Aguda Israel Leaders in Sharp Dispute over West Bank Issue

An angry dispute over what position Aguda Israel members should take on the future of the West Bank and Gaza Strip caused the abrupt termination of a session devoted to that issue at the Aguda’s Sixth “Knessia Gedolah” (World Congress) here. The ultra-Orthodox movement, sharply divided between doves and hawks, Zionists and non or anti-Zionists, has avoided taking on official stand so as not to aggravate these divisions.

What began as a discussion of the matter at this world assemblage ended in turmoil after Rabbi Shlomo Ginzburg suggested that every Aguda member was entitled to express his opinion in as much as the “Council of Sages” has never issued a ruling or at least, express the opinion of his rabbinical mentor. Ginzburg is a member of the Aguda Israel Party faction headed by MK Shlomo Lorincz which opposes Israel’s withdrawal from the occupied territories.

His remarks angered the backers of Rabbi Eliezer Shach, a member of the “Council of Sages,” who believes Israel should withdraw in the interests of peace. Ginzburg was attacked by both sides. As the shouting became intense, the chairman ordered Ginzburg to leave the podium. When he refused, the session was adjourned.

Earlier, the American representative of the Aguda movement; Rabbi Simcha Ellberg, attacked Zionism and the Israeli branch of the movement for cooperating with the Israeli government. “We are warned by the essence of the tie between the nation of Israel and he said, “especially while the problem of who is a Jew has still not been resolved …. We want to make the State of Israel the center and focus of diaspora Jewry but how can be expect religious Jews in the diaspora to support a State of Israel which alienates itself from the Torah and most of which is secular?”

But Ellberg, a member of the World Council of Aguda Israel, praised Premier Menachem Begin for his positive approach to the values of religion and Jewish tradition.