The question that many must be asking is just how far will the absurdity continues towards building a coalition government. That is to say the coalition, and now it appears the various ministries may contain officials working in opposing directions.
For example, Kikar Shabbos News reports that a secret meeting was held on Sunday 1 Rosh Chodesh Iyar between senior Shas and Bayit Yehudi officials as Shas is trying to appease Bayit Yehudi after receiving the Ministry of Religious Services in negotiations with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.
Bayit Yehudi leader Naftali Bennett has signaled that if this is indeed so, talks between his party and Likud have ended, which means he will not enter the coalition. Bennett’s eight seats are required to build a right-wing coalition, hence Deri’s interest in reaching some sort of agreement with Bennett.
One suggestion on the table is to appoint a Bayit Yehudi director-general to the Ministry of Religious Services. This means that the minister, from Shas, would be pulling in one direction while the director of the ministry, from Bayit Yehudi, pulls in another direction. So in this case, Shas would work to return state giyur to the exclusive control of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel while the ministry’s director-general would try to interfere with those efforts to permit the new liberal giyur arrangement to remain in place, the arrangement that was legislated by Bayit Leumi in the last administration.
Former Shas Minister Yisrael Atias is acting as Deri’s shaliach in the matter, speaking with Bennett and Bayit Yehudi officials to reach agreement.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
Join the official YWN WhatsApp status
4 Responses
Usual Israeli politics
R’ Elyashiv held we would be better off if the Ministry of Religious Affairs would be shut down entirely
Rabbi Stav warns “that permitting the chareidim to undo the modifications in religious services in Israel will speed up the assimilation of the Jewish People in Israel and around the world.”
Identical to what Reform ,Conservative and assimilationists have long hypocritically contended
It’s funny. Both Shas and BY lost 4 seats in the election. But Shas expected too, and is acting maturely, while BY is still acting as if they have 15 seats.