Rafi Peretz has crushed the Jewish Home and this week I informed party officials that I am leaving it and my duty to it.
I've been an active member of the party for the past 20 years, starting as a student leader during my years at Bar-Ilan University and culminating in my position as coordinator for every party branch leader – all positions I held on a volunteer basis.
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Jewish Home leader Rafi Peretz arrives for a meeting at the Prime Minister's Office
(Photo: Alex kolomoisky)
The party in which I grew up always followed certain rules, for we wished to represent all sectors of Israeli society and all religious Zionists.
Now we are but a small faction within a faction on the right-wing of Israeli politics; a party that has distanced itself from the Jewish and Zionist values of education, society, health, and welfare.
We could not even find a single person among the first 15 candidates on the Jewish Home Knesset list who was actually elected by the party to fulfill its values.
Once a unifying party, it has now become fragmented and conflicted, having distanced itself from liberal Israelis and stopped dialogue with the less severe elements of religious Zionism.
Peretz chose political maneuvering over our democratic choices.
The choices Peretz has made are the seeds of destruction of Jewish Home.
He blocked people who represented the broad spectrum of religious Zionist society from joining the ranks; he foiled any attempt to let the party establishment be heard; and finally, he intended to forge a union with a fringe group that our party should never tolerate.
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Jewish Home party members argue over the proposed union with extreme-rightist Itamar Ben-Gvir
(Photo: Yariv Katz)
Jewish Home was never a far-right party. It was the political home of many people and many ideas, a party of values and not an employment agency. It was a unifying force for all Israelis, a bridge to walk across and not be trampled upon.
A political party is a means of expression of an ideology and not the subject of narrow political maneuvering that plays into the popular debate for and against Benjamin Netanyahu.
We must not turn our backs on what is good - even at political cost. We chose good, love of all men, even if their opinions differ from ours.
I wish the new union of religious right-wing parties, well. I hope they represent a wide range of views among religious Zionists.
The day after the elections we must begin to rebuild our party, so that its success is the success of its public, in the hope that its true political aims are once again relevant.
Amiad Taub is deputy mayor of Modi'in and chairman of Ofek, a non-profit that provides help and advice to patients and their families.