Quoting Dr. Weizmann’s anticlerical speech (phony and hypocritical and dishonest and wicked, but of course):
“Many questions will emerge in the formative stages of the State with regard to religion. There are powerful religious communities in Palestine which now, under a democratic regime, will rightly demand to assert themselves. I think it is our duty to make it clear to them from the beginning that whereas the State will treat with the highest respect the true religious feelings of the community, it cannot put the clock back to making religion the cardinal principle in the conduct of the state. Religion should be relegated to the synagogue and the homes of those families that want it; it should occupy a special position in the schools; but it shall not control the ministries of State.
I have never feared really religious people. The genuine type has never been politically aggressive; on the contrary, he seeks no power, he is modest and retiring – and modesty was the great feature in the lives of our saintly Rabbis and sages in olden times. It is the new, secularized type of Rabbi, resembling somewhat a member of a clerical party in Germany, France or Belgium, who is the menace, and who will make a heavy bid for power by parading his religious convictions. It is useless to point out to such people that they transgress a fundamental principle which has been laid down by our sages: ‘Thou shalt not make of the Torah a crown to glory in, or a spade to dig with.’ There will be a great struggle. I foresee something which will perhaps be reminiscent of the Kulturkampf in Germany, but we must be firm if we are to survive; we must have a clear line of demarcation between legitimate religious aspirations and the duty of the State towards preserving such aspirations on the one hand, and on the other hand the lust for power which is sometimes exhibited by pseudo-religious groups.”
Well then, the Holy Temple should be allowed to be restored (at private expense, of course: לא לכם ולנו לבנות בית לאלהינו)!
Q.E.D.
(Text found here, excerpted from Trial and Error: The Autobiography of Chaim Weizmann, Harper Bros., New York, 1949, pp 568-9. I eliminated the site’s bolding of the text, blithely assuming this to be their own, and instead added my own, to stress my own point.)