MK Elazar Stern (Hatnuah) arrives at our meeting place in Tel Aviv and, contrary to the custom for new Knesset members, people know who he is. A relatively older woman approaches him, shakes his hand and exchanges a few words with him. When she moves away, she tells her husband, Thats the army officer whos in the Knesset now. What a sweetheart he is so refined. Stern laughs, abashed. He understands that its a bit odd to refer to a man who fought many battles in uniform as refined. I dont know why I annoy people, he says. Maybe its because the truth isnt always easy to hear, and people get annoyed because of that. Over the next four years, Stern says, he will be fighting a new kind of war, this time over issues of religion and state. Meanwhile, he is already winning one battle over who has the biggest mouth in the Knesset. Since he entered politics, he has managed to shake the coalitions stability over his bill to expand the size of the committee that elects the chief rabbis, which has become known as the Stern bill. He has also managed to fight with Habayit Hayehudi, insult a woman Knesset member, apologize for it and get into a scuffle with the haredim and it hasnt even been 100 days since the government was formed. I like it more than Id planned to. I was in the Knesset mainly as a military person and didnt treat the occasion with much respect. I saw the dirt, the backroom deals, from outside that still goes on today. But theres reason to be optimistic. Now more people have come who are there to work. Next week, Stern plans to establish a lobbying committee in the Knesset to deal with issues of religion and state. The people in Habayit Hayehudi think that issues of religion and state are their fathers business, that theyre responsible, that theyre more Jewish than anybody else, more than I am, more than Ruth Calderon or Rabbi Shai Piron, as if they had a monopoly on it. When someone touches them there, they jump. Their problem with me is that Im not from outside the camp. Im not Avrum Burg, Im from the religious Zionist camp. I dress like they do. My skullcap is just as big as theirs. I also wear ritual fringes, live in a settlement in the Galilee and did significant military service. They dont know how to deal with me. According to Stern, Not even the rabbis represent religious Zionism. The ones who represent it are the ones who combine Torah study with work. For example, Rabbi Dov Lior is as radical as one can get. He doesnt represent religious Zionism. Anyone who calls the president of the United States a kushi [a derogatory word for a black person] does not represent religious Zionism. Religious Zionism is part of the Israeli and international landscape, and people must understand that. It is no coincidence that Stern fired off his first shot at Habayit Hayehudi and its rabbis. Over the past few weeks, both sides have exchanged barbs over the Stern bill, which seeks to increase the number of women on the committee that elects the chief rabbis. Stern claimed that increasing the number of women would increase the chances of electing a liberal candidate meaning the chances of Rabbi David Stav, whom he supports. Habayit Hayehudi, which also supports Rabbi Stav, claimed that the bill sought to introduce political elements onto the committee and that Religious Services Minister Naftali Bennett would put women on the committee as part of the law that allows him to appoint his own representatives to it. I discovered I didnt know what Habayit Hayehudi was, Stern says. The hatred I witnessed in Habayit Hayehudi between Rabbi Stavs supporters and his opponents, the dominance of the rabbis, including the most radical of them, behind the scenes, was sad to see. I thought that Habayit Hayehudi shared the opinions that say women may study Torah, but it seems they don't. The deputy religious services minister, Eli Ben Dahan, told me himself that as far as hes concerned, no women should be on the electoral committee at all. People dont care anymore Because of Habayit Hayehud's veto of the Stern bill, officials in his party, Hatnuah, retaliated by vetoing the sweeping reform that had been planned for the Religious Affairs Ministry that would have allowed couples to register to marry anywhere in the country, as well as unifying the religious councils. That had a single purpose: to allow new immigrants whose municipal rabbis did not recognize their Jewish status to register in other cities. But in its desire to get back at Habayit Hayehudi, Hatnuah scuttled the reform, so hundreds of thousands of new immigrants will now pay for party chairwoman Tzipi Livnis desire for revenge. Stern tries to explain what happened: A veto is a tool for applying political pressure. Its not childish. Its purpose is to move something forward. We didnt scuttle their reform for the sake of doing so, but to move important subjects forward. Q. Was it worth the price that young couples prevented from marrying are going to have to pay- Im in favor of the reform, but its going to need a few slight changes. Stern wants to add the proposal on conversion, which would allow every municipal rabbi to establish a rabbinical conversion court, to the reform. This would make things easier for people undergoing conversions. The topic of conversions is the number-one threat to our future as a Jewish and democratic state, he says. A municipal rabbi is appointed by the Chief Rabbinate. Theres no fear that he will be overly lenient. Most citizens, religious and non-religious alike, want their children to marry Jews. There are 90,000 people in Israel now, under marriage age, who are considered non-Jews. They serve in the army, pay taxes and feel as Jewish as the average Israeli in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem or Ramat Gan. But they dont undergo conversion because of the bureaucracy and because the rabbis make it hard for them. If the attitude toward conversion is tough and daunting, of course people wont want to convert. Unfortunately, weve reached a point where people dont care anymore. Its even more important than whether we reach an agreement with the Palestinians, he says. Q. Does the leader of your party know that this is more important to you than an agreement with the Palestinians- She knows I dont agree with her completely about the peace process. Im free to vote according to my conscience about that. She knows Im in favor of the two-state solution while keeping the settlement blocs and Jerusalem. Above all, Im in favor of doing everything possible to prove to our young people that we did everything we could to obtain peace. If not, well go to war. We must make compromises Livni was not Sterns first option in the latest Knesset elections. During the election campaign, Sterns name was mentioned as a candidate for Rabbi Haim Amsalems party, Am Shalem, and Lapids Yesh Atid. I didnt want to go into politics at all until I heard about Amsalem and what he wanted to do in the area of conversion. I contacted him. He offered me the second slot, but I wanted the fourth or fifth so that more names could be brought in. When I saw that he was only bringing in people to whom he owed favors, I didnt want to be there. Q. What about Lapid- With Lapid, it was during the time that I still didnt want to go into politics. Lapid contacted me and offered me a very good spot. If Id agreed, Id be a high-ranking minister today. Q. You joined Livni through Yoaz Hendel, who was Netanyahus director of communications and public diplomacy. He told me: Lets start something together that will represent the national-liberal position. Hendel dragged me into politics. He brought me to Livni. The chemistry was good. Shes a very trustworthy woman. Next week, Stern will launch the religion and state lobby. It will be a lobby based on the [http://www.gavison-medan.org.il/english/] Gavison-Medan Covenant. Well mark ten years since the covenant was written. Its an excellent document that presents my view that to live together, there must be compromises. Im willing to have public transportation on the Sabbath where its necessary. It doesnt have to be in neighborhoods in Jerusalem, but where its necessary, it should exist. The cultural institutions will also be open on the Sabbath, but malls and places like those wont. I dont know how practical it is, but as far as Im concerned, thats how it should be. The Sabbath should have a character that everyone can agree on. People should want to learn about Judaism and not have it forced on them. We also need there to be 25,000 people undergoing conversion instead of 3,000, he says. As a former head of the IDF Human Resources Directorate, Stern has a lot to say about the ultra-Orthodox draft. The Perry Committees plan is problematic. It doesnt go all the way. We have to give the haredim ten years to do what they want. Whoever wants to can go to yeshiva, the army or to work. I dont want to be a prison guard for the yeshivas. At the same time, over the first five years the allowance for yeshivas needs to be reduced by ten percent, and the money saved should be given to discharged soldiers. That will create change without coercion. Even now, we know that 40 to 50 percent of haredi men dont actually study in yeshiva. Theyre there because theyre afraid theyll be caught outside. We wont be able to change that unless we start with changing the culture. It will take time, but its possible. The hesder yeshivas are a sensitive subject. Stern gets quite a lot of criticism from his own community every time he talks about it. The hesder yeshivas, with their current number of students, show how haredi thought patterns trickled into religious Zionism. There are 1,400 young men in every enlistment group, even though we know that in all the yeshivas there arent even 1,000 people who are capable of studying from morning till night, and we know there are hundreds of students who take the psychometric entrance tests, get teaching certificates and university degrees. The solution is not to close them but to reduce their numbers, to get to a point where there are only 600 yeshiva students in the system. The numbers have gotten out of all proportion. There are no entrance exams today, no one who wants to go to the hesder yeshivas and isnt accepted, and thats how they reach such numbers. The issue of draft evasion is particularly close to him. For example, when he was still in uniform, he said that no soldiers from Tel Aviv had been killed in the wars. While Stern denies having made such a harsh statement, he says, Since I didnt say it, the situation has gotten better. The draft statistics are divided by school. Today, the school principals are working on it and getting better results. He says that the problem of draft evasion is more profound and stems from the fact that celebrities who did not serve in the IDF are considered stars in Israel. Stern is once again referring to Bar Refaeli, whom he spoke out against when she was chosen to star in campaigns by the Fox clothing retail chain and the Foreign Ministry. Now shes about to host an entertainment show on television and get a million shekels. That makes me very angry. The message to Israeli girls is that its OK to evade the draft, that you wont be condemned for it. Q. How long are you going to keep after her- Until she admits she was wrong. When she was chosen for the campaign, the Foreign Ministry asked me to meet with her mother, Tzipi. She told me that when Bar went to the induction center, all the doctors fought over who would examine her and the soldiers stuck close to her. I set up a team to check that out. They spoke with her for fifteen minutes, and since then she cut off all contact. She left, married off her daughter for a few hours, and that was it. Tzipi Levine, Bar Refaeli's mother: MK Elazar Stern has the nerve to complain about Bar regarding the army. He knows the truth behind the incident he recounted in the article. I suggest that he get help for his obsession. Stern needs to understand that hes not Bar Refaelis type and that he needs to get over his obsession and get a life. Stern is annoyed by Gilad Shalit as well. The deal was made because of public opinion. Everybody knows he wasnt exactly a hero, and now hes become a celebrity. Its a bizarre trend and sends a very bad message. Instead of fighting or firing a bullet, get captured and then youll be invited to Maccabi Tel Aviv, to Barcelona and to Argentina. Gilad Shalit should have been a simple student, raised a family quietly, for his own good and for the good of all of us. Because of him, the State of Israel paid a price in releasing terrorists with blood on their hands, which caused pain to families whose children had been murdered and then he goes out and has a good time- If you didnt do everything you could to avoid being captured, go back to your normal routine and dont show yourself in public places. Even if youre invited, dont play that game. Im even hearing that criticism from people who were in charge of the struggle on his behalf. Shalits family commented, We are sorry to see that MK Elazar Stern has chosen to settle scores with Gilad after he was saved by the skin of his teeth from a cruel fate and came back to life from a long, protracted nightmare that lasted more than five years. None of us ever claimed Gilad was a hero, though MK Stern, who was never in the situation Gilad was in, would have preferred that Gilad return a hero in a coffin. Habayit Hayehudis spokesman commented, The chairman of Habayit Hayehudi, Naftali Bennett, announced that he would appoint only women he chose to the electoral committee. In that way, Habayit Hayehudi proved its desire to promote women. We recommend that MK Stern try that as well. A spokesman for the Union of Hesder Yeshivas commented: The hesder yeshiva students serve for five years and devote their lives to Torah study and combat service in the IDF. The phenomena MK Stern describes occur on the fringes and are supervised and dealt with by the yeshiva heads, as in any ordinary society. A spokesman for the bureau of Deputy Religious Services Minister Eli Ben Dahan commented: The deputy religious services minister, Eli Ben Dahan, together with the chairman of Habayit Hayehudi, Naftali Bennett, announced that the ten public figures whom the religious services minister appointed, by law, to the committee that elects the chief rabbis would all be women. Therefore, MK Sterns assertion that Minister Ben Dahan is anti-women is utterly groundless.
