Talking about the “Haredi community” is a misnomer, Jonathan Rosenblum says, and simplifies its diversity of thought and perspectives.
A Yale-trained lawyer turned journalist, Jonathan has been a prolific Haredi columnist for the last few decades. He helped found the English-language Haredi publication Yated Ne’eman, wrote extensively for The Jewish Observer, and writes weekly for Mispacha magazine.
Jonathan is also the author of over 10 biographies of Orthodox rabbinic leaders and was the first Haredi columnist to write regularly for the Jerusalem Post.
Now, he joins us to answer 18 questions on the Haredi draft, Zionism, and Israel as a religious state.
This interview was held on June 23.
Transcripts are lightly edited—please excuse any imperfections.
Jonathan Rosenblum: Because I think there is a large segment of the Haredi population which wants to be part of Israel, too. And even feels, traditionally, the Haredi population took the position we’re under siege and we always have to draw the wagons closer. But that was in 1948. We’re not in that situation today.
Hi, my name is Jonathan Rosenblum. I’m a columnist in Israel, and this is 18 Questions, 40 Israeli Thinkers for 18Forty.
Sruli Fruchter: From 18Forty, this is 18 Questions, 40 Israeli Thinkers, and I’m your host, SruliFrechter. 18 Questions, 40 Israeli Thinkers is a podcast that interviews Israel’s leading voices to explore those critical questions people are having today on Zionism, the Israel-Hamas war, democracy, morality, Judaism, peace, Israel’s future, and so much more.
Every week, we introduce you to fresh perspectives and challenging ideas about Israel from across the political spectrum that you won’t find anywhere else. So, if you’re the kind of person who wants to learn, understand, and dive deeper into Israel, then join us on our journey as we pose 18 pressing questions to the 40 Israeli journalists, scholars, and religious thinkers you need to hear from today. On the docket for one of the most contentious issues still dominating Israeli discourse and headlines today is the question of the Haredi draft to the IDF. Representing nearly 14% of Israeli society, the Haredi population in Israel is growing rapidly and is expected to be 16% of Israel’s population by 2030.
Since October 7th and the subsequent wars Israel has fought against Hezbollah, Iran, and other regional actors, the question of the Haredi role in Israeli society and the place for Torah learning and the tension between communal religious expectations and national identification has only deepened. Today, we are interviewing our 38th Israeli thinker, and I knew that in the last few thinkers we had, I wanted to bring on another Haredi voice, someone who is deeply enmeshed and entrenched in the community, in the world, and at the same time can give voice to the nuances, the substance, and in some ways the perspective that exists in the Haredi world that is often lost from the headlines. Today’s guest is Jonathan Rosenblum, a prominent Haredi journalist and columnist for over the last three decades. Jonathan in 1989 was the founding co-editor of Yated Ne’eman, the first ever English-language Haredi weekly newspaper.
And from 1991 to 2009, he was a writer for the Jewish Observer, the leading Haredi journal of thought, also in English. He has been a regular columnist for every worldwide Haredi English weekly, and from 2002 until this very day, he is a weekly columnist for Mishpacha magazine, the widest circulation Torah magazine in the world. But he’s also written beyond just Haredi audiences. In 1997, he was the first regular Haredi columnist in any Israeli newspaper with a Friday column in the Jerusalem Post, and his work has appeared in Commentary, Sapir, Jewish Action, The Jewish Week, The London Jewish Tribune, and The Baltimore Jewish Times.
Aside from his work as a journalist, Jonathan is also a prolific author and has written over 10 biographies of Jewish Orthodox leaders. In 1997, he opened up the Israel office of One Jewish Nation under the auspices of Agudath Israel, where he was the spokesman for the Haredi community to international press within Israel. And what makes Jonathan all the more interesting aside from his professional capacity, is that he comes from a place of many different worlds. He grew up in Chicago into a deeply Jewish family, but not a halachically observant one, and he studied at UChicago and got his JD from Yale Law School.
He’s lived in Israel with his wife and family for over the last four decades. It was a really insightful conversation and interview to hear Jonathan articulate much of the unspoken and misunderstood positions that exist within the Haredi community and that animate how he sees the world and the next steps for Israel. So I’m very excited for you to tune in and listen to this interview. But before we get into that, if you have questions you want us to ask or guests that you want us to feature, please shoot us an email info@18Forty.org and be sure to subscribe and share with friends so that we can reach new listeners.
Jonathan is our 38th Israeli thinker, and we have two more to go until we hit our golden number 40. So as always, please subscribe, share with friends, give us a rating, it really helps us, aside from just my ego. And so without further ado, here is 18 Questions with Jonathan Rosenblum. So, we’ll begin where we always do.
As an Israeli and as a Jew, how are you feeling at this moment in Israeli history?
Jonathan Rosenblum: This very moment. It goes, it fluctuates so quickly that it’s very hard to tell. If you asked me on Thursday night a week ago, I was exhilarated and frightened. If you asked me on Motzei Shabbos, pretty excited.
If you ask me right now, I’m a little bit confused. I don’t know what this ceasefire is about. It seems to me that there are a lot of open-ended questions that haven’t been resolved yet, like what have the Iranians agreed to do with respect to their nuclear program? And I guess all that’s sort of hidden. I don’t know what discussions have gone on, and there were no news reports of any discussions between Iran and the United States.
So, as usual, everything here is always on a boil. And so, fluctuating, my mood is fluctuating. But generally, generally good. I mean, in general, over the past, we have seen a large-scale destruction of Iran’s capabilities, and we’ve seen basically the noose that was around Israel’s neck for the last 15 years of this ring of fire of enemies committed to our destruction and at the service of Iran has been largely removed for the for the time being.
Hamas still remains a problem in Gaza, but not as a threat to the rest of Israel. How to deal with that problem remains an open question or an open what the result will be there. But in general, the mood in Israel probably right now is pretty optimistic.
Sruli Fruchter: Yeah, and I’m sure that’s always changing.
You mentioned the Israel-Hamas war. What do you think has been Israel’s greatest success and greatest mistake in that war against Hamas?
Jonathan Rosenblum: The greatest mistake is that it took place at all. I mean, the greatest mistake, nothing will ever match, I pray in Israeli history, nothing will ever match the intelligence failure of October 7th.
Sruli Fruchter: But in terms of the war itself, meaning once the war already progressed.
Jonathan Rosenblum: Okay, I’m not a military strategist, but it seems to me that we have finally settled upon a strategy that makes some sense, which is a recognition that you can only achieve your goals if you hold territory. You cannot simply bomb and leave. You have to, whatever Israel is going to achieve there can only be done with respect by holding territory. I mean, the Philadelphi Corridor has got to remain in our hands.
The Erez Crossing has got to remain in our hands, and there has to be a large separation between the Palestinian population of Gaza and the communities in the Otef Gaza, in the Gaza envelope. Certainly, I think the idea of delivering food directly under non-Hamas auspices obviously scares Hamas a great deal, and and rightly so because it takes away their control over the population.
Sruli Fruchter: But in terms of success and mistake of the war itself, what would you say are those greatest?
Jonathan Rosenblum: Well, that’s that’s the success is having settled upon a strategy now which does which I think does have potential to lead to some resolution. Failure, I’m not a military strategist, so it’s very hard for me to say what’s the greatest failure.
That it’s taken a long time, yes. Could it have been pursued alternatively? I really don’t know. I think that Netanyahu faced a lot of opposition, and this has been an ongoing problem, that the the general staff remains very left-oriented and opposed.
Sruli Fruchter: General staff of?
Jonathan Rosenblum: Of the IDF.
And I think he had a recalcitrant army chief of staff. I think that’s less true today. The present chief of staff seems to be more in line with thinking in terms of how do we actually win this win this war and finish it.
Sruli Fruchter: Why do you say he was recalcitrant?
Jonathan Rosenblum: Because that’s just been this, that’s just been the whole inclination to think that we can somehow always reach some kind of accommodation where there may not be an accommodation.
Sruli Fruchter: Accommodation of?
Jonathan Rosenblum: Accommodation with Hamas or Hamas that somehow we’ll reach some understanding. And the truth of the matter is, and this is something that Ehud Olmert just talked about recently, is we have to restore terms like victory and defeat, because until there’s some something that resembles victory, then there’s no possibility of any change in the mindset of the Palestinian population. Until you, I mean, the real aim of the war, the the ultimate goal of the war would be to get Palestinians and Gaza to recognize that they have no future by trying to get rid of Israel and to see what could they could build for themselves with, in tandem with Israel, or living adjacent to Israel.
Sruli Fruchter: So I was actually going to ask, what would victory look like to you?
Jonathan Rosenblum: Well, victory, first of all, would look like Hamas has lost its control.
They’ve lost their control of the education system. And that’s a big thing. The education system is is a big thing. As a friend of mine, David Bedein, has been talking about for years, UNRWA, I mean, if you look at the curriculum that that is foisted upon Palestinian children, it’s a jihad curriculum.
And that’s something, that has to be changed. You can’t, it’s it’s very hard to imagine that anytime in the near future we’re going to live in peaceful coexistence with people who have been whipped into a frenzy of hatred for Israel. This is already a hundred-year war. This is not, it’s not a war that started yesterday.
The inability, the unwillingness to accept Israel’s existence is the ultimate problem. And I don’t know that it has, that within Islam, there is a solution for it. There’s a concept of Dar al-Islam, land that belong to the Muslim people. Anything that ever was in their control somehow becomes sacrosanct and that any interloper should ever come in and have part of that land is simply unacceptable.
That attitude has got to change to some extent. And I think the Abraham Accords are an example of losing patience with that. You know, I don’t know what the theological changes in Saudi Arabia or the the three the three states that signed on to the the Abraham Accords are, but there has to be some change in that mentality.
Sruli Fruchter: On a more personal sense, how have your religious views changed since October 7th?
Jonathan Rosenblum: I couldn’t identify any ways in which I think they’ve changed.
I mean, I think there’s a certain strengthening of them in the sense of seeing, look, on October 7th itself, it’s a disaster. It takes place on Simchas Torah. It’s a shock to the system. But what we learned is that when you’re talking about Hashem’s hashgacha in the world, you always have to have a broader perspective.
Your perspective cannot be limited to a particular event. And in that sense, you see that the biggest disaster in Israel’s history, the worst single day in Israel’s history, has been followed by a complete transformation of the Middle East in our favor. The lessening of the threat which Hezbollah was holding over us. I mean, I wrote a column right after October 7th, and I pointed out that we’re facing threats all around.
This is only the be this is only the beginning of something that could be much worse. That at that time, Hezbollah had 130,000, estimated between 100 and 150,000 missiles, many of them precision. You hit the the oil depots in in Haifa, you could set off a fireball that would consume much of the city. There were so many disastrous scenarios.
They were projecting at that time 300 missiles a day from Hezbollah if Hezbollah entered into a full-time, in into a real war, and we were completely, you know, we would have been on multiple fronts. So the situation appeared very, very grave, very frightening. And today, it looks a lot better.
Sruli Fruchter: So in in those moments where it seemed like things were particularly dire, and they actually were dire and dangerous, did your faith or religiosity waver or be challenged in any way? And if so, how did you respond to that? Or I guess let me ask it differently.
How did your faith and religiosity respond to those moments?
Jonathan Rosenblum: Just, just a repetition of the messages that you understand, I’m a baal teshuva. I didn’t, I started at a late stage. Just, just repeating the message that Hashem is running the show there, that we are his people. I’m also a student of Jewish history, and I’m sympathetic to Rabbi Yaakov Emden’s statement that the survival of the Jewish people alone is as great a miracle as Yetzias Mitzrayim.
That this is not an accident that we’ve survived, and we’ve only survived that Hashem has somehow preserved us as a single, as a single lamb among 70 wolves for 2,000 years of galus. And that is the miracle, and that we will continue to partake of that miracle. But of course, there’s there’s a lot of suffering along the way. I mean, the Holocaust happened.
Your grandchildren, children and grandchildren are under threat. There are missiles coming in. There’s, you know, there are, as I told my wife the other day, we’ve been here 46 years. We’ve lived through a lot.
We’ve lived through a lot of wars. We’ve lived through the Gulf War in 1991, where we were talking about gas, you know, poison gas coming in. You had to seal up your room and in in much more intense way than we’ve done right now. Uh, so in some ways, it was even scarier than the, than the missiles coming in now.
Though not in they certainly weren’t equal in size, but I don’t think, I don’t think I had a major theological change.
Sruli Fruchter: What has the last year and a half or so been like for the Haredi community in general? I know it’s hard, it’s a big question.
Jonathan Rosenblum: No, well, I think the biggest change is, you know, the army issue is is a big issue, and it’s become a much bigger issue in the last year and a half because there were stories that everybody told themselves, not just the Haredim, the secular Israelis said, the army, there would be too much of a bother to bring in all the Haredim. We don’t need them because the wars of the future will be fought by drones and robots and and high-tech.
And then all of a sudden, we find ourselves in a war in which, a seven-front war, because the, you know, Judea and Samaria are also a threat and right on our border besides Gaza, besides Lebanon. And even the secular population thought we don’t really need them. And the Haredim always told themselves, so they don’t need us, so we’ll go on as before. I mean, it was always been a contentious issue, but it hasn’t been one that seemed like it it was fundamental to Israel’s existence.
But today, we’ve seen in the last 18 months or 19 months, we’ve seen manpower shortages. I mean, you can’t say it’s not a manpower shortage when married men have to be in the army for 200 to 300 days and the disruption in lives of of those in the reserves, especially in the National Religious community. So there there’s a need for rethinking where we stand. I mean, because I think there is a large segment of the Haredi population which wants to be part of Israel, too.
And even feels, traditionally, the the the Haredi population took the position we’re under siege and we always have to draw the wagons closer. But that was in 1948. We’re not in that situation today. There is not the the community is simply too large to be gotten rid of.
When Ben-Gurion and the Chazon Ish met, it was possible for Ben-Gurion to think that within one generation, who cares about a yeshiva deferment? They’ll be all gone anyhow, besides a small pocket of people in Mea Shearim, there’ll be nothing left of the future is all ours. That turned out not to be the case. And, you know, as the Haredi population gains confidence, it also wants to be a participant. It also wants to have a say in the in the future of the country.
I mean, there was an astounding statistic came out two weeks ago. I think it was from the Israel Democracy Institute, a study that showed between 18 and 29, a majority of Israelis between 18 and 29 are shomer Shabbos.
Sruli Fruchter: Wow. Um, so we’ll return to the specific question of Haredim and the army and the draft in a little bit.
But I’m curious, aside, setting the draft aside, how has October, how has the Haredi community responded to October 7th, not necessarily in an action-oriented way, but in terms of the way that events like these and tragedies like these hit people and change communities.
Jonathan Rosenblum: Well, first of all, it’s almost impossible to ask a question about the Haredi community. I mean, the idea that the Haredi community is some kind of monolith is the first thing you have to get rid of. It’s it’s by no means monolithic.
I mean, one thing that the Haredim have always been very good at is chesed. You know, I have a daughter in Ramat Beit Shemesh who has been cooking for soldiers from the beginning of the war, of taking care of, there’s all kinds of things. Another friend in Ramat Beit Shemesh, Eliezer Friedman, who’s raised money, raised close to 10, he has 10,000 soldiers who have put on, put on tfillin and taken, you know, purchased the tefillin for 10,000 soldiers. That’s a 4.5 million dollar project.
There’s, they’ve been very, very active. Mostly, I don’t think it’s it’s changed in in the, what, as again, I can’t speak for a monolith community. I live here in Har Nof. Har Nof is largely English speaking.
It makes it a different, it’s a different community. And sometimes I think I really don’t know the community in other places that I really don’t know what’s going on in Bnei Brak. Sometimes I hear statements in the by some Haredi spokesman that I just seem to me I I can’t I don’t identify with them at all. So, so it’s it’s impossible to make a statement about that.
I mean, we’re all shaken. It it it was impossible to open up the newspapers at the at the beginning of the war in Gaza and see these beautiful Jewish faces of soldiers who had been killed. We’ve all been to levayas. We’ve all, well, I can’t say we’ve all been to levayas, but many of us have friends, you know, in the national religious world.
Many of us have been to to levayas. Many of us have been to shiva houses. The war’s been very hard. It’s it’s an emotional drain.
And and it’s felt physically. I mean, myself, I could say the other day, I felt that the constant tension and emotional turmoil was beginning to take a physical toll. And I think we’re not different than other people. Uh, you know, there are those who are more isolationist and may think that this is some other community that this is taking place to, but I don’t think that’s the majority of the Haredi community.
Sruli Fruchter: Now shifting to talk more generally about Israeli society, what do you look for in deciding which Knesset party to vote for? For a nice change of pace.
Jonathan Rosenblum: Typically, I’ve been a a good little boy and voted for the Haredi parties. I think there are a few, well, I don’t, you know, I’m an American. I was born in America.
We believe in the privacy of the voting booth. I’m not going to talk about this matter.
Sruli Fruchter: You don’t have to say who you’re voting for, but I’m curious what are the types of things you consider when you’re deciding who to vote for.
Jonathan Rosenblum: Well, I think that defense policy has to be very important.
Obviously, not staunchly anti-religious in in rhetoric. I mean, I can’t imagine how somebody who identifies themselves as a religious Jew managed to be a member of the uh, of Yair Lapid’s party. That seems to me a little bit strange. But, you know, there is not a great deal of debate in Israel today about the issues that once divided us.
You know, with the Oslo process, there was a major split down the middle of the country. That no longer, that no longer really exists. So competence is an issue, and it’s sad to say, I mean, given that Netanyahu must have been prime minister for about 17 years or more, that there’s there seems to be a widespread feeling anyhow that he’s the most competent person. If in a moment of challenge, that we feel safer with him in command, that there isn’t anybody who conveys the aura of knowing what he’s doing.
He is probably, he or Ron Dermer are probably the smartest people in the country and have a sense of, you know, have proven records of dealing with difficult situations and outlasting those situations. But, you know, typically, Haredim have been concerned with funding of school systems, housing is becoming a is a major issue for the community, and how that will be taken care of. Integration is also a major issue, because let’s face it, the money is running out. We’re now in the third, third or fourth generation in many families, many Israeli families without an education, without an ability to get an education, not everybody is cut out to be an entrepreneur.
I mean, there’s still, there’s plenty of money in the Haredi community, too, but that’s not, most people, I I’m a an attorney by training, so I’m by nature a conservative guy who was trained to receive a large salary, not to go out and risk my own money and so forth. But you have to, you know, you have to create create those jobs and that and and the education and educational policy which say, which would say for instance, we can never have separated classrooms or we can never have a uh, college programs that would have sexual segregation. That’s just a a barrier to the further integration of the community, and that’s something that would be very important to me.
Sruli Fruchter: Which is more important for Israel? Judaism or democracy?
Jonathan Rosenblum: Well, for me, obviously Judaism is the …I mean, if you say that these are a choice, I don’t know that that’s that’s a choice, Judaism or democracy.
I don’t think that’s uh, I don’t see that as as a tension or a choice. But the Jewish people exist and have been protected. The divine protection that we talked about earlier is a function of the fact that we are the people to bring knowledge of HaKadosh Baruch Hu, to bring knowledge of God to the world. If we lose that, then we lose, what’s our purpose? What makes us any different? Why is the collective existence of the Jewish people of importance? Israel does represent more than any other place in the world, the collective existence of the Jewish people.
So if Judaism fails here, there’s nothing that reflects that, that Judaism, then what’s the point, what’s the point of the state? Why should anybody sacrifice three years of their life to to defend it? I mean, we’re not defending a set of, we’re not defending a gene pool. We’re defending a mission, and that mission is to bring knowledge of Torah and knowledge of HaKadosh Baruch Hu to the entire world.
Sruli Fruchter: Should Israel treat its Jewish and non-Jewish citizens the same?
Jonathan Rosenblum: In what sense?
Sruli Fruchter: I’ll let you qualify as you’d like.
Jonathan Rosenblum: I think that Israel is probably better off as a democracy in which everybody has equal rights.
Does that mean that you can never have anything that’s uh, you can’t have days of rest which are based on the Jewish calendar? Of course not, because it’s a majority, a large majority Jewish state. But in general, I think it’s uh, Israel, and I’m not, the Haredi position is this isn’t the final state, that this is not the Jewish state, and Israel is not the Jewish state. Whether Judaism can flourish here, whether Torah can flourish here, is I think essential to the long-range future of the country. But I wouldn’t uh, think that you should make such make distinctions.
Sruli Fruchter: Now that Israel already exists, what’s the purpose of Zionism?
Jonathan Rosenblum: Does anybody know this? I don’t think that, are there still some Zionists?
Sruli Fruchter: You tell me.
Jonathan Rosenblum: I mean, I always tell uh, my first Rebbe, Rabbi Aharon Feldman, you’re always fighting against the Zionists. They don’t exist anymore. I don’t think a secular Israeli knows what does it mean, Zionism today.
Zionism means more or less that Israel should continue to exist. I mean, that’s uh, that’s really what will allow the continued existence of the only majority Jewish state in the world. That’s really what Zionism comes down to today.
Sruli Fruchter: Would you say that you’re a Zionist?
Jonathan Rosenblum: Listen, I was raised in a Zionist home.
My grandfather was in many ways the maybe the largest contributor to Israel in his lifetime in the mid mid-50s. He was, he passed away at a very young age, but uh, you know, Givat Mordechai is a neighborhood in Jerusalem named after him. The Chagall windows are in a chapel named after him. I was raised in in a Zionist home.
And I am proud of Israel. If that makes me a Zionist, maybe. But I don’t, you know, I, but I think today, today, I don’t think it’s, it’s, it’s really an issue. Do I think that Jews should come and live in Israel? Yes, I do.
But I think that on many practical, I think the future of the Jewish people will be in this country. I’ve seen the rise of antisemitism in America concerns me. If even on a such a basic level as Iranian sleeper cells, terrorist cells, I think it’s safer to be a Jew in Israel than it is to be a Jew in in America today.
Sruli Fruchter: Yes, I mean, the reason I was asking is if Zionism is essentially just the belief that Israel should continue to exist, then is it like fair to say that essentially the Haredi community is Zionist today?
Jonathan Rosenblum: Yes, if you define it that way, but that’s just, that’s an intellectual trick.
That’s just a tautology. Yes. I think many Haredim do take pride in the things that that Israel does well, that we do celebrate the, let’s say, the skill, even the skill of the army. I mean, we have to learn, we have to know how to talk about it in such a way that we don’t fall into the trap of kochi v’otzem yadi with the strength of my hands that I’ve done all this, and to understand that Hashem is puts great ideas.
I think even Jewish IQ, which is a, you know, a very fraught subject to talk about the, you know, that there’s a a in statistical terms, there’s a standard deviation of one in in Jewish IQs and that there, you know, in the upper realms represent something like six-fold uh over in IQs over 140. I can even see that’s part of the divine plan, too, because really, how does Pharaoh start in Egypt? Let’s come and become deal cunningly with this people. HaKadosh Baruch Hu gave us the ability that we could deal with our enemies for 3,000 years who were dealing cunningly with us. I think it’s not an accident that that Jews have produced so many original, innovative thinkers and that Israel continues to do so.
And I’m excited about Israeli biotech, Israeli uh, these things do excite me to know that, you know, if the cure for cancer, well, a lot of that research was destroyed at the Weizmann Institutethis week, but a lot of things, you know, the amount of benefit to humanity that comes out of Israeli institutions is is is a source of, I can’t say pride because I’m not part of it. Somebody told me once with respect to your children, don’t say you’re proud of your children. Say, I’m grateful. So I’m grateful for all these things.
Pride, I’m glad to live in a country which is is making such amazing contributions.
Sruli Fruchter: Is opposing Zionism inherently Is opposing Zionism inherently antisemitic?
Jonathan Rosenblum: Well, if you mean going to a demonstration, a pro-Iranian demonstration in Times Square and waving a Palestinian flag or an Iranian flag, that’s antisemitic. I think that I really think that the issue of Zionism doesn’t speak to me anymore because I don’t see that there’s such, it’s not a movement. It’s not, Zionism in its original form was a desire to create a new Jew.
I mean, I think one of the people you interviewed was Anita Shapira who was, you know, the historian of Zionism, who said the whole idea was to create a new Jew who would be, you know, exemplary in his martial virtues. He would be different from the the yeshiva bocher in Europe or the downtrodden Jew and he would be martial and not so intellectual and so forth. We’re not trying to create new Jews anymore. There’s nobody who’s, you know, who’s wrapped up in an idea that Zionism has some alternative vision of what a Jew should be.
So I…
Sruli Fruchter: Mm-hmm.
Jonathan Rosenblum: But the Neturei Karta, they’re antisemites. How could any Jew join a demonstration about a regime which seeks to kill Jews? That’s unbelievable.
It just shows you that any ideology has the potential to destroy minds and to blind you to the consequences of that ideology. I mean, there’s a reason that Dostoevsky called The Possessed, the real Russian title is The Demons. It’s demonic. It’s a demonic force when you get so wrapped up in an ideology that you can’t see its human consequences, meaning rooting for a regime which seeks to kill Jews.
Sruli Fruchter: If you were making the case for Israel, where would you begin?
Jonathan Rosenblum: Well, it would depend a lot on what was the case against Israel. I don’t believe any of the case against Israel. Even the, you know, all the things that people talk about today, colonization. We are the least colonial country.
Sruli Fruchter: Well, it can be the case in in any context in particular, but if you had to be the one who was making the case for Israel. And I almost hesitate when I say this, but I’ll say again and I’ll let you qualify that as you’d like, where do you think you would begin?
Jonathan Rosenblum: It’s interesting because I once put together a 20-page proposal for Chris Christie when he was thinking of running for was running for president or something. Somebody in Lakewood asked me to put together a 20-page description of Israel.
Sruli Fruchter: So you literally had to make the case for Israel.
Jonathan Rosenblum: I had to make, I had to make the case. I talked about its humanitarian aid, its innovation. But in my private case, the case for Israel is the flourishing of Torah that’s existed here. But if I were making a case to a larger secular or even non-Jewish audience, I wouldn’t start there.
To a Jewish audience, in terms of the potential for Jewish flowering here, I think it is greater than anyplace. There’s a reason why American yeshiva students come to learn in Israel, for almost invariably come and for two or three years. There’s something about this country or Eretz Yisrael. You know, it’s very hard for me to separate Israel and Eretz Yisrael.
They both they they…
Sruli Fruchter: Why do you distinguish between the two? Meaning what how when you when you say each word, what does that mean to you?
Jonathan Rosenblum: Well, Eretz Yisrael refers to the kedusha of the land of Israel. I don’t associate Israel because the Israeli founders didn’t necessarily have that same sense. I mean, it could be that Ben-Gurion put down said, where is my deed of title to the land? And put down the Tanakh and said, this is my deed of title.
But the fact of the matter is we bought the land. You know, we’re not a colonial power. We bought this land. Jews came here and bought land from which in a largely uninhabited, unhabitable and uninhabited land and made it flower.
I mean, its achievements are remarkable. I mean, I’ve been here. I in the time that I’ve been here, I think the population of Israel has doubled. When I first came here in 1962 as a little kid, I can remember my uncle who had been in the Irgun could drive down the Tel Aviv-Haifa highway and wave to people on the other side because they they everybody knew everybody.
It was a small, small country. And that it has flourished to this degree, I don’t even recognize areas of Jerusalem which I once I once lived in. Things are built so fast, things change so fast. And I, you know, I am very comfortable and love my community too.
I I love the fact I like the English speakers who came here because they were idealistic. They wanted to be part of living here. They wanted to make their lives in a country, in a majority Jewish country.
Sruli Fruchter: Mm-hmm.
Is that case for aliyah harder or easier in the haredi community? And I guess you were thinking, you know, maybe the yeshivish community or the yeshiva world in America.
Jonathan Rosenblum: Well, most come to live here at some point. They come to live here as, you know, after marriage. It hasn’t been as successful as I might have hoped.
I mean, I’ve been speaking about this for a number of years in haredi communities in America. Part of the thing is because family is so strong and people do not wish to be separated from their families. The same reason that we’re Lakewood is too densely populated and there could be a lot of places where in kollel where people would achieve much more on an individual level by going out to to smaller communities, many of which are flourishing and beginning to grow rapidly. But, you know, people want to stay close to their parents, which is nice.
It does reflect something about the success of our family structures. But I’m lucky. I’m I’m a very lucky baal teshuva because I’m one of five boys. Four of us came to live here.
My mother when she passed away had over 110 living descendants, all Jewish, almost all living in Israel. And so I’m lucky in that respect. My parents had the wherewithal to come here and they joined us. We came and they joined us.
I think the obstacles are more practical because on a on a more this familial, I don’t want to leave my my parents. But on a practical level, in terms of being able to afford health insurance, to be able to afford schooling, it makes a lot of sense for somebody, especially somebody who can earn a a salary, an American salary, or use skills developed there, it makes a lot of sense on a financial level to come here. I think you can live a a better standard of living in Israel and be surrounded in communities which are reinforcing. There are certain things that are not yet that Americans in in making aliyah could do better.
We could have shuls in which which were more shuls, which were which were more…
Sruli Fruchter: More similar to the way that they operate in America.
Jonathan Rosenblum: Yeah, would be more communal where a rav would, where there would be a rav. I’ve been very fortunate that the shul is right next to me has had outstanding rabbonim.
One of them, Rav Zev Leff, one of them, Rav Dovid Miller, and now Rav Shlomo Klagsbald, who’s the first native Israeli of the bunch. But, you know, superb rabbonim. But that’s not the that’s not typically Israeli model. But I think we will build those shuls and we will and, you know, if there were enough aliyah, there would be a change in the educational system too.
There would be better secular studies. You find that, you do find that in Ramat Beit Shemesh to a degree that you you may not. The alternatives, the range of options would simply grow with more aliyah.
Sruli Fruchter: Mm-hmm.
Jonathan Rosenblum: Which is one of the reasons why I’m excited about aliyah.
Sruli Fruchter: Should Israel be a religious state?
Jonathan Rosenblum: I think a lot of these things are left. I’m leaving that to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. I’m not interested in imposing.
I am not interested in imposing my religious views on others. I don’t want to take away anyone’s free will. I often ask people, if you see the modesty squads in Tehran find a couple on a park bench and beat and beat them up, who do you identify with? You have to identify with a couple that’s getting beaten up. I mean, I think so.
I’m not interested in living in a in in you know, we once lived in a position in a time when God’s presence was revealed, where to to not, you know, to not be follow Torah was an act of rebellion. We don’t live in that time anymore. This is not the period, it’s not the historical period in which we live. We’re going to have to do it by showing people that this is the, this is the best life and the best life for a Jew and the most fulfilling life for a Jew.
Sruli Fruchter: Yeah.
Jonathan Rosenblum: Not by legal impositions. Am I bothered by a Pesach law so that people don’t bring in chametz to a hospital, for instance? That doesn’t bother me. I don’t consider that’s a high degree of religious coercion.
Sruli Fruchter: So so I know that we’ve said before that the haredi saying the haredi community itself or really any community itself a misnomer because no community is a monolith in such a strict way. But what do you think? I mean, from what you’re saying, so my question is, A, do you think that your perspective and your opinion is shared or more popular in the haredi community, quote unquote, in the broad sense? And if not, what is the haredi community interested in? And again, I know saying the haredi community itself is such a misnomer in in building the state of Israel or developing it towards one direction. Because I think that from a political sense, there are politicians in the National Religious, Dati Leumi world or in other sects of the religious community in Israel who many perceive are in fact trying to create a religious state, which in itself can take many different forms.
Jonathan Rosenblum: Yeah, I don’t know if that’s true or not.
I mean, I’ve met Bezalel Smotrich. I like him. He’s a nice.
Sruli Fruchter: At least the perception wise, that’s how people.
Jonathan Rosenblum: Yeah, yeah, they, that’s just a term of denigration to say that he represents the Messianic the Messianic branch or they’re all messianist and they want to bring mashiach. You know, I don’t know national religious thought well enough to talk about that.
Sruli Fruchter: No, of course. Meaning just speaking, I think about the haredi world, you know, more generally and at least what are the more common or popular opinions to encounter?
Jonathan Rosenblum: Okay.
The only thing I can say about this is that I’ve been writing for 30 years. I have more than 2,500 columns. They haven’t gotten rid of me yet and apparently they think that my views are represent enough people who identify as haredi, whether it’s American haredi or Israeli haredi. I don’t know if I’m really, I think I tend to speak more for an an American haredi community.
Sruli Fruchter: Mm-hmm.
Jonathan Rosenblum: And maybe even more of a baalabatish community, maybe the Agudah community in America than Bnei Brak, for instance. When I was appointed the editor of Yated Ne’eman in English, after being a baal teshuva for 10 years, I had only been to Bnei Brak once in my life. So it was quite a thrill to get to meet Rav Shach at that time and I even took my oldest son along with me.
But I didn’t grow up in that community and I don’t grow up with its attitudes. I still grow up, you know, I still hear the world through two ears. One, the ear of my family and those people I’d like to persuade to to take Torah much more seriously and through the ears of a member as a member of this community. But, you know, there’s always, there’s always a certain ambivalence.
Sruli Fruchter: Ambivalence about?
Jonathan Rosenblum: I’m happy with the fact that, let’s say I could write a column two weeks ago talking about the failure of American education and how kids don’t know how to read and at the end say, you know, there’s something to be said for the Great Books program at Columbia or the Great Books program that once existed at the University of Chicago, which is my alma mater, by saying, you know, who do you think is going to be more likely to at one point be open to hearing the message of Torah? Somebody who’s thought deeply about what is the purpose of life, who’s who’s going to be more receptive to reading texts of debates which took place over 2,000 years ago, somebody who’s been raised in a tradition where which starts with, you know, a Plato or an Aristotle, or somebody who thinks all that’s just dead white men and we only have to look at the most contemporary black thinker or something. I mean it’s obvious that I I see, I I see in my own life, I feel that the the education that I had, the secular education I had, I think made me more receptive to Torah, made it easier for me to.
Sruli Fruchter: So so the reason that I want to press on this is because I think that, let’s say as an example, with the religious Zionist community, is there diversity of thought? Absolutely. And there are definitely different communities and different sects that have different perspectives.
But if someone were to say that, you know, in general, the religious Zionist community, of course with exceptions in the Gush and others, are interested in settling in Gaza, in expanding yishuvim in Judea and Samaria, the West Bank. Like that wouldn’t, you know, are they missing some of the nuance? Absolutely. But that wouldn’t be an incorrect statement. So what I’m curious about, I mean, at least I don’t think that would be an incorrect statement.
So what I’m curious about is that in this sense, for the haredi world in Israel, what is the goal then? If not a religious state as people perceive it? And whether or not that’s correct is a is a separate question. You know, instituting more halacha into the law or having halacha and Jewish law inform the structures of Israel. Then what is ultimately the vision?
Jonathan Rosenblum: Listen, there’s almost no haredi writing on that. It’s almost it’s these are almost untouched subjects. So I don’t think these are really the goals.
Sruli Fruchter: So then yeah, what are the goals I would ask?
Jonathan Rosenblum: To the extent there’s a communal goal is is the primacy of Torah.
Sruli Fruchter: Mm-hmm.
Jonathan Rosenblum: That is to create a community in which will allow for individuals to to flourish with Torah as the central focus of their lives.
If that can be in a large in a larger context, I mean, the Jewish historian Jacob Katz always described Jewish communities in Europe that people derived their values from the internal community, but they also had interactions with the larger gentile society. They had economic interactions. But where they derived their values and to where they looked for approval was in the internal Jewish community. I think that’s going to remain true.
I don’t see that the haredi community is very interested in setting a national agenda. They may be interested in an issue such as judicial reform, let’s say. I mean, because they they affect us. In other words, one concrete example.
A lot of the discussions that have taken place over the army issue have floundered on this point. As Rav Dov Landau, the Rosh Yeshiva of Slabodka, said, “I can reach any number of agreements with the army.” And such agreements have been reached. But every time we reach them, the Supreme Court comes or the attorney, it may not even get to the Supreme Court.
The Attorney General may say, it’s not … It’s not equal and therefore it’s null and void. And so they prevent any move towards accommodation. So that issue becomes very crucial because once you remove it outside of the political sphere and make it a constitutional issue, even though we don’t have a constitution, then you’re making it much harder to reach accommodations which could be reached.
So on that issue, the community has a stance because it affects everything, you know, it affects the whole structure of the community. But I don’t think I don’t think there’s much discussion about, you know, when we run the country, when we’re the majority, when we, I mean, it’s not inconceivable, you know, that at some point, given the differential of birth rates, but it’s going to be a very different haredi community.
Sruli Fruchter: Why do you say that?
Jonathan Rosenblum: I once asked, I don’t know if I wrote this column in the end because a lot of my columns get stuffed in the drawer and don’t get published. Would you want to live in a country run by haredim? And that was my question.
And I think if we’re most of us are being honest, we would not want to live in that country right now. We don’t feel competent to run the country. I wouldn’t feel competent to run a war in Gaza. I wouldn’t feel competent to allocate defense spending, to know whether you need more submarines or you need this.
Sruli Fruchter: So so what do you mean that there will be a different haredi community and what do you think would be different?
Jonathan Rosenblum: Well, if I think as we’ve become larger, it is incumbent upon us to take more responsibility for the larger society, to see ourselves as real players here with responsibilities to our fellow Jews. I think as we’ve grown in size, that becomes far more incumbent upon us. And I think that I was involved in the establishment of something called the Machon Haredi for Public Policy, the the Haredi Center for Public Policy, which was established by Eli Paley, who’s the publisher of Mishpacha magazine. And our opening statement, which I think which I drafted, was basically on this idea that we are no longer a small, beleaguered community just desperately trying to preserve its own existence.
We are a substantial portion, 15% of the Israeli population, and a growing percentage of the Israeli population. And as such, it’s incumbent upon us to see how do we relate to this, to the larger. But there hasn’t been a lot of thinking about that in in the haredi community. I mean, this is that was one of the first initiatives.
It’s not something that occupies too many talmidei chachamim, I’m afraid. You know, you could have a Rav the Rav from the Gush who had that statement with Ruth Gavison. But I mean, he he came up with a sort of something to deal with Shabbos with he put together something with Ruth Gavison, who was, you know, not at all religious, but but she was interested in how do we create a state where we can all live here together? I mean, Einat Wilf always says, what is the definition of Zionism? A place where we can fight about what’s the definition of where Jews can get together to fight about the definition of Zionism. But uh…
Sruli Fruchter: So I… this next question is one that’s kind of surfaced a little bit over our conversation. Should all Israelis serve in the army?
Jonathan Rosenblum: A very large percentage of Israelis don’t serve in the army. I mean, Yuli Edelstein’s at a recent, I was recently who runs the the committee in the Knesset that’s dealing with the draft issue right now, said, “You know, there are large segments of Tel Aviv where you have a very low rate of turnout for the army.” And he said, “Okay, listen, I understand that there.” He said, “We can’t have people who are not psychologically fit for the army.
We don’t want them in the army.” But he said he proposed a law in the Knesset that those who get psychological deferments from the army should also not be able to get a driver’s license. If you’re not fit to serve in the army, you’re probably not fit, you shouldn’t be on the road. Who knows what psychological your psychological problems when that created an absolute uproar. It’s not like everybody in the in the country is serving in the army.
Disproportionately, it’s the National Religious community, certainly in the combat units is way disproportionately represented though there’s traditionally been a glass ceiling for them.
Sruli Fruchter: Why do you say a glass ceiling?
Jonathan Rosenblum: To reach the upper echelons. That was always controlled. They, you know, the ones who were too religious, one who said, “Let’s say shema before we go into battle.” They they find that their career in the army comes to a quick a quick halt.
I mean, that that’s known that there’s a glass ceiling. In the junior officer corps, the national religious community is way, way underrepresented. But when you get to the senior levels, it’s not it’s not it’s no longer the case because that’s that’s one of the big threats of the in the eyes of the secular population, the one of the big threats is the dominance of the national religious community in in the army. Right now I don’t think no, I to you know, what do I think is the ideal situation? I think the ideal situation would be that the Torah institutions which have developed over the last, I guess almost 70 years now, that the intense Torah learning continue.
I mean, it’s not army service is not necessarily a positive value. Like this is the minimum thing you have to do to be a citizen is to be in the army. At the same time, I think the community has as a community has to be sensitive to the issue, do we have enough manpower? Are there those who could serve in the army? Should we, what I cannot bear, which is the idea that army service should be something that should be looked down upon, that it should be something that you failed because you didn’t, you weren’t in full-time learning or you left full-time learning or at some point your learning came to an end and you went out into the workforce.
Sruli Fruchter: You’re saying within the haredi community?
Jonathan Rosenblum: Within the haredi community. I think that’s that that army service is something to be looked down upon. That’s that’s anathema to me. That’s a personal view and I don’t know that it’s shared.
Sruli Fruchter: Is that, yeah, I was gonna ask, is that shared?
Jonathan Rosenblum: By many, but not by all, for sure.
Sruli Fruchter: So from the from the, let’s say this is the the um…
Jonathan Rosenblum: But it should be said that, and Yehoshua Pfeffer’s pointed to this out in his research, you know, even more than me, but when I when I became the editor of Yated Ne’eman, I was still learning two sedorim a day in kollel. But I was told you have to go register for the army now because you’re getting a parnassah outside.
This was from Yated Ne’eman, the voice piece in those days of Rav Shach, is that anybody who does not qualify for an army deferment has to register for the draft. And I did. I mean, it was it was, you know, it wasn’t relevant because I was already 38 years old. But I, you know, I went down, I reported for the draft.
I took the test. I thought I was sure that they would see that I was would make an excellent Mossad agent, but they didn’t. And so uh…
Sruli Fruchter: So I mean it’s interesting to hear you speak about the tension within the haredi community between those who, let’s say, leave learning to go to the army, whether temporarily or, you know, for a longer period of time.
But from outside of the haredi community, the main question that I think everyone is wondering is, what’s holding the haredi community back from drafting right now? Meaning you’ve written in your columns and I think as you said, many people have acknowledged, this is a multi-front war, the state of Israel is on the line, the Jewish people is on the line. It’s in many ways life or death. Beyond just an ordinary war. So what is the reason for that?
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Jonathan Rosenblum: Okay, one of the reasons is if you were going to talk about drafting all haredim at the age of 18, then you’ve simply destroyed a social structure that’s been built up over such a long period of time, which assumes that they’ll get married 20, 22, 23, which these are the most intense years of learning.
It’s just, you know, a whole communal structure that’s been built over 70 years is not something that you can just alter in over overnight. The other danger is, have we created formats, have we created formats in which we could be assured that our children are going to stay religious. The record of the national religious community in this respect is not so great. I mean, of those who identify themselves as somehow religious, they went to a Dati Mamlachti school.
More than 50% don’t remain religious in the course of the army. 18-year-olds are very susceptible to the larger environment in which they find themselves. They’re very influenced by the larger environment. And you also have this issue like Rav Dov, who grew up across the street, Rav Dov Fendel, he’s a Rosh Yeshiva in Sderot.
You know, he’s written pieces, he said, “The army says things to us and then they don’t follow up with that.” And then they tell my soldiers, my my students who are serving in the army that they’re going to be in a tank with women. Do you know how you go to the bathroom in a tank? There’s not, there’s no privacy. There’s, you you know, you can’t, you can’t have it both ways. Are you going to make the army accommodate so that haredim do not fear that their children will cease to be religious by virtue of going into the army or not? These are major issues that have to be discussed intensely.
And there are efforts. I mean, uh, I’ll be able to speak about this more more in in a few weeks because I asked Yehoshua Pfeffer to take me around on a tour of all the various initiatives that have started, the Hashmonaim brigade and so forth. I was pleased to see in a little news clip I saw on the Hashmonaim brigade, these did not look like dropouts from the haredi community. They look like fine young members who felt that they had a responsibility.
And I do think, one of my sons pointed out to this, his son’s in the miluim right now. He told me, he said, “Many of us want to be part of Israeli society. Being in the army is part of being a member of Israeli society.” Even though, as I said, there’s a lot of seculars who don’t go into the army either, but it’s part of the Israeli ethos. And uh and we want to be part of that.
You know, in other words, there are a large number of people who in this building, we’ve had 10 young men in this who grew up in this building who’ve served in the army. I mean, it’s an unusual building. It’s an American building, by and large, it’s uh but it it’s not, it’s nobody ever had a problem coming home in their uniform. Nobody ever worried about coming home in their uniform, going back to a neighborhood where they might be greeted with hostility.
Sruli Fruchter: So I’m wondering what would you say then? Because I think that it’s it’s in the media, it’s very easy for many, and this has been my opinion for for a while, to characterize and categorize the haredim in whatever manner they’d like because haredim are not as present in the media space in general. So when people are writing and speaking about this issue as that haredim are selfishly, you know, in their description, selfishly concerned with their own religiosity and totally disregard the life and death of others and the country. What do you think that they’re misunderstanding?
Jonathan Rosenblum: The fundamental Torah view of all Jews being connected to each other, the preciousness of every Jew. And I think most haredim, I mean, that is the Torah view.
Anyone who doesn’t share that view is has something wrong with their Torah perspective. But it’s not a lack of concern with I mean, we live here. Israel loses a war, Iran hits us with a nuclear weapon, we’re all gone. There’s no difference between the that nuclear weapon will make no distinctions between haredim and uh and non and non-haredim.
We all have our futures, you know, we’ve made a large bet on this country. A large bet on on Torah and a large bet on, you know, those of us who have come from chutz la’aretz and made our lives here. But, you know, I did one, one time I was speaking in Baltimore together with uh Rabbi Moshe Taragin, a Rosh Yeshiva from the Gush. So we were supposed to speak on the haredi national religious divide.
So I said to him before and I said, “Listen, let’s do it this way, Moshe. I’ll speak on the mailos of the national religious community and you’ll speak on the mailos of the haredi community.”
Sruli Fruchter: The mailos, the…
Jonathan Rosenblum: The what are what are the things that stand out about… communities.
It’s outstanding, the outstanding aspects of each community. And that’s what we did. And it was a big hit and I got a whole column out of it. I just quoted what he gave a superb speech on the haredi community.
You know, if you asked me what I do admire in the national religious community, one time my wife and I were in I was davening in a in a Hesder yeshiva. I forget where we were. Mitzpe, where’s the place on the the big crater down south?
Sruli Fruchter: Mitzpe Ramon.
Jonathan Rosenblum: MitzpehRamon.
So I was in the, I was there in the Hesder yeshiva and I see the bookshelves are lined with sifrei hashkafa and emuna. You know, they prepare, they prepare boys that they to go into the army and still learn a daf yomi and still keep learning and it is admirable. It’s really admirable. I think, you know, at the best levels of that world, the ability to keep learning and to learn with to learn in battlefield conditions under the most strenuous situations possible.
There are things we could learn, we could learn how to educate our kids that to preserve their faith outside of a narrow bubble because many of us will be forced into situations whether it’s in the workplace. As I said, the haredim are going to be more integrated in the in the in the workplace too. You have to learn how to hold on to your identity in a place where you’re not the majority.
Sruli Fruchter: Yeah.
Can questioning the actions of Israel’s government and army, even in the context of this war, be considered a valid form of love and patriotism?
Jonathan Rosenblum: At a theoretical level, for sure. What has often astounded me in the questions about the in the war is, and this I say as an Israeli citizen, not as a member of the haredi community, is I’ve often said that no matter what happens, no one gives, we’ll give Netanyahu any credit. We’ve decided that he’s the great enemy and there’s no credit to be had for anything that he could do. No one seems to have noticed that Hezbollah doesn’t exist as a as a threat the way it once did, that we’re not subject to the same threats that we that we degraded Iran’s defense capacities already in October so that they had no, you know, basically we’ve had free rein over there.
He gets no credit for anything. So if everything that you say is tinged with the fact we have to get rid of Netanyahu, in a time of war, I think you could lay off a little bit. But you know, as Samuel Johnson said, “patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels.” So I don’t want to, the argument shouldn’t come down to that, but the fact that no one can give any credit, it’s it’s a shortcoming. It’s a shortcoming in the country.
Sruli Fruchter: What do you think is the most legitimate criticism that’s leveled against Israel today?
Jonathan Rosenblum: Well, now you see my old Zionist upbringing. I I don’t, the ones with respect to committing genocide is just insane. And we’re talking about against an enemy who is explicitly genocidal, who wants to kill every Jew. To think that, you know, anybody who’s looked at the statistics of the number of civilian casualties and the type of fighting that’s been engaged in in Gaza realize that Israel has done better than any army in a comparable situation.
I mean it’s the one to one ratio of civilian to combat deaths amongst the enemy is is is unprecedented, as John Spencer has said, Richard Kemp has said. I don’t know. Oh, I mean one criticism that’s, but it’s an internal criticism is that our judicial system is out of whack. That, you know, as Richard Posner said about the former president of the court, Aharon Barak, he’s a legal buccaneer.
He’s a, you know, he basically seized power in a way that’s absolutely astounding and claimed for the court and claimed for the attorney general powers that didn’t exist. That’s a, it’s a big weakness in our system, but it could be that there are not enough checks and balances in the Israeli governmental system. I once heard a a group of very smart people, maybe Habib was one of them, but Yuval Levin, who’s an American political thinker, said Israel has a very strong society and very weak institutions.
Sruli Fruchter: Mmm.
Jonathan Rosenblum: That’s not, does that delegitimize Israel? It doesn’t. Is it something we have to work on? Our institutions do not keep pace with the resilience and strength of our population, which has proven itself over and over again. The people are better than the institutional system that that we’ve developed. Maybe there should be different forms of Knesset representation, maybe there should be some individual representatives.
These are all issues that could be debated, but they’re not the criticism that’s been raised on the Columbia campus. They’re not the criticism, the criticisms that are being raised by the real enemies of Israel, I can’t think of any that are legitimate. I mean, I understand friends of mine, even a friend of mine from law school who owns a house in Israel, but I imagine if they see on The New York Times every day, pictures of children in Gaza or the rubble in Gaza, they think, oh, how could we do that? But if if the enemy has made their greatest publicity, the the centerpiece of their strategy to create as many casualties amongst their own people as possible, that can’t be attributed to us. It’s not because we’re heartless, it’s not because we want to kill mothers and babies and and so forth, it’s because we have to defend ourselves.
We cannot have 80,000 people who can no longer live in the north or in the south because they’re under attack. We cannot cede those areas. We’re not a big country. We have a lot of population we have to defend those.
So I’m not aware of any criticism of Israel that’s brought by the people who are would like to see Israel gone that have any validity whatsoever.
Sruli Fruchter: Do you think the state of Israel is part of the final redemption?
Jonathan Rosenblum: I once saw an article long ago that said, I think it’s dangerous to do I personally, I’d rather remain agnostic. I don’t know the divine plan. One thing I see is when you start talking, you you focus on October 7th and you make a theology based on October 7th or Simchas Torah, and you don’t expand that range to see what will happen in the next 18 months.
I don’t know the divine plan. I don’t, you know, we have a very, very, very bad record of predicting when mashiach is coming and so forth, when the redemption is coming, even the greatest Jewish thinkers. So why should a a piskeler like me have an have an opinion upon that? Where where the state comes. I do think the return of the majority of the Jewish population of the world to this small sliver of land is one of history’s miracles.
That, I’m sure, is one of the greatest miracles that a people who yearned to return to this small sliver of land and preserved enough of identity that they did so is a miracle and an aspect of of the divine prophecies. That the land never flourished, that it, as somebody said the other day, it’s the only country in the world which has more trees at the end of the 20th century than it had at the beginning. It’s only land which is flourishing in that way in a way that lay desolate and became and bloomed. There’s so much, there’s so much that’s exciting that’s that’s taking place here and and taking place on a religious level too.
I’m expecting this, I want to get in.
Sruli Fruchter: It’s all going in.
Jonathan Rosenblum: I expect, I expect a major teshuva movement to take place as a result of the events of the last 18 months, but even of the last, of the last 12, of the events in the last 12 days. The Six-Day War, even though the army performed so brilliantly, the Air Force, you know, destroyed all the other air forces, but people saw, wow, something miraculous took place here.
We’ve lived through historical times. And and I think that is Israeli Jews think of themselves as, okay, this is an important point. If you ask me what’s the greatest achievement of Israel, it’s that Jews here still think of themselves as Jews. They may not know much about it.
They may they may not know much as much about Torah, but they they have a consciousness of themselves as Jews. Meaning, when Omer Shemtov went into a cave in Gaza as a prisoner, he started saying, I’m going to say kiddush here. I’m going to become more Jewish. I’m going to I’m going to say kiddush every leil Shabbos.
He thought of himself as Jews, that an Agam Berger could say, you know, I’m not going to cook for the for my Palestinian captors. I’m not going to eat on Yom Kippur. I’m not going to eat chametz on Pesach and convince the other four tatzbaniot that were with her that they also would not eat chametz on Pesach. If you put a group of Columbia students, the average group of Columbia students who had never been in one of the Jewish programs, you put them in a cave, they wouldn’t start thinking about what they could do to make themselves more Jewish.
That is something that has taken place here. There is there’s a consciousness of oneself as a Jew, even though when it may not have much content to it, but still it’s something that can be built on. And I think will be built on. I think we’re going to see something amazing here in the in the coming years.
Sruli Fruchter: Is messianism helpful or harmful to Israel?
Jonathan Rosenblum: I don’t know what messianism is. And I think it’s always helpful for a Jew to know that there’s a, there’s an end, there’s an end plan. That the world is moving towards something, that the world has a purpose, history has a purpose, and it has an end game. Like the the Ramchal says, you know, there’s a period for everything.
There was a period where all people could have returned to the level of Adam Harishon. That ended with the Dor Haflaga. There’s periods. But everything has to have an end.
We have to have an end to our lives. We have to know that we’re limited. There’s going there is a goal. Hashem has a goal for the world.
It’s good to know that. But if as one of my, my greatest teacher, Rav Moshe Shapiro used to say, our job is not to bring mashiach. Our job is to not get in his way. That’s a big difference.
And so to know that there that we’re part of a larger story and to and to expand the lens is always good to know. But to think that to live with this consciousness that I’m going to bring mashiach, that’s more often dangerous than not.
Sruli Fruchter: Do you think peace between Israelis and Palestinians will happen within your lifetime?
Jonathan Rosenblum: Skeptical. I mean because the educational system has been against peace.
It’s been to hate Jews and as long as this idea that the Jew is an interloper here and has no place here, until there’s an acceptance that we’re not going to destroy Israel, let’s live with it. But we did see the Abraham Accords. That is something big. And I think we’ll see an expansion in light of this this war too.
I think that that that could expand. I think there will be peace with many Arab countries. And will the Palestinians come around? I don’t know. I mean because it’s not that they can’t sense that they could flourish more with Israel.
Between 1967 and 1991, when the West Bank, the Judea and Samaria were under Jewish control, life expectancy jumped 50%, jumped from 48 to 72. Infant mortality dropped three quarters. Seven universities were built. It was the fourth fastest growing economy in the world in that period by 1991 when when the Palestinian Authority took over.
In tandem with Israel, if they, if it’s a mistake to look at other people and think that they think just like us and they they’re all they care about is material success. The the radical Islamists have proven over and over again that that’s not their that’s not what they’re looking for in life. You know, when they brag, we love death, you love life. So we’re talking on a different plane and we have to take that seriously.
Just like we have to take seriously when somebody says, we wish to destroy you. When Hitler said it, yemach shemo, we should have listened. When Ayatollah Khomeini says it, we were right to listen and we should always be right to listen when people say that they mean to kill all the Jews. But we have seen in my lifetime, I’m a pretty old man.
My children’s, I hope so.
Sruli Fruchter: Where do you identify on Israel’s political and religious spectrum and do you have any friends on the quote unquote other side?
Jonathan Rosenblum: Close friends, I don’t have. Well, I guess let’s start with, I mean, you know, I identify as a member of the haredi community because my children go to haredi institutions. I daven in shul, you know, I daven in several shuls.
One of the shuls I daven in is I would call more American. There are a number of people there with kippot srugot. I go to shiur in the morning where it’s about half and half between the the rav is product of the haredi world, but it’s just people who want to learn Torah together and we feel very close to one another.
Sruli Fruchter: And politically?
Jonathan Rosenblum: Politically, I suppose almost all, almost all religious Jews, national religious or haredi are pretty much to the right politically, but right left distinctions are increasingly less important in Israel because there’s, you know, nobody thinks we have a peace partner.
I mean, very few people think that there’s a partner for peace. Do I have friends in the National Religious world? For sure. I mean I mentioned Rabbi Taragin, I mentioned, I don’t know if I mentioned Moshe Koppel, I have good friends, you know, whose chasunas I go to. And in the secular world, I mean, as I said, I wrote yesterday to Haviv Rettig Gur and to Einat Wilf who I was once on a panel with because they say interesting things.
They teach me things. I learn from them. I learn more about Israeli society. So I’d certainly like to be better friends.
And it would work on I, when I find people outside of my narrow world, I’m eager to try it. But that’s my nature. I’m by nature an extrovert and I don’t and you know, I wasn’t raised insularly. I came from an outside world so it’s easier for me to switch back into that.
Sruli Fruchter: And and for our final question, do you have more hope or fear for Israel and the Jewish people?
Jonathan Rosenblum: Hope. Jews are by nature optimistic. When you know that there’s a God in the world, it’s good to be, we should be optimistic. I mean, we are still here for all the travails.
As one of my law school friends once said, it hasn’t been exactly a romp through sunny meadows. Jewish history is not just a, you know, it’s like an old Salem commercial. You’re not just running through the meadows, but but we’re still here and and in many respects, we’re going stronger than ever, so in both in terms of the amount of Torah learning and in in all the fields in which Jews continue to make amazing contributions.
Sruli Fruchter: Amazing.
All right, thank you so much. There was so much packed into that interview and as our time continued to tick on, I really found myself yearning for there to be an extra few hours where we could delve further into all of these conversations and into all of these subtopics. But I think that as with all of our guests, this is a great starting point for every person’s own exploration and investigation into Jonathan’s work, into his positions, into his views, the ones you agree with and the ones that you disagree with. Thank you to our special friends, Gilad Brounstein and Josh Weinberg for editing the podcast and video of this episode respectively.
And thank you, our listeners so much for tuning in. I’m your host Sruli Fruchter and until next time, keep questioning and keep thinking.
This transcript was produced by Sofer.AI.