Mercaz USA, a branch of Mercaz Olami in the World Zionist Congress, must issue an apology for what the U.S. Area Election Committee, which oversees the American parts of the World Zionist Congress elections, called “uncontested” charges that it improperly sought to influence voters and smeared the reputation of rival slate Eretz Hakodesh, the committee’s chairs Abraham Gafni and David Butler stated on May 16.
Rabbi Pesach Lerner, founder and chairman of Eretz Hakodesh, which represents Orthodox Jews in the Diaspora, wrote in an appeal to the American Zionist Movement Tribunal three days later that the committee’s decision is “grossly inadequate punishment.” (JNS viewed the appeal.)
“Their people made a campaign of what we call ‘election interference,’ telling people it’s idol worship to vote in this election, besides the point that the person who is doing it is a vice chair of the World Zionist Organization,” Lerner told JNS.
Yizhar Hess, who leads Mercaz Olami that represents the Conservative Judaism movement, is also vice chair of the World Zionist Organization.
“It’s immoral,” Lerner told JNS of the committee’s decision. “For them to say, ‘Give an apology, and have the case closed?’ That’s unacceptable.”
Hess “worked for them,” Lerner added. “He showed up all over the place for them. He was their keynote speaker.”
The chairs of the U.S. Area Election Committee ruled that Mercaz USA must issue a written apology for Hess’s actions that details his improprieties, but they only decided to “suggest” that Mercaz Olami and Hess do the same. (JNS sought comment from Mercaz USA.)
The committee chairs also noted that Hess acted in a way that “intentionally, knowingly and with malice improperly sought to influence voters in the election and harm the reputation, malign the intentions and tarnish the name of the Eretz Hakodesh slate and its leaders.”
‘Historic struggle’
There has been a significant amount of drama and scandal in the elections of the World Zionist Congress, the so-called Jewish people’s parliament, this year.
The Israeli, Hebrew-language website Kikar HaShabbat stated that its investigation found that Mercaz USA either paid journalists and those associated with influential rabbis, or sought to do so, to promote a campaign in Haredi communities to denigrate the Eretz HaKodesh slate.
Hess and Eyal Ostrinsky went to great lengths to mask their involvement in the campaign, according to the website.
Eretz Hakodesh has been growing in popularity and received 25,000 votes in the 2020 elections. U.S. Orthodox groups broadly have been becoming more involved in the World Zionist Congress elections, which are connected to control of billions of dollars of global Zionist institutional funding and the policy-setting agenda of those entities.
Many Chassidic groups have declined to be involved in Zionist causes, and some bar their communities from taking part in the Congress elections. Eretz Hakodesh is an exception.
“All the information appearing in the poster campaign is nothing but the truth,” Hess told Kikar HaShabbat. “We are in a historic struggle over the character of the Zionist movement.”
“Exposing the hypocrisy of those who belong to the leadership of the Lithuanian public in Israeli politics,” he told the site, “is the right thing to do. On one hand, they despise Zionism and its values, and on the other, they themselves, or their closest family members, enjoy the benefits of the Zionist movement through their unofficial proxy party in the national institutions.”
He called Eretz HaKodesh a “fraud” that ignores the rulings of Haredi leaders.
‘Violated rules and was improper’
Mercaz USA has said that it “does not control Hess or Mercaz Olami and should not be accountable for things Hess or Mercaz Olami did that affected the U.S. election, even if Mercaz USA benefited from those activities,” per a copy of the ruling from the committee chairs that JNS viewed.
“Mercaz USA further suggests that Eretz HaKodesh’s remedy against Hess and Mercaz Olami is not before the U.S. Area Election Committee or its chairs but should be pursued elsewhere in a proceeding before the World Zionist Organization,” the document states.
Eretz HaKodesh asked the committee to order Mercaz USA and Mercaz Olami to publish separate apologies, to each condemn Hess’s specific offenses, and for the committee to bar Mercaz USA from cooperating with Mercaz Olami until Hess is removed from his position.
The committee should also ban Hess from any future involvement in U.S. Area Election Committee activity, Eretz HaKodesh said. It added that there should be a fine, of an unspecified amount, paid to Eretz HaKodesh.
Though Eretz Hakodesh estimates that Hess’s campaign cost the slate up to 20,000 votes, it did not ask the committee to strip Mercaz USA of any of its mandates. (It said that was beyond the committee’s authority, which the committee disputes.)
The committee chairs decided that they have jurisdiction only over Mercaz USA and the U.S. election process and not over Hess or Mercaz Olami.
“Mercaz USA is answerable for Hess’s offenses relating to the election,” since Hess acted as an agent and supporter of Mercaz USA during the election, and the smear campaign targeted Haredi communities both in Israel and in the United States, per the committee chairs.
“Our decision needs to be tailored to those limitations,” they wrote. “There is no question that Hess’s admitted election-related conduct through which he sought to vilify Eretz HaKodesh and stop Haredi voters from supporting the Eretz HaKodesh slate violated our election rules and was improper.”
In Lerner’s appeal to the American Zionist Movement Tribunal—a kind of court of appeals in the election system—he wrote that it is “hard to understand the leniency with which Mercaz was treated in terms of consequences” given the “egregious” nature of the committee’s findings about Hess’s actions and that the committee chair “ruled Mercaz is absolutely responsible for them.”
Lerner noted that the committee chairs didn’t find the estimate of some 20,000 lost Eretz HaKodesh votes to be unreasonable.
He asked the tribunal to order Mercaz to compensate Eretz HaKodesh for its expenses to contest Hess’s advertising campaign, as well as further compensation for the estimated loss of votes and a fine to “disincentivize such activity in future elections.” (He offered to open Eretz HaKodesh’s books to an accountant to calculate the damages it incurred.)
The appeal to the tribunal also detailed an advertisement hung in Orthodox synagogues across the United States prior to Passover that directed Haredi Jews not to vote in the election or support Eretz HaKodesh. That detail hadn’t been reported in the original complaint.
JNS asked Lerner if he feared retribution from Hess, given that the latter is a high-ranking official in the World Zionist Organization.
Hess “has made it his job to make things difficult for me for the last five years,” Lerner told JNS. He hopes that the Conservative movement throws Hess out, he said.
“He doesn’t belong there. Anybody who can do this doesn’t belong there,” Lerner said.
The rabbi also told JNS that he filed a complaint against the slate of the Reform Jewish movement, which advertised that to vote in the elections, one must self-identify as Jewish.
“The rules say you have to be Jewish, not self-identify,” Lerner told JNS. (The World Zionist Organization determines Jewish identity, for election purposes, based on the Israeli Law of Return, which requires that one have at least one Jewish grandparent.)
“You know as well as I do what ‘self-identify’ means in America today,” Lerner told JNS.