Last night Naftali Bennet came to speak at a chug bayit in our village. Naftali is one of the 3 candidates running for the head of the Bayit Yehudi (Jewish Home) political party. One of the things that most impressed me about his talk, was the lack of dirty politics. He had only nice things to say about the other 2 candidates, while presenting reasons why we should go with him. He also gave us the list of candidates he is supporting for the Knesset, but qualified that by saying that all of the candidates are very high caliber and he would be happy to work with any of them.
Most of his talk focused on the lack of political power that the national religious have in the country.In order to maximize our political power, he signed a unity agreement with the National Union which agrees to split the Knesset seats that we receive. Bayit Yehudi gets the first seat and National Union the 2nd and so on, National Union gets the first ministerial position. This means that if we receive an odd number of Knesset seats the Bayit Yehudi will have one more knesset member. If we have an odd number of ministers, National Union will take the extra one.
When the NRP (National Religious Party) turned into the Bayit Yehudi, one of the goals was to open it up to traditional Jews as well as practicing ones. One of the candidates for the Knesset on the party who Naftali recommended was Ayelet Shaked, who defines herself as non-religious, but is actually very traditional. I like the idea of having a more pluralistic party, but asked if party discipline would be enforced for religion-state issues? He answered that there would be, with a qualification that we are not Shas and not all decisions are made by a board of rabbis. Halachic decisions would be decided by the rabbis and political decisions would be decided by the central committee.
I liked what he had to say and I felt comfortable with his views.I am going to support Naftali Bennet in the Bayit Yehudi primaries.
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Speaking for myself, I am in kitana and the ideology of a national religious party or a bayit yehudi only allows me to uh - how do I say this politely - (vicariously?) *experience* or *grok* the most basic aspects of my identity here http://www.splicd.com/BbDgulV5bPk/281/313 but how in the world does it get me to kita aleph or to universita if the idea is to help build a better country and a better society - or lets be practical - to run one that even functions?
To be fair and given the general track record - it is not clear to me if anyone else or any other party has found its kita aleph or universita or even has/have the slightest idea what those would look like.
It is clear what kita aleph and universita are - de facto: if you have them they're likely on your resume.
(And if you don't...[very serious unwritten - except for "vicariously" above - blog piece].
But in politics as in life and work - it is not at all clear what they could be or should be.
Aside from the above, I like these "guys" and am all for women being equally represented too.
But no, we shouldn't have any expectations. Maybe next elections?
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