Always Ask Questions – “Jews had a �healthy� choice of secular movements � bundists, hebrew culturalists, socialists, communists that they were rapidly joining”
Very true. But those Jews knew THEY were going OUT the door. Mizrachi brought the apikorsim IN the door, to reach Yidden who otherwise would NOT have gone off. That is a huge difference. Once the connection was made, even if they remained from, their children often did not. Many sincere, ehrlich Yidden, who sincerely wanted to build Eretz Yisroel, and founded places like Petach Tikvah, Rosh Pina, etc., saw their children and grandchildren go lost, because the secularists were also there, with loads of money from the WZO… I am not even talking about the issue of Zionism per se, just regular Jewish observance.
Also important to note: None of those other movements attained the popularity of Zionism, and none of them survived as distinct Jewish movements after the Holocaust. The culturalists and socialists to a large extent blended into Zionism.
“As you are saying, Agudah was making arrangements mostly for themselves, while Mizrachi established Rabanut and affected everyone.”
Agudah was making arrangements for all observant Jews in the land at the time. As I pointed out, at the time they were working together with what later became the Eidah Hachareidis, and even Neturei Karta. The agreements reached then with the British were held over by the early State, and continue to hold to a large extent down to today. Contrary to what you may think, the Rabbanut WAS NOT started by Mizrachi, but by outright secularists including Chaim Weizmann, who cleverly manipulated both the British and the various community organizations who couldn’t agree with each other. Mizrachi had unsuccessfully tried to start a similar project some years earlier. Once the ball got rolling, Mizrachi jumped on. By the way, Rav Kook z”l himself wasn’t exactly a typical Mizrachist either… The full history and nuances involved here are way beyond what can be fit into a comment section. I was working with the assumption that you are aware that all of these things were going on almost three decades BEFORE the State…
“Agudah early on joined Knesset, but did not participate in the government. Mizrachi was sometimes struggling about this issue also, but preferred participation.”
Both parties joined immediately. I’m not sure what you are referring to as ‘participation’. Negotiating and influencing – that’s what everyone was there for. Joining the coalition – depended on many factors not always under their control. Cooperating with the secular agenda – why should they? The only difference in ‘participation’ between the parties I can think of is that Agudah never took ministerial posts, which would give them executive responsibility for acts of state, including things not Halachically/Hashkaficly kosher.
“Indeed, that is why I think making today�s political decisions based on (sometimes bad) history between non-religious Zionists and Agudah is not useful. The anti-religious left moved to other ideologies. So, we need simply to see what today�s positions are, not what was happening 100 years ago.”
The history in-and-of-itself is not the reason for today’s political decisions, but there is much to be learned from it. ?? ??? ?? ??? ??? ???? ?????. Those who listened to the Gedolim (both Agudah-type and outright anti-Zionist) did better in Yiddishkeit in the long run than those who did not (i.e. Mizrachi), even though they all had good intentions…