The Belzer Rebbe has long had a reputation for being a maverick in the Israeli Haredi community. The early years following his appointment as Rebbe saw him carefully forging alliances with other Hasidic courts (such as
Ger and
Vizhnitz), as well as the
Misnagdic communities, particularly
Degel HaTorah. He quickly became known as a political moderate and
pragmatist, eventually even breaking what had earlier been something of a
taboo: accepting funding and subsidies from the Israeli government.
Feud with the Edah HaChareidis As Belz began to establish itself as an independent and successful group, it began to attract some negative attention, particularly after the Rebbe's decision to accept money from the State. One group, the
Edah HaChareidis, a coalition of several movements known for its strictness and traditionalism even among Haredim, took particular offense at the "
renegades'" disregard of what had earlier been a largely unchallenged
status quo. This was compounded by the Rebbe's willingness to participate in Israeli politics by encouraging his followers to vote and sending emissaries to join Haredi political parties. These disagreements turned from mere hostilities into a full-blown feud, following the Rebbe's announcement in 1980 that Belz was going to split from the Edah HaCharedis. Prior to the split, Belz had been the only non-Eidah member that accepted and supported the authority of the
Badatz, the Edah's rabbinical court, whose authority touched all matters of everyday Haredi life, including
kashrut certification. Early in the year, Rabbi
Yitzchok Yaakov Weiss, the head of the Edah HaChareidis, issued a
decree forbidding followers from sending their children to schools funded by State money. This represented a serious threat to Belz's moderate approach, which benefited greatly from State assistance. In response, the Belzer Rebbe decided to cut his community off from the Edah HaChareidis, and to establish his own system of religious services, including kashrut certification. While Belz maintained that it was only interested in certifying food for its own community, the move was met with rancor by the Edah HaCharedis, particularly the
Satmar Hasidim, who were both outraged at the Belzer Rebbe's defiance and concerned about Belz as potential economic competition. This led to a large
delegitimization campaign against the Belzer Rebbe. Later in the year, when he visited the United States, he was assigned a security detail by the
FBI, in response to multiple
death threats. The conflict in Israel, initially confined to insulting posters, gradually escalated to a series of particularly offensive pranks, and, ultimately, to physically violent clashes between followers. Neither the Belzer Rebbe nor Rabbi Weiss were ever involved in any of these activities, which are largely considered to have been the work of radical activists within both camps. Despite the opposition, Belz persevered, and tempers gradually cooled. While Belz and the Edah HaCharedis remain distant and implicitly hostile towards each other, the feud has, for all intents and purposes, ended. ==Quotes==