Summary
Rabbi Yoel Ben-Nun, a student of Tzvi Yehuda Kook and, in Lustick’s account, the most prolific and sophisticated exponent of the consensus-building approach within Gush Emunim: redemption comes little by little, through a prolonged ideological Kulturkampf for the consent of the decisive majority of Israelis, not through vanguard action (For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, Chapter 5, lines 5619-5900).
Details
- Ben-Nun vigorously condemned the Jewish Underground plot to destroy the Muslim shrines in Jerusalem as contrary to the teachings of Maimonides and of the Kooks: supposed “Laws of Redemption” unconstrained by regular laws are, in his words, “a Sabbatian distortion” (For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, Chapter 5, lines 4619-4850).
- On territorial scope he is representative of the mainstream postponement of wider claims: the movement shall not forget “our Transjordan”, but knows well that the people of Israel, in its current circumstances, is hardly able to integrate the western Land of Israel it has in its hands (For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, Chapter 5, lines 5119-5400).
- Alone among Gush leaders, Ben-Nun was a regular contributor of articles to the left-wing press; his lesson of Yamit is that “it is impossible to succeed without the support of the decisive majority of the people” (For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, Chapter 5, lines 5619-5900).
- For Ben-Nun the process of redemption is long and dependent ultimately on the will and miraculous action of God; Gush Emunim’s contribution cannot be discovered halachically but only on pragmatic political grounds, and “the days of Sebastia and Yamit”, when the movement’s mission was to act as a vanguard, “are gone and will not return” (For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, Chapter 5, lines 5619-5900).
- Ben-Nun condemns all Gush elements that support radical actions challenging the legitimacy of the state: “There is nothing more urgent at this stage than to renew the authority of the state based on a public consensus” (For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, Chapter 5, lines 5619-5900).
- In 1984 Ben-Nun argued for Israeli withdrawal from the “western world democratic front”, against the continued purchase of sophisticated and expensive American arms, and in support of renewed ties with the Soviet Union; with Eliyakim Haetzni, from the opposite pole of the movement, he agrees that linking Israel’s fate with gentile political actors should be avoided except for short-term expediency (For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, Chapter 5, lines 5900-6118).
Related pages
For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, Gush Emunim, Tzvi Yehuda Kook, Jewish Underground, Eliyakim Haetzni