If the fascinating evening also had its tearful moments I take responsibility.
This magazine features an interview by our news editor Binyamin Rose with Britain’s new ambassador to Israel Matthew Gould. The two of us were guests at a reception for the ambassador in Tel Aviv at the home of Rabbi Avraham Shapira z”l a chareidi leader who cast a broad influence a generation ago. At the height of his political career he was known as Israel’s “general manager.” We’d been invited to the meeting by Rabbi Shapira’s son the distinguished Londoner Rabbi Yitzchak Shapira who is a personal friend of the new ambassador.
This meeting was important to the ambassador. As he entered his new position he wanted a deeper acquaintance with Israel’s chareidi community and its views on a variety of subjects. He sought to understand the chareidi position on the secular Zionist state. And of course he wanted to hear an explanation of the chareidi community’s attitude toward military conscription and the response to the demand voiced by the media and the broader public that kollel scholars should go to work. What was our position on returning territories to the Arabs he wanted to know and how did we estimate the chances of making peace with them at all — if in fact we saw any need to make peace? The ambassador showed himself to be knowledgeable on local chareidi affairs and the issues that divide the Israeli population into opposing sectors.
The delegation was genuine. There were no politicians or professional political activists among us. Our group twenty in number included rabbis educators mayors of chareidi towns journalists and authors and administrators of chareidi institutions.
Create a free account to keep reading.
