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.
