Bridge or Dam: MK Lipman’s Israel unity push

In his short time in the Knesset, Maryland expatriate, Ner Yisrael rav and now member of Knesset Dov Lipman has sought to unite the disparate elements of Israeli society, integrate the Charedim, increase positive views of Israel around the world and appears to back a more left wing view regarding relations with the Arabs.

“This is definitely the only office (in the Knesset) with baseballs,” he told The Jewish Week during a wide-ranging interview in Jerusalem, nodding to the two balls on his bookshelves signed by Ernie Banks and Boog Powell. He also has a worn gavel on his desk, the handle leaning on a rough, beige, fist sized rock.

“This is my father’s gavel,” he said reverentially. He said that his father was religious and successful in the U.S. government — illustrating the ability to bridge the Jewish and secular worlds. Lipman was hit in the leg by the rock, thrown at police by protesters against grave desecration in Beit Shemesh. He saved it to “remember if we are not cautious what could happen to us as a people if we don’t work together.”

Lipman was born in 1971 in Silver Spring, earned a BA in Talmud and smicha (rabbinic ordination) from Ner Israel in Baltimore and an MA in Education from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. He has an extensive background as a yeshiva educator and administrator. He made Aliyah in 2004 and he, his wife and four children live in Beit Shemesh. He was elected to the 19th Knesset in May 2013 as the 17th seat of the Yesh Atid party.

Lipman has taken the position of liaison with the English speaking community, having renounced his U.S. citizenship to sit in the Knesset but retaining ties to the U.S. and other communities interested in learning about Israel. He stresses the importance of education in Jewish studies and positive information about Israel in his position sitting on the Diaspora Affairs Committee. “We have to find ways to make Israel exciting as part of education,” he said. He lamented the state of Hebrew language education, noting that after 12 years of yeshiva or day school in the U.S., the graduates still are not fluent in Hebrew.

He detailed his and others’ work on public relations for and the legitimization of Israel to connect organizations and efforts worldwide to work together and unify the message. He is working on assisting those in the medical field to facilitate transferring their licenses to Israel upon Aliyah.

Lipman stressed the importance of being an activist, that it’s “critical to get involved--it doesn’t matter if you are less aggressive” and not fluent in the language. He said he was very active in Silver Spring, and initially “I was intimidated here … do something … the country’s young.”

The day the Jewish Star met with Lipman, the Charedi draft bill, also loosely known as the Peri Share the Burden Committee draft bill, passed its first reading in the Knesset earlier that morning. In response to the vote, United Torah Judaism MK Meir Porush handcuffed himself to the podium microphones in protest, other charedi MKs said psalms and slichot and tore their clothes (kryia) as a sign of mourning for what they said was the destruction of Torah. The bill requires registration in the army by charedim but if they are between the ages of 18 and 22 when the law is enacted they can defer till age 24 and may then be exempt from service and be allowed to join the work force.

If the registrant is 18, he can defer till 21 and can then either join a charedi brigade or community service and after serving either return to yeshiva or join the work force. Those who do not enlist could be subjected to imprisonment. The bill has to pass two more Knesset readings before it is brought up for a vote. If it does pass it will be fully implemented in 2016 to allow time for program development for the charedi student/soldiers. In addition, an exam will be instituted to provide for 1800 charedi and 300 religious-Zionist exceptional scholars to continue to study from the yearly draft pool.

Lipman defended the bill and Yair Lapid, the head of the Yesh Atid Party in the Knesset. “He has never said that he wanted to ‘empty all the yeshivas’,” protested Lipman. “I would never be involved. The plan is a historic compromise.”

He frowned on the kryia of the chareidim in the Knesset. “A person on the street will hear this and believes them. It’s misinformation.”

He implied that the bill is a positive development. “It is the first time in the history of Israel that Torah study is categorized as service to the nation,” he beamed. There will be “1800 a year designated as elite scholars and their Torah is their service. The government said they view Torah study as a significant contribution to the State of Israel.” The vote was 61 to 29 in favor, he noted. “Those who are not elite can learn Torah day and night” to age 21 and then have to serve. The draft starts in 2016. “They have to build programs in the army for charedim — they have no desire to take them and throw them into the army.”

Lipman cited a charedi yeshiva program near Petach Tikva that combines Torah study with learning technology and then to serve in a technology context while continuing to learn Torah and daven (pray) with a minyan (quorum). “They never leave the yeshiva,” he said.

“We know that the army doesn’t need every charedi boy,” he emphasized, explaining that they can participate in national service such as volunteering in medical clinics, in the community, in old age homes, border patrol, assisting Holocaust survivors. He quoted Lapid saying “I want to meet the rabbi who would say that helping a Holocaust survivor is what they call bitul Torah (wasting time from Torah study).” He emphasized the “tremendous chesed in the charedi community” such as Zaka and stressed that that could be their service.

He cited the integration of the charedim into national service and into the work force as necessary to help them economically that with families of ten children and a large percentage not in the work force it is important to get them past the required service hurdle and into the work force. He also cited the “polarization” in Israel and the need to bring together the secular and charedi sectors, that they “are not involved in the country … we need to work together to heal the wound.” He also stressed the need to combine work and general study with Torah learning as is done in his Alma Mater of Ner Yisroel with the devotion to Torah study broken briefly with secular studies actually strengthening the students’ Torah studies.

“The Talmud says that a lot tried to live like Bar Yochai and failed,” quoted Lipman. He had reservations of so many in that system, pointing out the yeled noshair phenomenon with two percent “falling away” from religion in the “broader community, seven to eight percent in the charedi community” and he cited one rabbi saying that he thinks up to 20 percent fall away. He calls on the charedim to use their influence and show the beauty of their community to the general public and not “view it as us against them.” He said that changes will have to come “from the bottom up” since anyone at “the top” — the rabbis — “will be vilified.

“It’s not easy to hear people calling you names like Haman and Amalek,” he said. “They don’t have the courage to do it. Opportunities have to be provided.” He said that he is in ”quiet communication” with members of the charedi community; “more are realizing that I can be an address to help them. Instead of saying ‘not one boy is going into army,’ they should say ‘let’s build yeshivos and programs to do them together.’ They are missing the opportunity to work together.”

He said the grass roots members of the charedi community are approaching him for help with employment. He said one started an employment agency and Lipman approached an employment agency to open a division for charedim. He speaks with non religious groups so they should see that the “average religious person is tolerant, respectful and not aggressive in nature.” He also cited a Torah study program once a week at 3 p.m. on Tuesdays in the Knesset Beit Midrash where secular and religious MKs learn together.

Some of the other controversial moves he supports is pushing for one chief rabbi instead of the two Sephardic and Ashkenazic at the next voting cycle, punishing grafitti on any religious site with six years in prison, a ban on foie gras — with the one vote against for fear of threatening shechita in the EU, allowing the Bedouin to stay in the squatters towns they set up — making them official towns but not permitting them to build or live elsewhere in the Negev.

Although he said that he is not involved with security issues, Lipman said that Yesh Atid is “against the (building) freeze in the major blocks (in Judea and Samaria), and Jerusalem can’t be divided.”

He said the release of prisoners is “gut wrenching” and there shouldn’t be any “preconditions about releasing” but said that “people don’t know what security threats were missed by releasing them.” And as for building he said what is done has to be in “Israel’s best interest. We are not looking for a happy marriage but a good divorce (from the Arabs).” He protested that “even those advocating peace love Israel and give their lives to Israel’s existence.”