It took under five minutes. The minister gave an awkward nod and stepped off the stage. The applause wasn’t raucous, but it was genuine.
What makes Rabbi Yaakov Litzman Israel’s most popular minister, despite his chassidic garb and lack of breezy finesse? When he resigned as health minister last week over repeated instances of government-sanctioned Shabbos desecration, even the secularists didn’t consider it a cynical political ploy, but one more battle in his focused mandate for kevod Shamayim.
The Yaakov Litzman story is one that’s confounded pollsters and political operatives for months now.
The man whose diplomatic skills are more marketplace fish vendor and less polished ambassador has proven not just effective, but very, very popular.
And he seems to know it. The first question I asked him when we met was about his popularity, and he almost — but not quite — smiled. Had he smiled, it might have appeared as if he was enjoying himself, and to Rabbi Yaakov Litzman, it’s all business.
“I’m happy I’m popular,” he shrugged. His English is flawless, as he’s American-born and raised, but he’s picked up an Israeli way of speaking, a certain bluntness. “It feels good to hear that secular Israelis have changed their opinions of chareidim because of me,” he said.
He ends sentences suddenly, not feeling the pressure to pontificate and expound like most politicians do.
It was about a year ago and the health minister was in Montreal as guest speaker at an upscale fundraising event for Magen David Adom. The guests at the party were largely secular Jews, passionately Zionist, and they made small talk and sipped cocktails as they waited for the program — the address by the minister. They expected to meet him as well, to chat informally and, of course, to take pictures with him. None of them had any idea who he was, or how he looked.
The well-heeled emcee made some jokes, speaking in the French to which most of the audience was accustomed, then introduced the keynote speaker.
At a table in the corner, a chassidic Jew with a long coat and hat — looking more like the rabbis from Israel that come collecting on Sunday mornings — stood up and headed toward the round dais, where purple smoke and dancing strobe light beams illuminated the glass lectern.
Yaakov Litzman stood ramrod straight, speaking in a near monotone, as if giving a grocery order over the telephone.
What he didn’t say was how happy he was to be there, how long he’s known the emcee, what an honor it was to address such a special crowd.
Here’s what he did say. How devoted the doctors and nurses are in Israel’s health system, how they see themselves as doing G-d’s work, how foreign doctors are amazed by the sophistication of Israeli equipment, and how badly they need help to keep on doing their thing. He paused and said that it’s specifically generous Jews from abroad who make every ambulance, X-ray machine, and extra hospital room possible.
It took under five minutes. The minister gave an awkward nod and stepped off the stage.
The applause wasn’t raucous, but it was genuine.
I met Litzman in his car, just after the speech. He hadn’t stuck around for the rest of the program, forgoing the main course and the mixing with local donors.
He was surrounded by two teams: Israeli security, the Shabak force that travels with a government minister; and his Gerrer assistants, led by chief aide Moti Bobchik, who encircled him as he walked toward the car. Seated next to me in the back of the rented Toyota Sienna, he reflected on his role as a minister.
Polls had shown him to be the most trusted politician in the country, I said. He didn’t seem overwhelmed. “Yes, but polls are like the weather, they change every day,” he responded.
As a minister, did he feel compelled to expand his mandate, to get involved in larger issues, like national security? “I don’t mouth off about Trump or things like that. I focus on my job — the country’s health system — and the issues important to the gedolim who sent me here.
“After all,” Litzman continued, “if any chareidi politician ran on his own, he’d have maybe ten votes, from his family. It’s only the admorim, rabbanim, and roshei yeshivah behind us that bring in votes and put us in office, so we’re really working for them. I do what I’m told. My rebbe, the Gerrer Rebbe, doesn’t get involved in small decisions and trusts me to do my job, but when it’s a bigger issue, I’ll consult with him.”
Two weeks ago, the Israeli government ran into one of those big issues — and discovered just how stubborn Yaakov Litzman could be when it came to his principles.
He resigned as health minister last week over repeated instances of Shabbos desecration by government-owned Israel Railways, but it was the culmination of a long battle.
A few months ago, Litzman hosted a sheva brachos for his grandson in his modest Jerusalem apartment. Local children had great fun gawking as the prime minister’s convoy pulled up Rechov Even Ha’ezel, dozens of security guards thronging their insular streets as the country’s leading lawmakers came to pay tribute to the Agudah-UTJ minister.
Inside, Rabbi Litzman sat at the head of the table, flanked by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Education and Diaspora Minister Naftali Bennett, and others, while Sara Netanyahu was feted among the women.
But then, Litzman departed from diplomatic protocol. Turning to the prime minister, he said, “The smiles here are very nice, but you’re going to have to do more on behalf of Shabbos before it turns into a government crisis.” Taken aback, Netanyahu tried to save face by saying that he would discuss it another time, After all, this was a personal simchah, not a business meeting, and this wasn’t the time and place.
Litzman ignored Bibi’s diplomatic attempt at avoidance, and, two seats over the chassan, he forged on. “I don’t mean to put you on the spot when you’re a guest at my simchah, but the holiness of Shabbos must be safeguarded. Stop the roadwork on Shabbos! That’s more important to me than anything else. When you turn Shabbos into ‘national construction day,’ you risk losing your government,” he said to a visibly embarrassed Netanyahu.
When a report of the exchange appeared on the pages of Hamodia the following day, the prime minister’s office was furious. What Litzman had done was bad enough, but to publish it? Litzman gave a backhanded apology, saying that he hadn’t meant to insult Netanyahu, but he didn’t retract his message. To him, it was a fulfillment of his core mission, and he was being faithful to the one who’d sent him there.
“True, that was a turning point,” Rabbi Litzman told Mishpacha this week. “But the battle for Shabbos actually went into high gear over a year ago, although the government always had excuses as to why work had to be done in the public sector. One time it’s pikuach nefesh, another time it’s security, another time they didn’t know… The topic came up every few weeks. I’d be updated on work planned for the coming Shabbos just hours before, sometimes even after the fact. It was getting to the point where something drastic had to be done.”
In the middle of Elul, four chareidi MKs — Rabbis Uri Maklev and Yisrael Eichler from UTJ and Rabbis Yoav Ben Tzur and Michael Malkieli from Shas — formed a government-sanctioned emergency committee to monitor Shabbos desecration in the public sector. The committee was to hear reports from the Labor, Welfare, and Transportation ministries onany work slated for Shabbos and determine if it was of an emergency nature.
“The committee was defunct from its inception because none of the ministries cooperated,” Litzman says. “I warned Netanyahu many times. I told him he’d pay for ignoring the decisions of the Moetzes. But he and his ministers chose not to listen.” What he doesn’t say is that they were convinced that a chareidi minister (itself a novelty), enjoying such obvious success and popularity (a double novelty), wouldn’t risk it all by walking away.
They were wrong.
About a month ago, Litzman announced that he would no longer vote in the Knesset with the coalition due to the increase in public Shabbos desecration. “I informed the coalition chairman and publicized my position in Hamodia,” he says. “As a minister, I bore collective responsibility for this scandalous public chillul Shabbos, and I couldn’t conscionably stay in such a government.” [Litzman is the first Agudah MK to serve as a cabinet minister since Rabbi Yitzchak Meir Levin, who served as minister of welfare from 1949 to 1952 — following a petition submitted by Yesh Atid against his serving as a deputy minister yet running the ministry as a minister. Chareidi MKs will serve as committee chairmen and deputy ministers, but traditionally don’t take official Cabinet roles in the Israeli government.]
Rabbi Litzman actually threatened to resign the previous week as well. “At the time, I was told that the train works in Dimona were a situation of pikuach nefesh, linked to a security issue which I’m not at liberty to elaborate. After investigating the matter I was convinced that it was true, and so I wouldn’t make a commotion. If there was pikuach nefesh involved, I wouldn’t resign as long as the workers were non-Jews.”
That Motzaei Shabbos, Litzman discovered that the management of Israel Railways had, in fact, employed only non-Jews for work taking place in the south; however, they’d failed to report work done in Tel Aviv on the same Shabbos.
“They crossed a red line,” says Litzman. “Not only did they go ahead and disregard the status quo, but they lied about it as well. I couldn’t let that pass.”
Litzman went into high gear, closeting himself with Netanyahu and other senior ministers for a marathon meeting in which he hoped to extract a promise that there would be no more work on Shabbos.
“I think Netanyahu really tried to find a solution,” Rabbi Litzman says. “I know he did what he could, but I told him I wasn’t going to tolerate any more work on Shabbos, period. The other ministers dug in their heels, though. You know, when I was growing up in Brooklyn, for years I commuted to cheder by train, and there, the trains run 24/7, even if work needs to be done. Here in Israel, the trains don’t run at night, so I would think it not so difficult to find a solution. Believe me, they could if they wanted to.”
The very next morning, Litzman informed Netanyahu of his resignation. Two and a half years after becoming the first Agudah minster, Litzman returned his portfolio, showing the country what it means to stand up for one’s principles.
Rabbi Litzman — whose combination of political savvy and moral focus brought him into the Agudah power base practically from the time he came to Eretz Yisrael as a 17-year-old bochur back in 1965, when he became close to the Beis Yisrael of Gur — is still part of the coalition (Netanyahu and the Likud are not treating this like a coalition crisis) and his staff at the Health Ministry is still intact. Whether he will eventually return as minister or as acting deputy minister depends largely on whether a new bill presented by UTJ MK Rabbi Moshe Gafni to reduce chillul Shabbos in the public domain will pass into law.
The Israeli public is already familiar with the common ploy of threatening resignation — they’ve seen it done too many times, and even Litzman’s close aide, Yaakov Izak, admits that he hadn’t expected his boss to follow through. “But,” says Izak, “when he repeated again and again that he was going to resign, we understood that he was serious. Anyone who knows Yaakov Litzman will tell you that he doesn’t make empty threats.”
Litzman says that while he followed his conscience, he also followed the Gerrer Rebbe and gedolei Torah to whom he’s responsible as head of the Agudah faction. Consultation with political cronies wasn’t in the picture. “My job is to consult only with gedolei Torah, not with other politicians. In general, though I am a Gerrer chassid, I make sure to visit all the gedolim, since I feel I represent them all. This decision, though, came from my rebbe, to whom Shabbos is always nonnegotiable. Once he made the decision, I followed through, and there was no reason to consult with anyone else, certainly not with other politicians. I didn’t tell anyone else how to act, and didn’t ask any of the chareidi MKs to join me.”
Often the public is resentful, or cynical at best, when politicians use such threats and strong-arm tactics to advance their own personal standing or promote a self-serving agenda. But with Rabbi Litzman it’s a different story. The chareidi parliamentarian in charge of the health ministry — who won’t shake a woman’s hand and is outspoken about core Torah beliefs — has for three years in a row surpassed all the other government ministers in various popularity polls conducted by the major media outlets.
Although Rabbi Litzman belongs to a relatively small party with just six seats, representing a sector that many in the general population consider to be “parasites” — he continues to remain the country’s favorite minister. And he’s not only popular with the public — other parliamentarians appreciate him as well. He chaired the Finance Committee three times, where he joined a bloc with leftist MKs Shelly Yachimovich and Chaim Oron, and Likud’s Ruby Rivlin, who always voted together with Litzman on social and even on religious issues. Yachimovich even called Litzman her mentor, and said he’s the one who taught her how to be a good parliamentarian.
How did a relatively older minister (Litzman is 70), who speaks Hebrew with an American accent, isn’t active on social media, and still uses an old-fashioned “kosher” cell phone, become so popular?
Litzman’s own past is politically unremarkable and straightforward without the excitement of bureaucratic intrigue. A talmid of Rav Shaul Brus in Brooklyn’s Beis HaTalmud, he came to learn in Jerusalem, where he became close to Ger.
He was selected as a companion to the Beis Yisrael on the Rebbe’s daily “shpatzir,” the rapid walks through the predawn streets near Geulah.
The next rebbe, the Lev Simchah, appreciated the sharp American, and appointed him to the committee for finding suitable housing for young chassidim, and to the oversight vaad of the chassidus’s central gemach. (Litzman’s close aide Moti Bobchik says that the MK still religiously attends every gemach meeting, even though many younger people have joined the committee since then. The Rebbe charged him with that mission decades ago, and he doesn’t want to relinquish it.)
Litzman smiles wryly when I ask him if he was “into” politics. “Mamesh not. I never cared about it. It meant nothing to me, not in America and not in Israel. I never followed political negotiations and developments.”
Which might just be his greatest asset. “He doesn’t play the same game as everyone else,” a close aide tells me. “He doesn’t backslap and schmooze, he walks into a room and gets straight down to business, and people have grown to respect that. The secular Israeli public sees that he’s not building a personal brand, like so many others, and is driven to do the best job possible. And that’s the story of his success in the polls. There’s no substitute for real hard work.”
Everyone’s Minister
Litzman, in his matter-of-fact way, suggests another reason for the popularity among the wider citizenry. “Small-town mayors. Generally, they’re ignored in the Knesset, because they don’t represent large numbers, they don’t come with voters, but when it comes to medical care, we’ve treated them the same as everyone else. They also need ambulances. They need medical care centers. We’ve given them equal time and the message is spreading: We’re here to help everyone.”
In fact, Litzman says his greatest reforms have come not from activist groups or established politicians, but from plain citizens. “They write letters to the ministry, and if what they’re saying makes sense, we try to act on it. Ordinary citizens have sent letters that have literally changed procedure in Israel.”
Wherever the inspiration comes from, Litzman is responsible for a series of achievements that touch all Israelis in their interactions with the health system. On Litzman’s watch, the government has increased annual insurance coverage for pharmaceutical drugs from NIS 300 million to NIS 500 million; purchased additional MRI scanners for many hospitals, ending long, frustrating waiting times; built a hospital in Ashdod after 40 years of bureaucratic wrangling; saved Laniado Hospital in Netanya from collapse; imposed controls on hiked-up prices in hospital parking lots and cafeterias; launched a campaign against junk food; introduced free dental care for children; and even advanced the reform of medical marijuana laws.
Litzman makes a point of not discussing diplomatic or security issues, so, in public at least, he’s not taking sides and people on both the right and left regard him as someone who represents them. And although he doesn’t use Facebook or Twitter as a way to connect to his constituency like so many of his political contemporaries, he’s one of the most widely accessible MKs around.
Anyone who needs him knows where to find him — for years he’s kept the same morning schedule. He’s up at 3:30 a.m., recites Tehillim, reviews Chumash and Rashi, davens haneitz in the Gerrer beis medrash, learns daf yomi, and has a seder in shemiras halashon from Sefer Chofetz Chaim. People who need him can generally approach him there, and his assistants, Moti Bobchik and Chaim Yustman, are always accessible to the public. In his office, a team of seven secretaries receives up to 300 calls and 150 faxes a day from the public, every request numbered and filed and not closed until it’s been processed.
Netanyahu, for his part, has stated unequivocally that he’s keeping Litzman’s staff and has arranged that Litzman himself retain his post as deputy minister, although Litzman says he’s not coming back until the new Shabbos law is actually ratified.
As steady and sure as Rabbi Litzman comes across — he’s the Gerrer Rebbe’s man in the Knesset, and knowing his accountability gives him a certain backbone and stability — he admits that there have been times when he felt about to buckle under the challenges and heartrending scenarios that come with the job.
When parents of children in the hemato-oncology ward at Hadassah Medical Center demonstrated against him in desperation last summer after he refused to endorse a doctors’ walkout that was creating chaos on the oncology ward, he says his heart nearly shattered. So too on a spontaneous tour of Shaare Zedek, when he saw up close the abysmal state of intake and bed availability.
“There was Rav Maman, one of the great rabbanei Morocco, about 100 years old, lying on a bed in the hallway,” Rabbi Litzman remembers. “It turns out that the intake doctor couldn’t find a bed for him. So I pulled up a chair and sent a message to the hospital director that I would sit there with him until either they found him a bed or he got better. Within an hour they found a place for him — but had I not showed up, who knows how long he, and many other helpless elderly patients, would have been stuck out there in the hall? So I petitioned for extra beds. Some hospitals got and some didn’t. It’s a very painful situation.”
The closest he comes to showing emotion is when he tells another story. “You know, the Gemara in Chullin says that a person who wants to lose his fortune should hire workers and never check on them: I try to get out into the field whenever possible and am a big believer in surprise inspections.”
Late one night, he was on an unannounced visit to Shaare Zedek when a bloody terrorist attack sent a stream of victims into the emergency room. “I saw a paramedic lying on the bed trying to revive a victim. It was really too late, lo aleinu, but he wouldn’t stop trying —they were wheeling the bed down the hall, yet he wouldn’t give up. You see that sort of mesirus nefesh and dedication from the medical community and you just want to make it easier for them.”
Shabbos Brings Healing
Sticking up for Shabbos in Eretz Yisrael isn’t new to Rabbi Litzman; it was one of his first parliamentary lessons back in the 1980s, when he served as assistant to Agudah MK Rabbi Avraham Yosef (Muni) Shapira z”l. At the time, Rabbi Shapira’s mother was in America and deathly ill, and in advance of his visit to her, Rabbi Litzman accompanied him to the Lev Simcha of Gur for a brachah for her refuah. But instead of sending him off with a brachah, the Rebbe told him to stay put.
The Rebbe explained that the verse “Shabbos hi milizok” can also mean that crying over Shabbos can itself bring a refuah. “Instead of going to America, go to Menachem Begin and tell him to stop El Al from flying on Shabbos. And as for your mother, she will be well.” So instead of going to the airport, Litzman accompanied his boss to Yechiel Kadishai, Begin’s office manager and right-hand man. The following week, legislation was passed barring the national carrier from flying on Shabbos — and Muni Shapiro’s mother lived another few years.
Now, 35 years later, the battle is still being waged, yet not everyone has made their peace with Litzman’s move, if the dozens of letters flooding Litzman’s office are any indication. One such letter was signed by Chaim Miller, the father of a young boy named Dudi z”l, who passed away last Elul after a year-and-a-half struggle with cancer.
“A few months ago, Dudi z”l and I were at your office because Dudi had said that he wanted very much to see the person behind Israel’s health system. You learned Gemara with him, and then you and he concluded that you are an emissary of HaKadosh Baruch Hu, and Dudi asked you to continue with your mission to help sick people. You promised that you’d carry on helping whoever was in need.
“On behalf of Dudi and all the patients who are currently fighting for their lives, I beg you to carry on your mission, and to stay in the Health Ministry. We salute you in your battle on behalf of Shabbos, but you promised Dudi — and I ask you to keep your promise.”
Did Rabbi Litzman think about that before resigning? “Look, I understand that we’re here to help. Even from the opposition I was busy helping people, so you can be sure that I intend to continue. I don’t think that my activities or those of my staff will suffer. But there are moments that are harder than others. I received a letter from a group of children suffering from spinal muscular atrophy [SMA] who asked me to stay in the ministry. I’ve been accompanying them for many years, long before I was appointed health minister. I know what these kids are going through. It’s hard.”
These groups felt they had an advocate in the chassidic health minister.
“But I don’t need to be a minister to keep helping them. And if I can continue to provide them with the assistance they so desperately need, and fight for Shabbos at the same time, I believe that’s my mission. After all, as the Rebbe ztz”l said, fighting for Shabbos brings the greatest refuah.”
Many Battles, One War
There are those who worry that Litzman’s departure will play against him in future elections, since it presents an easy rebuttal to those who tout his popularity. They might say something like, “Yes, he was a good minister but it was never about us, but about religion. That came first.”
He isn’t worried. His advisors likewise feel that the Israeli public appreciates the full package that is Rabbi Yaakov Litzman — a man with little tolerance for nonsense and wasted time, who always stays focused on the job.
A seasoned journalist on the Knesset beat laughs when discussing the former minister. “Litzman is boring. He never goes into the Knesset cafeteria, where so much of the informal business and socializing is done. Every day at noon, his driver hurries to Ezras Torah, where Mrs. Litzman makes a foil-wrapped lunch to give to her husband, which he eats in his office.”
On his travels, Moti Bobchik tells me, Litzman has one question. “He has never once asked about the hotel, whether it’s luxurious or not, and he only eats food brought from home, or fruit and vegetables. His only question is whether there’s a minyan. He has met world leaders, and even though he doesn’t make much small talk, his ability to describe the MRI machine at Hadassah or learn from their own advanced techniques is more impressive to them. They are always amazed by him, and the Israeli public appreciates that. They sense that Yaakov Litzman is for real — less style, but more substance.”
There is one prediction Litzman offers regarding future elections. The deputy minister has consistently ignored Yair Lapid, refusing to shake his hand or acknowledge him. The Yesh Atid leader is clearly irritated by Litzman’s behavior, especially as some of the other chareidi politicians have warmed up to him.
Is it really a smart thing to ignore someone who’s rising in the polls, I wonder?
But Litzman doesn’t flinch. “He’s even a liar about his teshuvah,” Litzman says. “When he was in power, he lied to the public about us, and now he lies about his feelings for us and pretends to have come closer to appreciating Yahadus. It’s false and cynical and don’t worry, he will never be prime minister, b’ezras Hashem.”
Litzman’s philosophy about his job is fairly simple. “There are many battles, but only one war. We win some, we lose some, but creating kevod Shamayim with our every action is the only real goal. When you stay focused, then it’s always clear what you have to do.” —
—Shlomi Gil and Rachel Ginsberg contributed to this report
Shabbos Derailed
At the height of the Israeli Railways Shabbos crisis, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu tried to convince Health Minister Yaakov Litzman that work must be done on Shabbos because of pikuach nefesh. After an hours-long meeting with Litzman, Netanyahu asked Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot to explain to the health minister why they had to desecrate Shabbos two weeks ago.
“Yaakov, I brought the chief of staff. I want you to hear from him what happens on Shabbos,” Netanyahu said. “He’ll explain how it was a security situation of pikuach nefesh.”
“Mr. Prime Minister,” Litzman replied before Eisenkot could get a word in, “I know what you’re referring to. What does that have to do with train work expected for this coming Shabbos?” And, Litzman asked Eisenkot, “Was the work in Tel Aviv last Shabbos pikuach nefesh?”
“No,” Eisenkot admitted.
“That’s the problem I’ve been talking about for almost a year,” Litzman said, exasperated. “You tell me ‘pikuach nefesh’ in Dimona, and then on Motzaei Shabbos it comes out that they also worked on Shabbos in Tel Aviv. Then when I ask Minister Chaim Katz about it on Sunday, he tells me that I didn’t say I object to work on Shabbos in Tel Aviv. And this repeats itself every Shabbos! What do you take me for, a fool? What have I been talking about for almost a year? Train works on Shabbos are a public desecration of Shabbos carried out by a government company, a government of which I am currently a member. I cannot be part of such a government. If the coming Shabbos is desecrated, I will resign from my position as health minister.”
During my interview with Litzman, he confirmed that on Shabbos Parshas Toldos, he was informed that the train was indeed transferring sensitive security material to Dimona.
“They lied to you,” I said. How did I know? Because my own sources said that there wasn’t anyone working on the transport that Shabbos with the security clearance needed for such a sensitive transfer.
“I don’t think you’re right, I checked it,” Litzman insisted. “It seems there were people with the appropriate security clearance, and it was likely a matter of pikuach nefesh. But you know, what’s the difference? They lied to me so many times in the last year, one time more or less doesn’t change anything.”
—Eliezer Shulman
(Excerpted from Mishpacha, Issue 688)
