In Defense of the Old "Burgeouis" Mafdal

The secular establishment pitied them. Everyone to their religious left and right - the Brisker Rav, the Religious Kibbutz, Yeshayahu Leibowitz and various major Rabannim - despised them. People like Ben Chorin hold them in contempt. They were too sanguine, too naive. They kow-towed to the secular establishment on virtually anything not related to religion, and even then they often backed down. One would think that there were no grounds to defend them or praise them, except for a few old-timers who still think pre-'67 was paradise.

All well and good, except that we owe Mafdal a great debt, one we can probably never repay. Put as bluntly as possible, the Mafdal saved moderate religious Jewry in Israel. Mosad HaRav Kook, the Mamlachti-Dati system and previous "religious stream" schools, the yeshivot tichoniyot and the yeshivot hesder - NONE of these would have been possible if it weren't for the Mizrachi's partnership with the secular Jewish Agency from the '30s onward.

It was the Mafdal that fought tooth and nail to ensure Mamad education across the country, and as flawed as the system was - there was no real alternative (Charedi education then being miniscule and anti-parnassa), except losing hundreds of thousands of religious or at least traditional Jews to total secularization. This system, which slowly improved over time, helped stem and turn back the massive tide of horadat kipa at the beginning of the state that made even Beni Akiva consider disbanding itself out of despair.

We live in a generation where it is possible to proudly display a kipa anywhere; a generation where it is possible to stop being afraid that religious Jewry will not survive another generation. It behooves us to show gratitude to our forbearers who insured this at a time when it wasn't so certain. For all their flaws, the old Mafdal did a great deal of good, and we should never forget that.