Monday, December 13, 2010

The Dati-Leumi Leadership Vacuum.

Harav Yoel Ben Nun (yeah I'm a fan) wrote an article last week bemoaning the lack of a religious leadership for the Dati-Leumi public. In the article Harav Yoel,  claims that the rabbanim are sending the public a message of "Don't look to me" for leadership. 

His examples seem to show that rather then not taking leadership - The rabbanim have opinions that are different then Rav Yoel would like. His examples are somewhat surprising, since they seem to focus more on Shas then the Dati Leumi Rabbanim. His main examples are; The segregation of Sepharadim in Emmanuel, The racist halachic book "Torat Hamelch" which certain rabbanim rallied around, Rav Ovadia's   public shaming and removal from Shas of Harav Amsalem and the ongoing "IDF conversions" saga. 

From these examples he concludes that  the days when Rav Ovadia was seen as a Beit Hillel, and progressive have long since passed. In his opinion the religious leadership has taken views that have made them irrelevant to the Dati-Leumi and Hiloni majority.

The fact that the Dati-Leumi community hasn't got an accepted leader is fairly obvious. Until recently there was some pretence that Harav Mordechai Eliyahu was accepted as the current leader. However the Hitnatkut conclusively showed that the Dati-Leumi community would not listen to their Rabbanim. The months leading to the Hitnatkut were filled with Rabbanim including Harav Eliyahu Z"l calling for soldiers to refuse orders to remove settlers. However there very few religious (or otherwise) soldiers  actually refused the orders when they came. It became clear that the Dati-Leumi community is not actually lead by those who seem to think that they are leading

We are left with the sad conclusion. We are a public that has no religious or political leadership. The answer to the question of why that is, has remained elusive.
(more on this topic later) 

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