This is the story I’ve promised to share: it was my third undercover meeting with “the other side ” and this time the other side was none other than those avowed enemies of Judaism the Knesset faction from the Shinui Party. “Our side ” for those who haven’t been following this series was a select group of public figures from the chareidi community. The meeting took place in 2003 in the basement of a Jerusalem hotel.

We agreed on one thing from the start: neither side wanted news of the meeting to leak out. We chareidim preferred to avoid accusations of consorting with the enemy from within our own camp whereas the Shinui people having just won an impressive fifteen Knesset seats in the elections looked down on us from a cloud of hubris. Their position was that they didn’t have to do this. If they chose to go slumming with the chareidim it was to be strictly off the record.

But somehow or other a dialogue took place.

The chareidi community was feeling very apprehensive at that time. With its new gains in the Knesset Shinui had a good chance of joining the government coalition. What if they should succeed in implementing their agenda? Shinui was intent on smashing the status quo by which the chareidim had coexisted with the secular state and their agenda included civil marriages cutting off government allowances for large families shutting down the Ministry of Religion and immediate conscription of yeshivah students and chareidi girls into the army. Besides all these plans they were poisoning the public atmosphere with a stream of anti-chareidi rhetoric.

To give credit where it’s due I must say that many secularist public figures even leftists who weren’t especially fond of chareidm themselves spoke out sharply against these attacks labeling them extremist and anti-Semitic. Nonetheless it was a hard time for chareidi Jewry. Shinui joined the ruling coalition and managed to make life a little more difficult. There seemed to be no chance of coming to any sort of rapprochement.

But Tzav Pius the citizens’ group that had initiated our meetings with anti-religious Meretz representatives during the riots over the status of Bar Ilan Street on Shabbos now proposed that we try despite it all to engage Shinui in dialogue. Perhaps we could at least succeed in reducing the tensions. We approached Rav Elyashiv shlita for guidance and he advised us to go along with the proposal under certain specified conditions. He blessed us with the same brachah he’d given us as we set out for the previous meetings: “May the Name of Heaven become beloved through you.”

The delegation had been chosen from the ranks of teaching professionals rather than politicians and we definitely weren’t looking forward to sitting down with people whom we perceived — mainly due to all the media hype — as hateful fire-spitting ogres.

We were in for quite a surprise.

***

Not all of the Knesset members from the Shinui faction agreed to participate. Those who did had an additional motive for insisting on secrecy; they feared the wrath of their party leader Tommy Lapid who was opposed to any talks with the chareidim until he had succeeded in pushing them out of Israeli politics. But they did come. As they told us afterwards they were curious to hear what we charedim had to say.

As you might well imagine that first meeting was tense. We sat there five on each side of the table eying each other. The mediator from Tzav Pius dispelled the tension by suggesting that we begin getting acquainted by having each of us introduce himself with a few words. We then expressed our opinion that the Shinui members should open the conversation so that we could try to understand just what bothered them so much about our lifestyle as Torah-observant Jews.

It took a little time to clear the air. At first we heard nothing but clichés and boastful threats all about how we chareidim had better watch out because if they’d won fifteen seats this time they could expect at least twice that number in the next elections because the people were sick and tired of the way we extorted all the government’s funds and the way we imposed our outdated religious beliefs on the whole population and so on and so forth….

I’ll admit that when they bragged about their victory and predicted an even greater triumph the next time around I offered a silent fearful prayer that HaKadosh Baruch Hu should not let it happen although I didn’t dare to hope that they would disappear from the scene altogether. But in fact that unhoped-for miracle occurred. In the next Knesset elections far from doubling their numbers Shinui lost all fifteen of their seats. It turned out that even the secular public would not tolerate such a grossly anti-chareidi platform as theirs.

But getting back to the meeting in the basement one of the people on our side managed to cut through the rhetoric and start some real talking. “Tachles” he said “what do you actually want to get out of this meeting?”

“We want you to get off our backs!” one of the Knesset members shot back. “Stop telling us how to live our lives — live your own lives and keep your noses out of ours!”

He went on his voice rising to a higher pitch: “Because of the way you people carry on because you create the feeling that you want to dictate every step of our lives I can’t get my kids to come to the beit knesset with me on Shabbat and chagim. When they think of shul right away they associate it with chareidim and with all your attempts — and especially your politicians’ attempts — to impose your practices on us [and I must say I agree in part with that last statement] and because of you they won’t come with me!”

The chareidi contingent was stunned. We sat that there looking at each other in shock.

“You go to beit knesset every Shabbat?” someone finally asked.

“Not every Shabbat but I try and because of you people my sons won’t come…”

Then a female Shinui member spoke up: “I keep kosher at home” she said. “I have two sinks and I keep milk and meat separate. But sometimes because of you I think about giving it up.”

A third member took things even further. “My wife and I are expecting a son soon” he said “and I’m considering not giving him a brit milah because I’m so disgusted with the behavior of the chareidim.”

I confess that we were absolutely confounded. We turned to the mediator and asked her if she had brought us to the wrong meeting by mistake. Was she sure these people were from Shinui?

But she hadn’t made any mistake. We were the ones who had been completely mistaken in our preconceived impressions of who these people were. You never know what’s really hiding behind a harsh mask and tough-sounding words….

It turned out that the surprise wasn’t one-sided. During those few meetings they too discovered things they’d never known about us. Of course we came to very few agreements. But we did strike a mighty blow at mutual demonization and we learned that only through personal encounters like this far from the public eye can any progress be made toward understanding and peaceful coexistence. And from those meetings which reached a high emotional pitch more than once we did come to a few potentially fruitful agreements. For example we agreed that a more civil tone should be adopted for public debate whether in the Knesset in public meetings or in various media outlets even if we could never agree on the issues themselves. I’m sorry to say very sorry to say that Knesset members on both sides who were absent from those meetings did not adopt our resolution.

Our meetings were discontinued for the simple reason that when the next elections came around the proud Shinui Party vanished into thin air….

But the lessons we learned from those encounters were clear and they might well be applied today and in the future.