It was the meeting no one was supposed to know about, as we sat together in the basement of a Jerusalem hotel. But by the end, we realized we’d been completely mistaken in our preconceived impressions of who these people were. You never know what’s really hiding behind a harsh mask and tough-sounding words
This is the story I’ve promised to share: it was my third undercover meeting with “the other side ” and this time the other side was none other than those avowed enemies of Judaism the Knesset faction from the Shinui Party. “Our side ” for those who haven’t been following this series was a select group of public figures from the chareidi community. The meeting took place in 2003 in the basement of a Jerusalem hotel.
We agreed on one thing from the start: neither side wanted news of the meeting to leak out. We chareidim preferred to avoid accusations of consorting with the enemy from within our own camp whereas the Shinui people having just won an impressive fifteen Knesset seats in the elections looked down on us from a cloud of hubris. Their position was that they didn’t have to do this. If they chose to go slumming with the chareidim it was to be strictly off the record.
But somehow or other a dialogue took place.
The chareidi community was feeling very apprehensive at that time. With its new gains in the Knesset Shinui had a good chance of joining the government coalition. What if they should succeed in implementing their agenda? Shinui was intent on smashing the status quo by which the chareidim had coexisted with the secular state and their agenda included civil marriages cutting off government allowances for large families shutting down the Ministry of Religion and immediate conscription of yeshivah students and chareidi girls into the army. Besides all these plans they were poisoning the public atmosphere with a stream of anti-chareidi rhetoric.
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