Behind the Times Eps 24. The History Election

Did you know that the forgotten founder of Zionism went on to play a leading role in Agudat Yisrael? Or that Rav Chaskel Abramsky was responsible for the continued presence of the Muslim Waqf on Har HaBayit? It turns out that the margins of history tell the real story. Behind the Times dives into the big concepts and overlooked moments that carry vast meaning all through the lens of Torah and ethnic thought. Join me, Gedalia Gutentag, as I go behind the times to explore the forgotten history, remarkable personalities, and transformative moments that shape current events and explain how we got here. Behind the Times with Gedalia Gutentag. There's something strange happening in the streets of the cities all over Israel. What I mean is that there's an election happening in a couple of weeks' time. And yet, if you walk around the streets, if you ignore the big advertising hoardings and the billboards, you wouldn't know there's an election coming. Normally, here this is a Israel's a very intense place and there's, you know, there's a lot more going on. There's when elections come close, so close to an election, elections are in the air. Everything there's these people there's the jingles and there's the parties and there's the slogans. And yet, apart from those uber expensive advertising hoardings that are dominate, you know, in the center near the Knesset and also in the entrance to Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, where you'll see Bibi and you'll see his opponents, Gadi Eizenkot, or you might see the all the various parties, you know, Ben-Gvir, there's very little. There's very little. This is not something just something I've noticed. This is widely noted that this election cycle seems to be dead as a dodo. The question is why and I think we're going to devote an episode over here to behind the times because I believe that this has very historic roots to what's going on over here. In fact, what I call I've started to call in my own mind this election, called it the history election because there is so many there's so many historical trends and and current bubbling away beneath the surface. And when we talk about history in Israel, I think as an introduction to what we're going to discuss, there's something we have to understand. People, newcomers especially, from England, from America, often come along and say, "What is it about this place? Can everyone calm down? Why is everyone" you know, the intensity of the ideological battles is incredible. It doesn't exist anywhere across the Jewish world. And this is the explanation for what we're seeing now. Because essentially, the the last the only place where the battles that played out in the shtetls of Eastern Europe, that pitted yeshiva against, you know, Jewish cultural school and and religious Zionists against non-Zionists and secular Zionists, the only place in the world where those battles still play out is here in Israel. There's a very good reason for that. Because in England, America, France, Russia, Germany, wherever else you go, south across Latin America, the deep ideological splits of over a century ago that really began back in those, you know, with the Jewish encounter with the enlightenment, became the Haskalah, that became the various isms, you know, the socialism, Bundism, communism, the rise of Agudath Israel, a lot of these battles don't make a difference, don't make that much of a difference. Communities live apart. Reform Jews don't live near or necessarily interact with yeshiva Jews. The battles don't make a difference because people Jews over there interact as Americans in a greater polity where there are different rules, different battles, right against left, etc. Here in Israel, though, the battles of a century ago, of more than a century ago, make a difference. They're crucial. They're critical because here in Israel, this a country of Jews who have to decide we are a sovereign state, a nation state, how should we govern it? Where should resources be allocated? What direction should the education ministry take? Who should educate our kids on what basis? Where should we spend money? How much culture? How much yeshiva? How much learning? How much secularism? How much religion? Religion and state. In a sovereign country, the battles, the ideological splits that rent the shtetl a century ago are playing out in terms of taxes and government policy. And that is why in this country, the ideological battles are so fierce because they matter. They matter in terms of government policy. They matter in terms of kitchen table issues. In terms of life itself over here. And that is why I think what is happening is when everything seems to have boiled down to yes Bibi, no Bibi, really what's happening, we have to look to history to trace some of those trends, some of those currents, some of those ideological struggles and moments that are now playing out in Israeli politics and this election, the history [music] election. Let's start with the left. The date that matters that I now I think is playing out in the in Israel's left or the anti-Netanyahu, anti-right-wing religious bloc coalition, the date that matters now is about 1966. Let me explain. What I think is that the Israeli left has come in a sense almost full circle back to 1966. In fact, what I mean by that is not the year that that England won the World Cup, rather to the pre-1967 era when Israel when a particular cycle in the ideological cycle of the left began. And what I mean is like this. The headline that I like to share with you and just the basic thought is that for the left they have finally abandoned Oslo and returned to a pre- Palestinian state narrative of what matters and what matters to them in their politics. And I think it's for very obvious reasons, but let's take a step back to a time to just familiarize ourselves with a time when the left was busy with the culture of Israel itself. Because for generations really, in fact, since the victory in 1967 the Israeli victory in 1967 and with mounting urgency from the '90s onward, the left was concerned primarily the electoral platform was one thing was about a peace with the Palestinians. Obviously, from the it took time after 1967 for that to build, but the idea of peace deals with the Israel's neighbors was led to the Oslo process, led to a whole lot of withdrawals from Israeli territory. That concerned the left. But what actually happened before that? Well, you have to go back a while, but actually the governing project of the left was not just about setting up a state, a sovereign Jewish state. And let's be honest, the left had the lion's share in making it happen. People associated with the ideological left, Ben-Gurion's party and those to his left, they did a huge amount of the heavy lifting to make this happen over here. But it was also a project of reorganization of the Jewish people. That's what it was. It was about creating the new Jew. It was a complex project. It was a balancing act between the old and the new. In other words, they wanted a a little bit of the Jewish history to flavor the Zionist presence. And in fact, there's a there was a 1934, I think it was a famous piece of writing produced by one of the the left's biggest ideologue, a man called Berl Katznelson. So, perhaps not a household name in yeshivas today, but what he did, he said his piece of writing then, he was a senior thinker. In fact, perhaps one of the biggest thinkers of Israel's founding generation of labor Zionists. And in 1934, he wrote after Tisha B'Av a remarkable thing. It was a piece of writing called it was in Davar, which was the left's basically or big newspaper over here. It's called Hurban [snorts] U'tlishut. Hurban U'tlishut. Destruction and rootlessness. And what it triggered Berl Katznelson, and by the way, it's worth saying like this. Berl Katznelson, we may not remember him so much, but we're familiar with a place named after him because Kibbutz Be'eri was named after Berl Katznelson. You can hear his pen name was Be'eri, his name was Berl. He was born in Belarusian Babruysk, and he was one of the big voices, ideological voices. And he after after Tisha B'Av of 1934, penned a piece again called Destruction and Rootlessness. And what it was in response to something that he'd heard, he'd heard in shock that a group of a Zionist group, a group of Zionist youth pioneers, whatever they were, had gone on some trip, some outing or some exploration mission, whatever it was, starting on Tisha B'Av night. And he reacted in shock. He said, "On our day of national mourning, that's what you do? And his words are worth quoting just to give you an idea of how of the balance that the the ideological left was trying to strike, this balance between they wanted to create a new Jew and yet wasn't a halakhic Jew. They were anti-halakhic. They were anti-Torah, but they wanted that shmek, that last residual whiff of I suppose legitimacy and roots that the Jewish story gave them. And he said, Ma erka u'ma peria shel tnuat shichrur she'ein imah shorashiyot. Yesh imah shikcha. What value, what fruit can there be in a liberation struggle movement that has no roots and has forgetfulness? He says a movement which instead of deepening among its followers a sense of their origins and knowledge of their sources blurs the memory of where they came from and cuts the threads through which the movement draws its lifeblood. And he says, he carries on to say, K'lum hayinu odem sugali b'yom zeh l'tnuat tkuma. Would it be possible to have a movement of national liberation and rebirth, as they saw the Zionist movement, lulei haya ami Yisrael shomer b'libo b'kashut oref k'dosha et zecher ha'churban. Were not for the fact that the Jewish people kept with this holy stiffness of neck, he says quoting the biblical phrase, the memory of the churban. How can we have a liberation movement today? That's incredible actually when you think. Kibbutz B'eri, the the very left, very secularist nature of those who follow his teachings, but the man himself was saying actually we need a modicum of historical memory. And you balance that with a Ben-Gurion. Ben Gurion notedly was the one who very clear various stages that that the state of Israel, he made this clear both before and after it was created. That the state of Israel was not going to be a theocracy. Said we're not going to follow the Torah law. Right? And so but there was this and in fact the kibbutzim returned to them. If you go around the kibbutzim, you can still see and you talk to the old older members, you can talk to you that they'll tell you about the sort of the agricultural ceremonies of, you know, Shavuot was turned into, you know, the the harvest festival and there's the ingathering festival all entirely devoid of any any spiritual significance, but at least rooted in in in an idea of national history. And that was because that was the balance. So why do I draw? I mean, you could this is a point that's could be made without illustration, but I think you see in Berl Katznelson, you see in in Ben Gurion, you see in the for example in the Haggadah shel Pesach, famously in the kibbutzim or infamously, they had all these Haggadahs which were just entirely devoid of any spiritual significance, any godly significance and it was about nationalism, it was about national memory, etc. But you see down the left, this was something. The left, when they came along and and founded in many ways set up the architecture and because they did set up so so much of the architecture over here, Berl Katznelson himself came comes along here and in I think in the early 20th century and he's one of the founders, not only is Kibbutz Beryl named after him, he's one of the founders of one of the most important organs of the Israel polity at least back in the day. It was the Histadrut, the behemoth the you know, of a trade union effectively that basically ran the entire economy, the Histadrut. He was a founder of the Histadrut and again gives you some idea of how these ideologues were at one and the same time, they were busy creating the machinery and the skeleton of the future state, but at the same time, they would they had that the project was as much about creating you know, Hashem Shalom and Halilah really, a new Jew and a new Jewish entity to take over the Jewish people, to redirect the energies of the Jewish people. That's what it was about. And from the 70s onwards, after the Six-Day War really, at '67 onwards, what happened is that the left starts to become identified more and more with a single with a cause of Middle East peace. And by the '90s, that was the platform. It wasn't about the left was not there was no Yes, they had the secularists, they were strongly staunchly secularists. Goes without saying. But actually, the thrust of what they were trying to achieve was peace in the Middle East. That great mirage, that great illusion. And that built and that bit that that developed. Obviously, the Intifada, the second Intifada in in the early 2000s. And afterwards, the the repeated attacks from Gaza that destroyed that dream. But finally, obviously, what put a nail final nail on in that coffin was October the 7th. October the 7th ended the Oslo left. It's fair to say. It ended the Oslo left. There is no Despite the fact that you can go along with fine, the on the holdings, the advertising, these huge political billboards in you know, Tel Aviv's HaShalom in the entrance of Azrieli entrance to Tel Aviv or into the sort of the government quarter around the Knesset in Jerusalem, these huge advertising holdings. And you'll see there that the slogan that the the the Likud has resorted to is this tired old slogan that no one really believes at the moment. It says like this it goes like this it says it shows on the one side Bibi and on the other side all of his collection of his of his opponents, got the Eisenkott, yeah, Avigdor Lieberman, Naftali Bennett, and together with a pictured with a bunch of the Arab political leaders. And it says the slogan is like this, You mean or Palestine. It's either the right or it's Palestine. But no one actually believes that the left is got the stomach at the moment now, especially these leaders to lead to a Palestinian state. I think that's that that's And it gives you a sign of how dead that this election is and how they haven't to resort to these old slogans. Because what has really happened, I think, is that October the 7th put paid to the real ideological fierceness of the Oslo left. We're back, in other words. So, what's come back? We are back. Notice what the platform really is. The platform now is civil marriage. That's what the focus is on. Civil marriage, drafting the Haredim, you know, anti- They're against all the messianism that they say has got to all the religionization that has taken over the army. And that's obviously a contradiction to drafting the Haredim. But they want civil marriage, they want transport on Shabbat, they want they want to liberalize gay laws. They want to again break open the Rabbinut's monopoly on the kosher system. These are things that they calling for a total revolution in religion and state. That's very much what's on the agenda this time. And so, what is actually happening is that, I think, the first date in this historic tour to remember is that this election is really about a return before the Oslo left, if you like, a return to 1966. >> [music] >> Let's move on to another date that I think is really at in the background of what's happening now, at least the way I think of it. The date, the year is 1977. That's the year when Menachem Begin storms to victory in his famous Mahapach, his revolution. He kicks out, finally, the left that has dominated, not just since 1948 Israeli politics, but has really dominated the Zionist institutions and the Zionist movement from its inception in the you know in the previous century. And what the date is so significant, that that is the date when Menachem Begin manages to do something very significant, which is to unite the the liberals, the you know, liberals in the in the classic sense of classic economic liberals who wanted did not like socialism of the didn't like the socialism of the left. The followers of Jabotinsky who were who wanted who did not like the left-wing policies and anything. And the third, you know, and the second leg of that coalition, really the second whole demographic really that helped him come to victory in 1977 after so long trying was were the Mizrahim, the Sephardim, the ones who'd been overlooked and essentially that the traditionalists who did not who they hated the Ashkenazi elite secular parties that had essentially stripped them of their pride, stripped them of their tradition. And he stormed to victory. And actually, there's a couple of things about that. There's a the writer Israeli conservative writer commentator and podcaster Gadi Taub has this description. He said he grew up in a very left-wing house. I mean, parents were academics and he said there was basically in 1977 he remembers his parents as friends coming in and there was effectively shiva. It was effectively a shiva house for the loss of the left. They couldn't believe what had happened. And he and we'll get back to him in a minute what the reaction was and what he says the reaction was is an essay a few years ago in in in Tablet Magazine. But essentially, what he did, let's just I just want to share with you is something I think illuminates the what had brought a Begin to power and what had you know, it was the Sephardim who the traditionalists who finally they loved Menachem Begin. The Sephardim loved Menachem Begin. And they loved one thing that they loved one thing about he was a warm-hearted Jew, who was a Jew from Brisk, who famously, I'm not sure how well he he got on with town well with some of the towns rabbonim. It been In effect, he when he came to power, he this this in this is description out there in the book The Prime Ministers by Yehuda Avner, which is incredible description of his first day in office, where he was there was crisis in Lebanon, and he had his military secretary, a senior army officer as a military secretary, come to brief him, and he interrupted in the middle to receive a rosh yeshiva to who had trouble paying the electricity bill. I mean, it was incredible thing. But there is this famous scene about Menachem Begin where he has this 1982 his shabbat speech, because then it was his famous thing when he was grounding El Al Israel's by then it was Israel's national airline. It was before it was privatized. And he granted it to enormous opposition from secularists across Israel. And he gave this incredible speech, which makes the rounds every so often. The speech really what we should do is just go through some famous speeches, and this should be one of them. So a series just on that. But he gave the speech in which the Salonika shabbat speech, and he should described, you know, with that old-fashioned rhetoric described the, you know, he says You will deem how you do with Jews called Salonika in the MB Israel. It was a mother city in Israel it would and that he described in this it with this incredible rhetoric how it was the whole port. He describes so movingly how the whole port city would close on shabbat because it this you know, the the port workers were all Jewish. This this Salonika in Greece. And he says and it just I have to remember and it's worth looking up this speech in which he goes on about and which he says describes how downtrodden the Jews were in exile. And yet when it came Shabbos, they sat there. He sat there. The Jew sits there with his wife and his children in the Shabbos best. And then Begin says, "Melech Yaya, he was a king." You know, imagine the scene. There is It must have been amazing to sit there and listen in the Knesset as he described that. But that's what they loved about Menachem Begin. This warm, beating, proud Jewish heart. And they voted him in in 1977. But Gadi Taub in his essay, written a few years ago, you know, after this whole justice reform protest begins in 2000 and after the, you know, 2022, essentially, and he says, "What has happened is that the the right-wing never completed its revolution in 1977. In 1977, basically from then the right has had more or less interrupted with a few interruptions, has had consistent power. And that's because there's ever greater, and we've remarked on this multiple times, including in our recent Slichos podcast, the the there's ever greater, you know, traditionalism in Israel. And those are numbers-wise, they show up in the Knesset. And yet, Taub says they never completed the revolution because what happened is that the left said, 'Okay, we've lost the Knesset, but we can still dominate institutions, other institutions, the judiciary, you know, academia, other elite institutions that and centers of power.' And that was that That was Gadi Taub's contention there a few right a few years ago. But essentially, I think that's why 1977 is what's going on here because for the last 3 years, and still today, essentially what's trying to happen, if you just ask the Likudniks, they would they would gladly put aside anything to do with the draft, the Giyus the draft law that has basically would be brought this government down. They would gladly They, as a party, are still focused on one thing, completing the revolution of 1977. And that explains what is really happening. Yes, they've had to tone it down, but essentially, if they're elected again, what they would like to do is to take forward that revolution of 1977. The next significant date, I think, is about 1983, I would say it. And this explains something. It's related to what we just said. Essentially, what is now happening is that one of the greatest dynamics here in this current election is that Shas the Shas party is in true danger. It's in danger in a way it's not been for decades. And the reason is because its two legs, its two compartment components, are essentially being ripped apart. Back in 1983, or thereabouts, the the there was a a a report in newspaper, basically a a a revolution that was brewing. It was a revolution against Agudat Yisrael. Agudat Yisrael was that back then the only Haredi party. This was before Shas, before Degel HaTorah. There was only one party, the historic Agudat Yisrael. And it included the Hasidim, the Litvaks, the Ashkenazim, the Sephardim, everyone who was anyone who was Haredi voted for that. 1983, Shas is created under Rabbi Ovadia Yosef. And there was because they the as the newspaper started talking, there was a rebellion against the fact that they the Sephardim felt that the while they voted for the Ashkenazim, they would get nothing in return. Okay, that's history. But what in fact happened was that to Rabbi Ovadia Yosef was able to create a political juggernaut that eventually won a huge number of seats. I remember the height that it is height, but based on the marriage of two demographics. One was the the still young but you know but vibrant world of the Yeshiva of Sefardi Yeshiva light. The you know the Yeshiva and Kolel world of the Sefardim which was has to be said very much a creation of the Ashkenazi Torah world and in fact it was Rav Shach who encouraged who guided Rav Ovadia Yosef into setting this up into setting up Shas. And but it was representing the Sefardi Torah community. The other plank in fact not far bigger was the very same traditional Sefardim who had propelled Begin into power. And he comes along Rav Ovadia Yosef comes along with his immense magnetism and capitalizing on the fact that the Sefardic Jewry is so reverential for Chachamim for Torah scholars and for even in incredible inspiring way still today he was able to set up the the Shas party took off like a rocket and it meant I think that Aryeh Deri was the youngest government minister at 29 he was Israel's interior minister. And essentially what happened was that rebellion against the Agudah that rebellion against the Ashkenazi establishment was enabled based on those two planks and this is what's fallen apart now and this is where history has as it were come full circle because we are now over the Giyus law over the draft controversy drafting Yeshiva Bachurim and the Charedi draft issue that has split and threatens to totally split the Shas electorate and base in two because they've still got the Yeshiva world base the Charedi base what about this vast sort of hinterland of traditional voters traditional voters want two things they revere Torah scholars but they revere the army as well. Those are the facts and this is what's happened over here and it's back to 1983 because of this. Because for the very first time in over four decades, there is an existential threat aimed at the heart of the Shas base, which they're desperately trying to appeal to the legacy. It was a few days ago that the outside of Ovadia Yosef and they're trying to appeal. They're saying, "Look, this is Maran's legacy." Let us see how this plays out because they for the first time since 1983 there is this existential threat, which is now playing out in the [music] elections of 2026. Perhaps the biggest historical trend, I think, is one we're about to say we've left for last, which is the core of the Haredi world itself. Because what I believe is that the tectonic shifts are so great it that in the Haredi world under the pressure of the last few years, this incredible clash of the Haredi mainstream with the state, its institutions, and in fact with the vast majority of mainstream Israel, I believe what has happened is that the Haredi world has gone back twice. It's gone back to the early '90s, in fact to about 1990. And separately, it's gone back to probably the 1950s. And let me explain, let me unpack those two dates again, what I mean by that. Let's start with 1990. If it's clear that from 1977 onwards, Begin, Menachem Begin, with his revolution, followed by Shas, was able to to create this this new political alignment of the right wing with the religious to hold to you know, to take and hold power, the Haredi parties Agudat Yisrael Degel HaTorah were very much part of that. And that goes to a fascinating historic encounter in 1990. What happens in 1990 is one of the most famous speeches, again, this is worth an episode on its own. The speech known as the Umash Fanin, the rabbit speech. What does it mean, the rabbit speech? It was in Yad Eliyahu, this football stadium in South Tel Aviv, where Rav Shach gives this incredibly anticipated speech, and one that was covered intensely by the Israeli media. And the because the political background was that Shimon Peres had brought down the government, he wanted to get the Haredi support, and that meant that Rav Shach was going to decide whether to go with the right or the left. Traditionally, Haredim don't go with the left because they got, you know, there was it worked and they got the funds they needed for the communities, and that was that. Rav Shach in that speech attacked the kibbutznikim. He attacked the secular Israeli secularists. And he said in that pain-filled way, he said, he thundered, Bameh Atem Yehudim? With what are you Jews? And he said, "Eating rabbits on Yom Kippur and Yom Kippur." How are you Jewish? How are you Jewish? And it's a credit, I think, to the sort of residual sense of Jewish pride and whatever you call it, that latent Jewish spark, that the rabbit-eating Yom Kippur, you know, profaning secularists were furious. They said, "Us? You're questioning our Judaism? Our Jewishness? You're questioning our Jewishness?" And the papers were full of it. It caused an uproar. Rav Shach wasn't doing it to cause an uproar. He knew he had the Israeli media's attention. He knew he had the greatest megaphone. He knew he had the platform. They were waiting to hear in that speech the announcement left or right. And so he said what he felt they needed to hear. Bameh Atem Yehudim? In what way are you Jewish? And then he said, "We go with the right because that's where" he caused a political revolution. He caused the 35-year-long political realignment. Because he said, "We go with the right because they're traditional. They're close to Torah values. Yitzhak Pindrus, now, you know, senior member of Degel HaTorah, Knesset member, was actually featured on the cover of the Hebrew Mishpacha this week in an interview in which he talks about that full circle. Because what has happened if you I asked him over the years and he always said that's what Rav Schach said, we go with the traditionalists. And and that's why we go with Bibi. We go with Bibi because the traditionalists, the Masorti'im, vote for him. We need to stay with them. That was Rav Schach. But now he's saying what Rav Dov Landau is saying, what the Ger Rebbe is saying, we're not automatically part of the right anymore because the most basic function of the political representation of the of the Haredim in the Knesset is the ability to protect the status of the Torah learners in Torah students who learn the Torah, bochurim and avreichim in Eretz Yisrael. And since that's failed, everything is now up for grabs. We could go with the left, we'll see, etc. That That's a realignment. That is a major earthquake. It's a tectonic shift. It's a realignment that goes back to that, you know, that uproots or that calls into question that 1990 decision to go with the right. But I think if I'm going to go further, actually, I think what's happened here is even greater than that. It's not just back to a question of right and left. This election doesn't just call into question Do we go with Is it 2026 a rerun of 1990 or not? No. I think it goes beyond that, to my mind. It goes back to the '50s because the Haredi world now feels so incredibly vilified, so beleaguered. It is in such deep trouble and the clash with the state and the Israeli majority is so is so impactful. We are back to the 1950s cuz I think we have to trace this very important arc to trace over here. What happened when the state was set up, the state was dominated when Israel the state of Israel was set up, it was dominated by a very very secularist elite which led again, worth doing another episode on this. The roots of the which the attempt to draft women or the drafting of women, we have to understand Israel was long before any Western state actual draft including Israel's being before you know, in terms of drafting women into combat roles. That is not necessarily a Western idea. It's not certainly not a Jewish idea. That has roots in Marxist and in fact is it was the USSR the Red Army that drafted women into you know, women snipers, women combat etc. The Marxist roots of that attempt to draft the Haredim. In the 50s the small Haredi community was under intense attack and felt itself as values under intense attack. Drafting of women, they fought that. Gil's bonus was something which was the Brisker Rav and he said it was Yahrzeit for Al Yavol at K'dei Kach. That was in the 50s and you had the controversies over Neturei Karta Mason, the mass scale industrial scale horrific autopsies, automatic invasive again utterly illiberal, utterly un-Western, utterly paternalistic, the state invading the right of private citizens without any redress. Everyone if the pathologist by definition could do my anyone who died, that's it. They could Neturei Karta could have their despite whatever Jewish law or a person's individual rights or indeed sensitivities, any family say we don't want it, they couldn't do it. It was the world's center of autopsies, needless autopsies was going on over here. Because again of the intense secularism of those early founders. Again, goes back to the Marxism, left-wing secularism. That's the fact. And what happened was that gradually over time especially from 1977 onwards, but it also before then the that the resistance and the clash between the fierce ideological clash between Israel's majority and the Haredim lessened. It became manageable. And over time up to I would say 2 and 1/2 years ago the Haredi world in Israel was in many sense, and this was something widely commented on by the media, becoming Israelified. Different. They identified more with the state. They identified more with the project. Whether you liked it or not. And that was by the way the rise of the Peleg-Yerushalmi was a conservative backlash to that increasing identification. Again, not officially. But there were government ministers, a Haredi government ministers in a time they had never been. There was greater and at a grassroots level, no question, at a grassroots level a greater identification with Israeliness. That process is in freefall and I believe utter reversal. And those who have pushed the Haredim in this corner, which is includes all sectors of the Israeli majority, all the political parties, have put a gun to the Haredi public's head and said, "We will dismantle your way of life." And this is absolutely clear that you can speak listen to Naftali Bennett, but also listen to you know, even people who normally religious politicians, non-Haredi politicians religious, who brag about what they've done to dismantle a Haredi, you know, life as as it is. And that has done one thing. That has sent the Haredi world back in the relationship between the Haredim and the and the majority of Israelis back to the 1950s. I believe it's as serious as that. And if that was the aim, they succeeded because the red lines and the lines between the sides are every bit as deep or every bit as as as dividing and divisive as before. And that is a fundamental shift. When I see this election to the Haredi world, it's back to the 90s 1990 in political terms in terms of alignment. But in terms of social terms, in terms of seeing the Haredim as part of Israeli society, this I believe we're back to the 1950s. >> [music] >> Allow me just to end by by highlighting what I said again at the beginning and I think it's so important over here. The while all of this looks very unpleasant and indeed it is, it really is. I would far rather I think most people would much rather that there was not this horrible clash, the deep divisions in this country, in fact dangerous divisions inside this country. But what is actually happening over here is worth reiterating once again. The clash over the future of the Jewish people that began 200 years ago, that intensified with the birth and the rise of the Zionist movement. As the Zionist movement took over after the First World War, it took over the communities, the great historic communities of Europe, the ideological clash that split the Jewish people into multiple fragments. That is now being played out in front of our eyes. And I think therefore we're seeing a return therefore, the return of the of the pre-Oslo left, really the return of the left's project for a secular Jewry, the return of the right and its attempt to create its attempt to complete its revolution from 1977. This very splinters within the Haredi world and above all the Haredi world returning in political alignment to something close to 1990 and something close to the 1950s is I believe enormous but inevitable. It's the sign of the great ideological clash, the war, and the battle of ideas that is still ongoing inside the Jewish people, and that's what makes this election of 2026, I believe, the history election. It's [music] historic because we're hashing out not just historic arguments, but really arguments about the Jewish future. Thank you very much. >> [music] >> Thank you for listening to Behind the Times. We appreciate you joining us as we explore the stories and people who have shaped Jewish history. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, leave a review, and share with friends. Until next time.