The newest Knesset Member is a unique blend of hareidi-religious belief and radical left-wing feminism, humanism and Peace Now-ism. Dr. Tzvia Greenfeld of Har Nof, Jerusalem, was sworn in to the Knesset today as a member of the far-left Meretz party, replacing Yossi Beilin, who resigned last week.
Greenfeld was born in Jerusalem to parents who, because of what she called “their enthusiasm for the Zionist enterprise,” escaped before the Holocaust from Europe to the Holy Land. She studied in the Beit Yaakov educational network for girls, but later received an MA in philosophy and history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Asked by a Knesset channel television interviewer if she supports her party’s policies vis-à-vis the peace process, she said with near-disdain, “Of course! It's not even a question! I support the immediate creation of a Palestinian state, and the like, with no question about it.”
Introducing her for her maiden speech in the Knesset on Tuesday afternoon, Knesset Deputy Speaker Yitzchak Ziv described MK Greenfeld as “a Zionist, feminist and leftist,” and as a woman who “represents positions that are not acceptable to the society in which she lives… She supports the separation of church and state, as well as civil marriage.”
MK Greenfeld took the opportunity of her first Knesset speech to describe her primary mission – getting a rise out of some of her opponents in the process: “My most urgent mission, and that of all of Israel, is to strengthen all those who are weak in Israeli society. This might seem trite, but the bitter truth is that too many of us do not truly want this goal… It means that we must relate totally equally to all people in our circle of influence – women as [well as] men, Arabs as Jews, poor as rich, physically handicapped as others, and foreigners as natives. But too many of us are not willing to relate to women, Arabs, or homosexuals as equals and give them their full rights…”
Calls for Freedom for Arabs of Judea and Samaria
Greenfeld also called for “understanding the difficult straits of the Palestinian nation and to, finally, give them the freedom they deserve.”
Equates Nationalist Camp with Fascists
She threw a punch at the right-wing camp when mentioning the Holocaust and her 21 uncles, aunts and cousins who had been murdered by the Nazis, saying, “We will fight not only for ourselves, but primarily and with all our strength, against the fascist, racist, nationalistic evil that powerfully eats away, first and foremost, at ourselves.” She then quoted at length from the Prophet Isaiah.
Grant from European Union
Greenfeld founded and heads the Machon Mifneh Institute, which claims to educate towards peace, tolerance and democracy in religious society. The institute once received a grant from the European Union to the tune of $200,000, for the purpose of "encouraging the settlement and religious communities in Israel to change their prevailing negative attitudes towards peace and democracy."
Journalist Jonathan Rosenblum has written that the Greenfeld-EU contract stated that Machon Mifneh “enjoys a unique position among the right-wing nationalistic audiences [that have so far been] inaccessible to the peace and democracy camp" and has succeeded in "penetrat[ing] the uttermost bastion of national-religious education."
Actually, however, Dr. Greenfeld is not a very popular figure in nationalist or religious circles. This might be attributable to her 1991 book entitled, “They Are Afraid,” in which she charges the national-religious and hareidi sectors with allying themselves at the time with Binyamin Netanyahu “out of hatred for the Zionist state.”