging its own ability to influence haredi society.
Unfortunately, the general public may have to suffer the consequences of this power struggle a little while longer. •