Deputy Minister of Education (Yahadut HaTorah) Menachem Eliezer Moses has a child that with political aspirations. If you ask Heidi Moses if she plans to run for a seat in the next Knesset, she will tell you “yes”.

Speaking with Yediot Achronot, Heidi explained “I want a seat in Knesset next to abba”. Apparently, she is a familiar site in Knesset and she works hard to assist the less fortunate, elderly and infirmed. She explains her political aspirations, listening to her father conduct business on the phone, and always dreaming of one day becoming a part of this world, realizing in the chareidi lifestyle this is unlikely.

Today, like many children of chareidi homes, she is no longer frum, apparently changing her lifestyle following a divorce. On the one hand, she has words of praise for the chinuch and values, but adds she feels she wishes to work towards elevating the status of women in the chareidi world as well as addressing the plight of agunos.

“For as long as Jewish marriage is dependent on a ‘get’, there is a problem getting married for one cannot know if one can divorce”. She explains that even in the chareidi world things are different today, and while once it was difficult going out and walking on Rabbi Akiva Street, today one can find chareidim walking around Azrieli, Dizengoff and other areas, “and in one pocket they are carrying a kosher phone and in the other you will find a iPhone”.

Heidi told Yediot she believes she is making her father proud, adding “I am not coming into politics to check what abba or others are doing, but I came to make a change. My dream is to deal with educational and welfare issues, to assist the chareidi tzibur to develop and without being afraid”.

She explains her life change, simply stating she was modern and was incapable of continuing in the “pressure cooker”.

“When I was a child, I learned in a Belz Beis Yaakov and I realized they ridiculed me for I was not one of them. I was a Vishnitzer but I responded to them ‘I belong here because my father advises the admor so what do you say now’” she explains.

She tells a story of how her father went for a bracha to the Vishnitzer Rebbe last year and he was asked “where are your daughter and her child spending Pesach” to which he responded somewhat embarrassed “I don’t know”. The rebbe told him “make sure they are with you. You don’t ignore family”, using this to show the greatness of the rebbe.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)