Tel Aviv–Jaffa City Council member Hadas Ragolsky published a video in which she attacked the Chabad movement and its initiatives aimed at local youth in the city. In an interview with 103FM, she expressed her frustration over the situation.
“The video was recorded ten days ago and went online eight days ago, six days before someone was murdered in that shocking terrorist attack in Australia. The video relates to what Chabad is doing in Tel Aviv, not what it does worldwide, and not to what happened in Australia. The call in the video is meant to hold up a mirror to what is happening in Tel Aviv. We need to tell the truth. Chabad is a missionary, messianic movement that seeks to bring people closer to Judaism and religion, as they themselves openly declare everywhere. It is a movement of religious coercion. That is what they came to do,” Ragolsky explained.
She continued: “I place great trust in people’s judgment—if there were truly a choice here. But there is an organization trying to change the character of the city. When they send their draft dodgers to the entrances of secular high schools in Tel Aviv, in the city center and the north,not to any religious schools, to lay tefillin with 13- and 14-year-old boys, in order to influence them at what they call their ‘coming of age.’ After that, these kids are invited to a lesson, then to another activity, and later they are offered tzitzit. These kids come home afterward, and their parents don’t know what to do.”
She added: “There is a municipal bylaw that prohibits setting up booths, so they come with bags instead. They replaced the booth with a bag and stand zero to three meters from the school, creating a gathering of boys only, of course, because girls are forbidden. They ignore the girls. And the boys stand in line. What would happen if secular people stood at the entrances of yeshivas, especially the small ones?”
Later in the conversation, Ragolsky addressed the claim that the war has led young people to grow closer to Judaism. “I see the entire ‘poison machine’ rushing to create a connection that is simply wrong, and to smear. It’s the opposite. The truth is that Chabad is a messianic organization, just like the group in Jaffa you were just talking about. The religious nuclei whose goal is to ‘Judaize’ Tel Aviv, to change the character of the city. These organizations seek to alter the liberal character of a city that believes in freedom. I light a menorah of liberal values.”
She continued: “What kind of ‘messianic secularism’? I insist on telling the story of the liberal values menorah. The first candle was mutual responsibility, because Tel Aviv residents fought for the release of the hostages from day one, at Hostages Square and everywhere else. Chabad Hasidim opposed this. They demonstrated against hostage deals. They issued an official letter in the name of the Lubavitcher Rebbe to the prime minister and ministers, calling on them to oppose a deal. Their representative in the Knesset is Ben Gvir. Come on, I’m not disconnecting things; I’m connecting them.”
According to Ragolsky, “In Tel Aviv we believe in freedom of religion and freedom from religion. I live in a neighborhood with a very large Gur yeshiva. They don’t try to influence me, and I don’t try to influence them. We live together. Every day my children encounter charedim in the street, and they encounter them. Everything is fine. Not a hair on anyone’s head moves. I say: be Jewish. You can be Jewish outwardly too. But you cannot impose your Judaism on me. When you appropriate the public space, placing menorahs in your image, with your values, in 120 squares and intersections across Tel Aviv, then your way becomes the only way.”
On a radio show, presenter Amichai Attali, a secular person and parliamentary correspondent for Yedioth Ahronoth, challenged Ragolsky:
“Since the war, people have been drawing closer to Judaism. Could it be that the truth that’s crystallizing is threatening to you?”
Ragolsky responded that “Chabad is a messianic organization that has set itself the goal of Judaizing Tel Aviv,organizations that are trying to change the city’s liberal character.”
Attali concluded: “So the ‘liberal character’ means that a Jew shouldn’t put on tefillin? That’s messianic secularism.”
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