Interesting answer. Does that mean that what Yaron London wrote at the time about the Meron disaster and about the Haredim was also “not tactful”? As best as I remember, back then you defended not only the content of his remarks, but insisted that there was no problem there at all of style or “tact” either (though I don’t recall that you used that specific word).
You certainly understand that I’m asking this mostly to needle you, but at the same time there is a substantive side to it: what is the status of telling the truth, and how important is it?

There is a big difference. Smotrich was throwing a stone after one who has fallen. He was simply speaking ill of a woman who had died. There was no need at all to say these things now, or really at all. He can talk about the court without bringing her into it, certainly not on the day she died.
London was criticizing a group, not a person who had died. The timing was sensitive, but the subject of his remarks was not a specific individual. Besides that, the Haredim were to blame for what happened, so there was reason to mention it in connection with the disaster.

He spoke that way after they asked him about her in an interview that same day. It’s not like he decided to say it out of nowhere.

And in that respect it’s exactly like Meron. If they asked him about her memory, then that was her memory as he saw it. When exactly was he supposed to speak about it? He said that he can’t fight the courts on the one hand and then praise her on the other. He’s right, and to call that tactless coming from someone who said he felt schadenfreude immediately after the Meron disaster borders on hypocrisy (and certainly in Yaron London’s case).
The Left is falsehood incarnate.

Michi is right that criticism of a society is not like criticism of a single person. But at the time it seemed that in your eyes the timing didn’t matter much (regardless of whom the criticism referred to), and now suddenly it does matter. That’s a bit strange.
As for Smotrich, there really are mitigating circumstances here—if he was asked about the deceased woman and didn’t go out making declarations on his own initiative, then I agree with you that his remarks were less offensive.

But in my view this whole subject isn’t worth discussing at all if there weren’t a principled issue here: when is it right and proper to say the truth?

It should be noted that Smotrich’s remarks were words of praise for Justice Naor from the point of view of any leftist and activist. He pointed out that she continued Aharon Barak’s activist tradition and was not deterred by the decline in public support for the court.

Smotrich also mentioned her firmness in the struggle against “illegal settlements,” which she ordered demolished, and her opposition to the participation of a representative of the Supreme Court in a ceremony marking fifty years since the occupation. But in the struggle for “equal sharing of the burden,” Justice Naor showed her firmness and struck down the conscription law.

The leftists and progressives surely melted with delight at his eulogy and nodded in enthusiastic agreement. So what do they want from him? 🙂

And seriously,
It seems to me that with Attorney Smotrich’s legal knowledge, he could have balanced his discomfort with Justice Naor by also mentioning some “positive” rulings from a right-wing point of view, or simply evaded the question and answered that he would need to review her judicial path before he could offer measured words of appreciation about her. You don’t have to be someone who is “rash to answer.”

Best regards, S. Pushman

To S.,

I don’t agree with you. He answered to the point. He was not rash to answer. It was an honest response. Certainly not the empty words you suggested he say (better to keep a thunderous silence than to speak empty diplomacy). There is a limit to how diplomatic one can be. It was enough that he kept quiet and didn’t say those things on his own initiative. These people hate us or don’t respect us (which is worse). I can’t stand this fake politeness and fake stateliness. The Left itself does not subject itself to these standards, and then they come with complaints against the Right over this, and they are a bunch of hypocrites. Gandhi is an example of that. It’s time that we also stop showing up at the state ceremonies in the Knesset for Rabin. Enough already. There is a limit to everything.

With God’s help, on the eve of the holy Sabbath, Torah portion Mishpatim, 5782

It is worth noting the remarks of Kobi Nachshoni (“Justice Naor’s Last Case,” on the Arutz 7 website), who points out that although the Haredi public took no pleasure in quite a few of Miriam Naor’s rulings, such as the repeal of the Tal Law and the High Court cases on the supermarkets and the rebellious wife, and the like—her matter-of-fact and thorough approach, accompanied by much understanding and sensitivity while serving as head of the state commission of inquiry into the Meron disaster, brought about a reversal in the Haredi public’s trust in the work of the commission.

Let us hope that her activity in this area will indeed make the celebration of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai in Meron more orderly and safer, and then we will be able to say about her, in a playful turn of phrase: “May her merit protect us” 🙂

Perhaps limiting the number of people coming to Meron will lead to redirecting some of the celebration events to additional graves of righteous figures, just as it was customary from ancient times in Jerusalem to go up on Lag BaOmer to the tomb of Shimon the Righteous. Perhaps even the cemetery in Sanhedria, where several Hasidic masters and towering righteous figures such as Rabbi Aryeh Levin and Rabbi Ovadia Yosef and many others are buried, will become a pilgrimage site on Lag BaOmer. And that would also be some consolation for Justice Naor, who is buried there next to her mother-in-law, the Etzel fighter and Knesset member Esther Raziel-Naor.

Best regards, Yaron Fishel Ordner

It’s a shame to get into deep nuances. About the Haredim, you’re allowed to say anything. Simple. Their blood has long been made cheap.