Within a day and a half, the Noam Party managed to raise NIS 1.5 million in an aggressive mass-funding campaign. During the campaign, Hebrew Weekly Besheva sat down with the founders of the party for a first interview.
"People put their hands deeply into their pockets, parents and grandparents; people who understand that this is essential," says Rabbi Dror Aryeh, a Rosh Yeshiva at the Sderot yeshiva, one of the founders of Hazon and one of the Noam Party founders. Next to him are IDF reserves combat navigator and Kfar Adumim resident Yigal Canaan, who works in tourism, and Jerusalem high-tech businessman Ariel Shahar. The three of them, and Migron Rabbi Itai Halevi are registered as party founders.
The party that they established is catching on. They found it difficult to find actors for the Party's video that seeks to illustrate the gender disorientation revolution taking place. Rabbi Aryeh was cut from a broadcast when he presented the results of a study that reflected the increase in the suicide and drug abuse of children raised by same-gender couples. "They called me primitive [chashuch - lit. 'dark']."
Rabbi Aryeh explains that the party will in any case run in the elections, "unequivocally, we are running until the end; we're not a gimmick, and we don't want to get everyone into some kind of spin. We bought a party, we have an accountant, we raised donations; this isn't a game." However, he does not rule out political connections with "anyone who is loyal to our basic triangle of integrity - the People of Israel, the Land of Israel, according to the Torah of Israel." In particular, "Jewish Home, National Union, Otzma Yehudit, and Agudat Yisrael."
What about the New Right?
"Of course not; can I cooperate with someone who is in favor of Reform conversion and the Western Wall plan?"
Canaan: "The New Right is the reason we formed; we are the counter to the New Right."
The founders talk of contacts in all directions. But they do not elaborate. Currently, the list, with its representatives, is not closed. It will be closed by next Wednesday-Thursday, in time for submitting lists.
You talk about appealing to the secular public. Will there be seculars on the list?
Rabbi Aryeh: "There will be no seculars, because holiness is a prerequisite to public policy. That's what's become clear today. That in order to hold onto the simple things, one must learn Torah."
And will there be women?
The three were slightly surprised by the question. Shahar: "Women have tremendous leadership capability; our wives are the true leaders. I'm here because my wife agreed. In short, 'one's wife is like one's own person', and if a woman is somewhere, it's as if her husband is there, and if a man is somewhere, it's as if his wife is there."
The interview will be published in Hebrew in full in the weekend newspaper Besheva