Agudas Yisrael representative Meir Porush was sworn in this week as the Minister of Jerusalem Affairs and Heritage. On Wednesday, he published a special column in the Mevaser newspaper explaining his decision to serve as a minister. “Yesterday, on Motzei Asara B’Teves, I signed an agreement to serve as the Jerusalem Affairs and Heritage Minister,” Porush wrote. “The appointment as a minister shouldn’t excite a Jew who belongs to the ranks of Chareidi Judaism. This, despite the fact that it has already been clarified that a ministerial position, according to the shita of Agudas Yisrael, from the moment this question was on the agenda, was decided at the highest spiritual levels that it’s permissible and possible.” “And for that reason, I am also not the first minister in the history of Agudas Yisrael in Eretz Yisrael. The first person to bear this title was Reb Yitzchak Meir Levin, z’tl, the Nasi of the World Agudas Yisrael, who served as the Welfare Minister for over four years, in the interim government and the first three governments.” “And yet, why is the position of minister not exciting? Because even something that was agreed upon and allowed by Maranan and Rabbanan – it’s still necessary to check whether it’s possible to act and influence without the title of ‘minister.’ Because as long as there’s a possibility of being useful without this title, there’s no inyan of tightening the connection between Chareidi Judaism and the government, and there’s an inyan of expressing the differences between the two.” “Already in the year 1937, a decade before the establishment of the state, when the question was raised whether the British will grant the possibility to establish a Jewish state, the heads and leaders of Agudas Israel discussed our view towards a Jewish government, if it were to be established – whether to oppose or whether to join it. From the documents in the archives of the Agudas Yisrael Center in Jerusalem, we learn that under the direction of the Maharitz [HaRav Yosef Tzvi Dushinsky], z’tl, the late HaRav Moshe Blau put the question on the table of HaGaon HaRav Chaim Ozer Grodzenski z’tl, the Nasi of the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah in Kislev 1937. “His full answer, which has survived in his handwriting, answers the question that Rav Moshe Blau and his teacher HaRav Yaakov Rosenheim put to him, whether we must participate in the government or whether there is no obligation, and his clear answer was:  ‘If there is confirmed knowledge that the mandated government is prepared to implement Jewish division and governance, it is appropriate to participate!’” “This was, therefore, the decision of the highest authorities of Agudas Yisrael, which unequivocally decided that Agudas Yisrael has the obligation to participate in the government and coalition in order to try to preserve the rights of the Chareidi public in the State of Israel.” “We hear an echo of this in the newspaper Hamevaser in 1948 in which there is a report on the Agudas Yisrael conference in the US and quotes from the speech of our teacher HaRav Yaakov Rosenheim. And so he said: ‘Agudas Yisrael faced the duty of clarifying its relationship with the State of Israel. It was a very practical question – whether to join the government, be an equal partner in the […]

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