Bnei Brak – Senior haredi MK Moshe Gafni and the largest selling haredi daily Yated Neeman issued fierce criticism of Bayit Yehudi and its policies toward the haredi sector.
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Over the past two days the criticism has come against a background of internal division in the haredi community, both in the Ashkenazi and Sephardi sectors, and increasing efforts by the two mainstream haredi parties, Shas and United Torah Judaism, to prevent their voters defecting to other parties.
Yated Neeman, the mouthpiece of the Degel HaTorah party, a constituent of the United Torah Judaism Knesset faction to which Gafni belongs, unleashed harsh criticism of Bayit Yehudi in its Thursday editorial.
It said that national-religious Bayit Yehudi was no longer a religious party, that it was welcoming secular candidates for its primary elections as well as non-Jews, and that Bayit Yehudi was seeking voters from the secular public as well as the “religious-lite,” who it described as being lax in their observance of Jewish law.
“This is not strange, since the heads of the party do not at all intend [Bayit Yehudi] be a religious party, but simply want to construct an [electoral] list that will simply be the Likud 2 and will compete with Likud for voters,” Yated’s editorial claimed.
“Bayit Yehudi has been part of the [current] iniquitous government from the beginning. It’s leaders assisted the injury to the haredi community, especially to those who study Torah,” it continued, concluding by warning that the growing strength of Bayit Yehudi threated the haredi world even more.
And on Wednesday, Gafni wrote a letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claiming that two Bayit Yehudi- controlled ministries were discriminating against haredim and said that the haredi parties would have to take these policies into consideration when deciding which political bloc to back after the coming elections.
Gafni complained that criteria being drawn up by the Pensioner Affairs Ministry, headed by Bayit Yehudi Minister Uri Orbach, provide support for institutions caring for the elderly that have enrichment centers dealing with Jewish-Zionist heritage.
The MK said that the support for such institutions inherently discriminated against haredi care homes, and noted the conditions for receiving funds from the ministry included men and women learning together at such centers, which he said would again discriminate against haredim since men and women do not study together in haredi society.
Gafni claimed that the Religious Services Ministry, headed by deputy-minister Eli Ben-Dahan also of Bayit Yehudi, had drafted terms of financial support for public institutions requiring the services of a rabbi that stipulate a prerequisite of having performed military service.
“The implication is that in every community in which a national-religious and a haredi rabbi apply for a job, the national- religious rabbi will be chosen and haredi rabbis will be wiped out, there won’t be haredi rabbis any more in communities in the State of Israel,” Gafni argued.
“All this has been done when the Yesh Atid party headed by Yair Lapid is not part of the coalition, proving that the decrees against the haredi community were made by the people of Bayit Yehudi,” he continued.
“Haredi Judaism will be forced to weigh whether or not there is a basis for partnership with Bayit Yehudi, which is never satiated by its appropriation of public funds from, and continuing injury to the haredi sector.”
Bayit Yehudi officials declined to comment on Gafni’s allegations on the record.
One Bayit Yehudi official said, however, that UTJ was in danger of losing votes to the national-religious party and that the haredi political system needed to attack the party to try and prevent such a phenomenon.
“The only way for Gafni to shore up votes is to attack Bayit Yehudi and I understand that is what he has to do, even though we worked well during the Knesset,” the official said.
Content is provided courtesy of the Jerusalem Post
charaidi jews should not speak lashan horah on another but all i hear from the farfurmteh menchshem is lashon horah and insulting others…a true shanda…remember the more insults they place on others the more seats they will loose. its also a sign of panic as they are loosing power…i think mainstream parties are sick and tired of the charaidishe corruption….next election will probally have a national unity gov.
Baruch HaShem, gafni is explaining to the Israeli electorate how Bayit Yehudi is different than his party.
Most importantly, it is run by a leader who pays attention to what is going on, unlike the Haredi parties which are run by the handlers if 100 year old rabbis.
Men who can’t learn are usually envious of men who can and do. It could be a good envy as it often motivates the former to try harder. Unfortunately, what envy did to national somewhat religious types was to resent and basically hate men who learn and live Torah and try to do us harm.
What I hope will happen in the short term is that the projected winner Netanyahu forms the new government with chareidy representation and bypasses Bayit Chilonim.
In the long run, with b’ezras H-shm, we are well on the way of becoming the majority of Jews in eretz Yisroel, as well as here. Politics in eretz Yisroel will be very different 20 years from now.
As soon as I see Gafni and his ilk attacking BH, you know that they are in trouble. THey know that haredim will secretly vote for BH and not their corrupt, anti Torah groups. LIke when their papers had to remind their sheeple to hate the IDF during Gaza war when we all held hands as a Jewish people.
Some day, there will be a record of this corruption and Jews will (G d willing) shake their heads just as we shake our heads at corrupt Kohanim Gedolim in Navi who took advantage of the people for their own gain.