A "victory tour" is how followers of the Satmar Rebbe, Rabbi Aharon Teitelbaum, have styled his "ideological visit" to Israel that ended early this morning. But is this self-proclaimed victory really such a great one?

The rebbe was in Israel for the groundbreaking of a new Hassidic housing project and educational center built on the ruins of the old Edison Cinema, an emblem of secular Jerusalem.

(Of course, Aharon's enthusiastic reception in Jerusalem has put one over his younger brother and rival - Rebbe Zalman Teitelbaum.)

The Satmar ideal that refusing to accept anything from the heretical Zionists is the only way for the Haredi community to remain free of interference seems to have been borne out by the Education Ministry demand that the schools of Teitelbaum's ultra-Orthodox counterparts teach "core subjects" if they want to continue receiving government funding.

Building a hundred new apartments, kindergartens, schools and yeshivot of the anti-Zionist hassidic sect on the site where 40 years ago, Haredi die-hards fought the police over movie-showings on Shabbat might seem like an historical vindication of the Satmar way, eschewing any contact with the Zionist state, but is it an outright win?

Admittedly, the naked demographics in Jerusalem, where the majority of primary school children are not ultra-Orthodox, seem to bear this out. Secular and national-religious Jews have deserted the capital of Israel in the last three decades, while the Haredi community has taken over neighborhood after neighborhood.

Jerusalem has had a Haredi mayor for the last four years, and it's hard to see the trend reversing itself in the foreseeable future. And it's not only in Jerusalem.

The ultra-Orthodox stream already counts for 22 percent of all first-graders in the country, while new Haredi towns like Kiryat Sefer and Beitar Illit are booming. Never in the history of the Jewish people have so many Jewish men spent their days learning Torah, and the rabbinical establishment is now in the hands of the most conservative-minded rabbis who have a permanent lock on the marriages and divorces of the rest of us.

But even a cursory examination of how this happened will prove that this was no triumph of the Satmar ideals. All these achievements have been obtained not by remaining aloof from the Zionists, but by cooperating with the state.

The ultra-Orthodox takeover of Jerusalem was done not by remaining in the ghetto of Mea Shearim as the Satmars proposed, but by branching out to other neighborhoods. The political control of City Hall was achieved only by playing the democratic game, the rabbis exhorting their followers to vote in municipal and national elections, despite the radical Satmar-inspired zealots saying that going to the ballot box was tantamount to mutinying against God.

In fact, almost all the gains made by the ultra-Orthodox over the last 30 years can be traced back to the state's largesse. Hundreds of yeshivot would not exist if it were not for increased state funding, the new Haredi towns were built only thanks to construction and development grants, and even the huge 12-children families would not have existed if it were not for child benefits.

All these run counter to the Satmar system of not accepting a shekel from the state.

If by the end of the 21st Century, the Haredim win the ideological and demographic battle for the nation's soul, it will be to a major degree thanks to the material benefits the state had to offer and their willingness to adapt and play the game.

And as time passes, the younger Haredi generation is more and more involved in the life of mainstream Israel. If they had stuck to the Satmar philosophy, they would have been guaranteed to remain a small and isolated group, without any influence or relevance, or any chance of winning.

Previous entries:
August 17, 2007: A few observations on the richest Jew on the planet
August 12, 2007: Fuchs isn't the only 'bastard'
August 10, 2007: Too tired to blog, but...
August 8, 2007: 'You bet I'm going on this march'
August 7, 2007: Training for the war that won't be
August 6, 2007: 'The real change is that we're training at all'
August 5, 2007: Olmert's own heritage is no excuse