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29 Av 5759 - August 11, 1999 | Mordecai Plaut, director Published Weekly
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Teshuvah is Legal at Tel Aviv Cultural Center; Chareidi Activist Stabbed by Leftist Thug

by A. Cohen and Mordecai Plaut

The latest cultural war took place in Tel Aviv's Heichal Hatarbut, its central cultural hall, as a local judge ruled that the city must allow Rav Amnon Yitzchak to hold a teshuvah rally there that had been scheduled six months earlier in honor of the month of Elul.

On the night of the rally last Wednesday, a chareidi activist of the Shofar organization was stabbed in the square near Heichal Hatarbut. Rav Amnon Yitzchak addressed a relatively large audience of approximately 2000 people.

The chareidi activist reproved a youth for stealing another person's place. The youth pulled out a knife, and stabbed the activist in the hand. Police detained the attacker for questioning. The activist was taken to Ichilov hospital for stitches and treatment.

Shofar's major rally had been the talk of the media, even before it took place. Leftist activists went to extreme lengths to prevent it. Leftist representatives in the Tel Aviv municipality demanded that Mayor Ron Chuldai prevent the rally from being held specifically in Heichal Hatarbut, which they viewed as a bastion of secularism. Mayor Chuldai did indeed intervene, and the directors of the auditorium decided to cancel the event and to reimburse the organization for rental fees.

The hall had been reserved for the rally some six months ago. The association declared then that the purpose was an evening of lectures given by Rav Amnon Yitzchak, the association's head, who specializes in returning secular Jews to their heritage. At the time, the management agreed and a contract was signed.

It was only five days before the lecture that the hall informed the rabbi that it had been ordered by its owner, the Tel Aviv Municipality, to cancel the evening, due to "fears that it would be a threat to public order." The decision was based on what they described as the rabbi's "notoriety for making incendiary and provocative remarks."

Some such remarks that they quoted were, "that the two greatest criminals in Jewish history were Hitler and Herzl: the former tried to eradicate the body, whereas the latter wanted to destroy the soul, which is much more important."

According to them, Rav Yitzchak also said in the past that according to current trends toward a return to Jewish roots, secular Jews would soon become akin to rare freaks that people will stare at in the street.

The representatives of Shofar and of the Rachmei Shamayim organization appealed to the Magistrate's Court in Tel Aviv against the cancellation. A hearing was held before Justice Y. Gertni. The petitioner's attorney claimed that because the proprietors had signed a contract with Shofar, they could not cancel the affair simply because they did not approve of the speaker's views.

"Freedom of expression," claimed the representative, "does not pertain only to statements that one agrees with. Its whole importance lies in the fact that it applies to varied and dissenting views." Arguing in favor of the rally being held as planned, Shofar's representative pointed out that the Cultural Center was run by the Tel Aviv municipality, and therefore had no right to discriminate against anyone because of his views. Even a private company is not permitted to discriminate against another party because of his views or lifestyle.

The judge accepted the petitioner's appeal and ordered the directors of Heichal Hatarbut to open their doors to Rav Amnon Yitzchok's lecture. In that way, he explained, the Cultural Center could prove to all that it did not discriminate against lecturers or against points of view, and that its doors were open to every forum.

However, in his ruling, the judge did nonetheless say that the supposed charges would have been valid reason not to rent the hall to the association in the first place, but they could not be a valid reason for canceling the event, especially at the last moment.

When the judge's decision letting the rally go ahead became public, approximately one hundred extreme leftist activists, many from the political parties of Shinui, Meretz and Am Chofshi, arrived at the Cultural Center to demonstrate. They distributed flyers declaring that they would thwart all efforts to hold teshuvah rallies in the Cultural Center. They demanded that the Tel Aviv municipality declare that it forbids such rallies in Tel Aviv, and that it will not permit chareidi elements to "contaminate" the city.

Representatives of extreme secularist groups appeared in a television interview to announce that they regard holding a religious rally in the Cultural Center as the surrender of Tel Aviv's "last stand." Some threatened to cancel their subscriptions to other performances held in the auditorium.

It was interesting that the Ma'ariv newspaper presented two versions of the stabbing affair. In its first edition, the paper reported that a chareidi youth had been stabbed by a friend. Later editions carried the more accurate report that a fifteen-year-old secular youth stabbed a man at the entrance to Heichal Hatarbut.


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