Answering To A Higher Authority

A new political party in Israel wants to put God in government.

The faces of a future leader: Rabbi Moshe Feiglin is the head of a new religious party in Israel, Manhigut Yehudit.

by Melanie Goldberg

So 60 years. Six-zero. Sixty years of peace, war, happiness, sadness, hope and faith. Sixty years of death, life, belief and trust. Sixty years of fullness, emptiness, defeat and victory. But most of all, 60 years of waiting. Waiting to be heard. As a nation. Simply waiting for someone to stand up. To represent all of us. To finally make all our voices be heard just using one voice, one person. A person all of us can really, truly trust and depend on.

Manhigut Yehudit (Jewish Leadership) is that person. Well, technically, that organization. For the past 10 years the party has been working to elect a religious prime minister for Israel. By religious they mean God must be the main consideration in

all political decisions, which is what the country is truly missing.

The past prime ministers have based their decisions on geopolitics, not God, and we’ve all seen where that’s led us. But Manhigut Yehudit promises to be different. Rabbi Moshe Feiglin, the prospective candidate of Manhigut Yehudit, answers to God first. He is an Orthodox Jew and feels that God and the Torah should be the main guide for Israel’s prime ministers, not Western constitutions and values, according to the Manhigut Yehudit Web site, jewishisrael.org.

The key word there is main though, because it’s definitely a necessity to incorporate Western ideas into a country’s government. But incorporate. Not take over. God and the Torah should still be more important. That’s what Israel really needs to survive.
Feiglin has his plans posted on the Web site including details for his first 100 days in office. On the night he is elected he plans on reacquiring the Temple Mount from our enemies. He says this is necessary since we’ll be breaking up our enemies from their center.

He seems so sure of himself and so prepared. Still one can’t help but question the validity of his plans. Like how can someone who’s never been in office before be so ready for it? Were the past prime ministers really that bad or were they just doing what our country needed at the time to survive? And can one really plan ahead in such detail?

These questions bothered me as I read through the party’s Web site. It all just seemed too good to be true. I attempted to contact the candidate himself, Moshe Feiglin. While waiting for his answers to some of my questions I searched the party’s site.

I found out that Feiglin feels that “A leader is not a director. ... At my side are excellent directors who are at least as professional as the existing directors.” Which means that he’s going to surround himself with directors and administrators with the experience he doesn’t possess. But if a leader is not an administrator or a director, what exactly is a leader? And aren’t we voting for Moshe Feiglin as our leader? When we vote we want him to decide our country’s future, not his staff. So who’s to tell us that his government is going to be any different than the past ones?

Something just didn’t seem right there. I was missing something. Like how could Feiglin have gotten 25 percent of the Likud vote in the 2007 elections if he didn’t know what he was doing?

I never heard from the candidate but I did get some answers from Tova Abady, United States director of communications for Manhigut Yehudit. She told me that Feiglin and his government will be different because they have Jewish values and morals. He is a family man (Feiglin is the father of five children and one grandchild), he is trustworthy and scandal-free unlike many secular governments around the world.

“If a person knows how to be loyal to his family, he is equipped to be loyal to his land,” she said.

We’ve seen how scandal adversely affects Israel; when former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was being investigated he brought attention away from himself by giving away Gush Katif and Gaza. Now that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is also being investigated he’s thinking about splitting Jerusalem.

Feiglin will never have to deal with this since he’ll keep his morals; the Torah is his guidebook. He’ll become an example unto all of us like the Jewish leaders listed in the Bible. He’s like King Solomon in the sense that he has little political experience yet he’ll surround himself with experienced people so his government will be successful. He has many qualities the world seems to ignore in their leaders but are truly a necessity for everyone, such as honesty and integrity. He will be the breath of fresh air Israel’s been searching for for so long.

Abady said he has the same political experience as every other Israeli citizen. He lived through most of modern day Israel’s history—he’s 43 years old. He served in the IDF for four of those years and witnessed the evacuation of Jewish land for the Arabs.

Which is also why he is part of the Likud. We need a leader who can guarantee that no more land will be given away to our enemies and not only does Feiglin say he won’t, it’s written on paper. Israelis feel a sense of allegiance and trust towards him because he’s one of their own and then again he’s different since he has the Jewish values no other prime minister has had before.

Manhigut Yehudit’s slogan is “100% Judaism and 100% freedom of choice.” He and his party will not push religion on anybody. Given the choice between a government with a Jewish identity and a government without one, a secular Jew would choose the one with a Jewish identity, according to Feiglin and the party’s Web site. This is why his government can be successful; it will bring God and religion to the government and unite our people with one cause.

That’s the key. Manhigut Yehudit advisers, administrators and directors will have various areas of expertise and will come from all levels of observance. Yet they work together as a team as we should work together as a nation. I feel that it’ll help unify us as a nation. We teens want this. We need a unified nation. We see that to ensure our survival as a people, as a nation and as a country, Manhigut Yehudit is the first step. And someone has got to take it.

So picture Israel now. A beautiful country, many cultures, a long history. Then picture its corrupt government with geo-political interests. Then imagine Manhigut Yehudit in its place with Moshe Feiglin and his team and the great revolution he will start. Sixty years is a long time. It’s about time someone thought about changing. Let’s just hope this change will be for the better. Hey, you never know until you try. n

Melanie Goldberg is a junior at Shulamith High School for Girls in Brooklyn.

Westchester Jewish Conference

Westchester’s Jewish Community Relations Organization