Gideon Sa’ar at one point in time was a rival of Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu within Netanyahu’s Likud party. Sa’ar decided to break away from Likud and started a new political party that briefly put Naftali Bennett and later on Yair Lapid and other leftists parties & their Arab allies into power in Israel. About a year ago in the latest round of elections, Netanyahu had a comeback and decisively defeated the left-wing bloc.
One of the central issues of the election campaign was “judicial reform” since in the name of judicial activism, the judges have been steadily usurping power not granted them at the expense of the legislative and executive branches of Israel’s government imposing policies that are very unpopular with the vast majority of the public.
Instead of accepting the will of the voters, Left-wing protesters backed by their allies in the courts and the deep state have used low level violence and harassment to impose their will on the public.
The “Democracy” Protesters against Yom Kippur
The holiest day of the Jewish calendar is Yom Kippur. It is a day of fasting and atonement for sin. It is the day that G-d seals the judgement for the year, for the middle of the road people, who are neither completely righteous nor completely wicked. It is a holiday where even those who are only slightly religious try to observe if it is easy enough for them to observe.
For the last several years, Jewish outreach organizations have instituted without cost, public prayers in Dizengoff Square, Tel Aviv to make it easy for the slightly religious to participate in prayer services on Yom Kippur.
This year a Judicial Activist Judge decided to try to hamper the prayer service by forbidding the temporary placing of a partition between the men and women who wanted to pray in Dizengoff Square. The anti-religious hoped this new anti-religious roadblock would cause the outreach organization to back down. The outreach organization Rosh Yehudi did not back down but tried to use Israeli flags as a makeshift version of a prayer partition. The Jewish Press reports:
“Even before the Kol Nidrei prayer, about 100 organized protesters arrived ahead of time to disrupt the legally planned Yom Kippur prayer at Dizengoff Circle. The rioters staged a show of screaming and bullying and succeeded in repelling hundreds of Tel Aviv residents who wanted to pray on Yom Kippur as they had done in years past. We left the circle to prevent the desecration of the sacred day and moved to a synagogue out of a sense of responsibility and to maintain the honor of Yom Kippur….”
The police spokesperson even confirmed that the organizers complied with the court’s ruling and no Mechitzot (prayer partitions) were installed. Needless to say, the attackers pulled out those flags in the name of liberalism.
Gideon Sa’ar Condemns Yair Lapid, Members of Netanyahu’s Coalition and the Left-wing protesters.
Israelnationalnews.com reports Gideon Sa’ar’s reaction:
“What ‘leaders’ fuel a civil war at the conclusion of Yom Kippur? There are things which must not be disagreed on. We need to respect rulings of our courts. There is room for everyone in our public spaces. And yes, that includes the Jewish heritage shared by all of us.”
“Those who curse at and shame religious Jews are not protecting the character of Tel Aviv as a liberal and free city. To the contrary: They are not removing partitions, they are raising walls between the parts of our people.”
Turning to the left-wing protesters, Sa’ar said, “To my friends who are fighting shoulder-to-shoulder with me, to protect the democratic regime in Israel, I say: Do not be enticed by attempts to turn the protest into a battle against religion, Israel’s traditions, or our right to the land. All of those will fail. There will not be a civil war.”
Vilnagaon.org looks at Sa’ar’s attacks against Netanyahu and allies on this issue as lip service to maintain his credentials as a leader within the left-wing bloc.
Regarding Gideon Sa’ar’s fear that the “Democracy” protests would degenerate into a battle against religion, Israel’s traditions, or our right to the land, this is our understanding of the nature of these protests from the outset. The demand for “Democracy” is just window dressing for the real goal of attacking standard Judaism. These same Democracy protesters have no problems when other groups not identified with Judaism hold temporary events where women are separate from the men. Indeed, even when the flag barriers in the Yom Kippur service in Dizengoff Square were forcefully removed, the protesters continued to interrupt all that came to pray.
Left-wing Mayor of Tel Aviv added fuel to fire by saying (in Hebrew):
“I do not condemn the violence – because there was no violence,” said Ron Huldai. He further added: “The public in the State of Israel has woken up, and we will not permit the changing of the character of the city.”
That type of statement doesn’t fit the “Democracy Mumbo Jumbo” you typically here when a left-wing cause stands to benefit.
The Left-wing “Democracy” protesters share the traits that the Vilna Gaon’s disciple Rabbi Hillel Rivlin, in Kol Hator, attributed to the Erev Rav
Excerpt from https://vilnagaon.org/erev-rav/
Now it is clear why in Kol HaTor (chapter II, part II, section II) R. Hillel of Shiklov brings in the name of the Gaon: “The general role of two Messiahs, the messiah son of Yosef and the messiah son of Dovid, throughout the generations is one of defense and war against the three leading husks – Eisav, Yishmael and Erev Rav… The `erev rav is our greatest foe, he is what separates the two Messiahs, The `erev rav husk operates only by deceit and indirectly. Therefore the war against the `erev rav is the
most difficult and most bitter, and we must use all our remaining forces to win this war. Whoever is not engaged in actively fighting the `erev rav becomes an automatic partner to the husk of the `erev rav, and whoever this may be it would be better for him had he not been created.
The main force of the `erev rav’ is at the gates of Jerusalem by the entrance of the city (The Great Period, 503-504).
This seems to be a shift and a change in the definition of `erev rav from what we have seen in the other quotations (full of desire, argumentative, honor-seeking, hurrying to give instruction though they are unqualified to do so, etc.). It would seem that this point mentioned by “Kol HaTor” of the resistance to the realization of the redemption of the Jews was not expressed in the other utterances by the Gaon regarding the `erev rav’. This, however, is what R. Hillel of Shiklov explains to us: the nation of Israel has suffered so many tribulations during its horrible exile (see MahaRal, Netzah Yisrael, the beginning of chapter 49), and our heart boils over with distress at the memory of our terrible debasement, both in spirituality and in materiality.
How, now, can there arise out of our nation Sanballats to destroy and disrupt the restoration of the nation of Israel in its land? The only explanation possible is that they really are full of desire, argumentative, proud etc. – lacking true links with the Jewish people or with the Torah of Israel.
We must not take into consideration that some of them do actually have some superficial knowledge of Torah (see Adderet Eliyahu to Deut. 32:20) for My people is foolish, they do not know Me… they are wise in causing evil, but know not how to do good (Jeremiah 4:22). That is, if they are not G-d-fearing – they do not know Me – they will turn the words of the living G-d into lies and deceit. The proof that their hearts are impure is that they are not distressed at the disaster of Yosef (Amos 6:6). They do not feel sorrow at the disaster of the entire Jewish people, though they chatter Torah-like platitudes of love of Israel. “And they heal the disaster of My nation too easily, saying `Peace, peace!’ – but there is no peace!” (Jeremiah 6:14).
Further proof, instead of quarreling with the nations of the world who cause us distress, they choose to argue and quarrel with the faithful of Israel – all by virtue of those very same characteristics defined by the Zohar (I/25).
All this was seen at the time by R. Hillel of Shiklov. He knew how the words of the Zohar and those of the Gaon, his rabbi, could co-exist with contemporary problems. The false virtues of the hypocrites and deceivers are what cause them to put barriers and other delays on the path to the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the redemption of Israel.
Really, all the words of this chapter correspond to one another extremely precisely – to whoever understands.
One final note. Even Rabbi Kook, Chief Rabbi of British Mandate Palestine identified a certain group of hardcore leftists from Russia in his days as Erev Rav (Igrote Haraaya, Volume 1, page 264)!
We will lead it to the curious history researchers to find out the exact name of the group he had in mind and what sets them apart from the rest.
New Addition #1: Orna Barbivai, a member of Yair Lapid’s “Yesh Atid” party, who is running for Mayor of Tel Aviv, against Ron Huldai, tried to outdo Huldai in her hostility to Judaism. Quote from Srugim:
לאחר מכן בהתייחסותה לגרעינים התורניים בעיר אמרה: “צריך לשאול כל תל אביבי איך קרה שבמעוז הליברליות יש היקף של גרעינים שהיכו שורש ומגיעים מבחוץ עם אג’נדות שקובעות מי יהודי”.
מי שלא יעמוד בסטנדרטים שאני אוביל כעיר ליברלית לא יהיה כאן. יהיה כאן רק מי שיבין ושאירועים
בהפרדה מגדרית לא יהיו פה. לא יהיה מצב כזה
Translation: Then in her reference to the Torah seed projects in the city she said:
“Every Tel Avivian should be asked how it happened that in the bastion of liberalism there is a seed project that has taken root and they are coming from the outside with agendas that determine who is Jewish.”
Anyone who does not meet the standards I will lead as a liberal city will not be here. There will only be people here who will understand that events with gender segregation will not be here. There will be no such situation.”
Comment: All standard religious Jewish congregations (“Orthodox”) pray with gender segregation within synagogues.
Addition #2: According to Kikar Hashabbat (Hebrew news) Mayor Ron Huldai recently rescinded permission from the Rosh Yehudi organization to hold Succot Holiday events in the city.
Addition #3: The Yeshiva World news site reported: 18 Tel Aviv Minyanim Attacked On Yom Kippur: Protesters Threw Siddurim, Called Participants “Child Killers”