I once saw a picture in the newspaper of a reception that a foreign government gave for Chaim Herzog when he was visiting as Israel’s president; the governor, who was a protestant minister, wore a kipah in Herzog’s honour, while Herzog himself was bareheaded.

But realistically, the hilonim can’t imagine any world but their own, and we have no part in it. It is a zero-sum game unless people like Yitzchak Herzog, who is from a very powerful zionist family that only recently went off the derekh, can find a way to convince his fellow hilonim that being second class citizens in a Jewish state would be better to having that state destroyed by their insistence on it being a hiloni state.

That’s the bottom line. Chareidim will fall into line, or else.

On an historical note, Hezog’s father was the Chief Rabbi during the time that the Chazon Ish was fighting against the drafting of ALL girls into the IDF or into National Service–”Sherut Leumi.” This was Ben-Gurion’s plan for the “Intergration”–assimilation– of Chareidi girls into his secular melting pot.

The Chazon Ish fought-off Ben-Gurion successfully, but, he specifically refused to work with Rabbi Herzon, because he was sure that the Mizrahi Chief Rabbi would yield to pressure from his party colleagues when crunch time came.

Rabbi Herzon, being a well-meaning Talmid Chochom, insisted on joining the Chazon Ish, without being invited. However, true to the Chazon Ish’s farsighted prediction, when the Mizrachi Party exerted pressure on Rabbi Herzog to withdraw his support, he caved, and did a tremendous amount of damage to the effort.

With friends like this, who needs enemies!