A new and disconcerting norm is spreading to the heart of political discourse in Israel: Calling for civic revolt. In recent years, we've grown accustomed to cries of "we're taking our ball and going home" from the left side of the political map. Well-funded jurists, tortured artists, the Eldad Yanivs of the world who yearn for a Knesset seat, even renowned yet irresponsible psychiatrists – all have boarded the rebellion train at one station or another, between their multiple losses over public opinion at the ballot boxes.
Last month, a new passenger boarded the rebellion train, this time from the religious-right platform: Rabbi Zvi Tau, president of Yeshivat Har Hamor and the spiritual leader of the national-haredi stream in the religious-Zionist camp. Tau, who heads a significant stream consisting of dozens of institutions and yeshivas, with thousands of students and graduates, disseminated two manifestos in recent weeks calling for civic revolt. By doing so he placed an entire law-abiding public – which serves the country loyally – on a direct collision course with the state and its other citizens.
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This isn't an internal religious issue being waged between the synagogues of the religious-Zionist camp. For quite some time now, Tau has been fighting what he views as the destruction of family values and attempts to engineer Israeli public thought alter its social identity. The brunt of the flame is aimed at the LGBT community and the feminist movement. Indeed, the rabbi and his pupils are entitled to the same freedom of thought and expression as any other citizen, but his calls to break the rules of the democratic game in Israel are out of bounds, ugly and dangerous.
Even if we believe Tau's claims that powerful forces are working through government ministries and state bodies to socially engineer the public, the conclusion that this constitutes a national emergency justifying revolt is ridiculous. Is the State of Israel any worse off than it was when immigrants' sidelocks were cut and the establishment imprisoned and excluded political rivals? Did our brothers of Middle Eastern descent revolt in the face of attempts to re-educate them; when they were sent to settle far-flung, desolate parts of the country? Has our freedom from censorship and government control of schools and yeshivas eroded since the days of Mapai? The answers are obvious and don't arouse feelings of impending doom. Judaism is flourishing as large segments of the public are moving toward religious tradition and texts, culturally and historically – evidence that attempts to engineer the minds of the Jewish people by force, if such attempts actually exist, are failing rather spectacularly.
Another argument employed by Tau to justify civic revolt is that many people avoid voicing their opinions because they fear for their livelihoods or being publicly shamed. This is blatant disregard for the dozens of journalists, academics, intellectuals, and other public figures who for years have stood on the front lines of the battle for public opinion, as bulwarks against the regime of political correctness and radical leftism both in Israel and abroad. Some of these people have paid a steep personal and financial price and are the targets of degradations and mockery. None of them considered civic rebellion as an option, and none of them ever thought to try forcing the Israeli public to think the "right" way.
Rabbi Tau's worldview, whereby the weak-minded people of Israel are mere fodder for manipulation by powerful, dark forces – is wrong. We are not on the edge of the abyss, but these calls for revolt could actually lead us there.
