The sixth Knessia Gedolah” (World Congress) of the Aguda Israel movement heard a plea at its opening session here last night for recognition of the Torah as supreme in Jewish life. Rabbi Eliezer Shach, a member of the Aguda’s Council of Sages, said the Torah must be the focus of a unified Jewry, superseding all other elements.
He told the several thousand delegates jammed into the Binyanei Hacoma convention halt that neither the State nor the occupied territories, nor the Land of Israel nor the government can guide the Jewish people. Only the Torah can sustain and guide it through the generations to come he said.
Another member of the Council of Sages, the Gerer Rebbe, made on emotional plea to his followers to immigrate to Israel. The assemblage also heard a telephoned message from the head of the Council of Sages in the U.S., Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, who was unable to attend the gathering in Jerusalem because of illness.
A message of congratulations cabled by the Lubavitcher Rebbe in New York was mentioned but not read. Shach had threatened to walk out if it was read in full and; in fact, did leave when the cable was referred to over the loudspeaker. His rift with the Lubavitcher stems from their support for the State of Israel.
Anti-State sentiment was also manifested by the barring of a number of Cabinet and Knesset members from the convention hall, including Deputy Premier Simcha Ehrlich and Minister-Without-Portfolio- Moshe Nissim- Knesset Speaker Yitzhak Shamir was allowed in but departed after an hour. Several hundred Aguda faction members who were not invited tried to storm the doors and scuffled with mounted police.
FLAP OVER REFUSAL TO INVITE NAVON
The refusal of the convention organizers to invite President Yitzhak Navon, a non-political figure whose presence at the opening of all party conventions is regarded as an honor, further emphasized the non-Zionist or anti-Zionist sentiments of the Council of Sages, the Aguda’s supreme authority. As a result; Mayor Teddy Kollek of Jerusalem boycotted the convention.
Mapam MK Chaika Grossman dispatched a letter to Premier Menachem Begin urging him to oust the Aguda from his coalition because it was unseemly to include a non-Zionist party in the government. Aguda spokesmen had said Navon not invited because many of the rabbis were too old to rise upon his entering the hall. (See related story.)
Outside the convention hall, large groups of Orthodox youths from the Boei Akiva movement and the Poalei Aguda Israel shouted protests against the “anti-Zionist” meeting being held inside. Members of the National Religious Party, another coalition partner, were also barred. Danny Vermus, the NRP’s secretary general, explained, “There is no real reason for us to expect to be invited by Aguda Israel when they did not want the President to attend their convention. We are too much of a Zionist party to be desirable guests.”
Premier Menachem Begin, who is in Aswan for his summit meeting with President Amwar Sodat, is scheduled to address the closing session of the five day congress.
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