Former chief rabbi Yitzhak Yosef reportedly orders students not to vote for Shas

Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, the former Sephardic chief rabbi of Israel who sits on the rabbinical council of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, privately urged his students not to vote for Shas and called for the toppling of the right-wing coalition, according to a report Wednesday.

Yosef denied the Haaretz report, while Shas characterized it as disrespecting the rabbi’s religious teachings. The party said it would “act with determination against the establishment of a left-wing government, whose entire purpose is to tear Judaism out of the state.”

A source from within Shas told Haaretz, however: “The moment this is published [Yosef] will of course deny it, but in conversations at home he says it clearly.”

The report cited unnamed sources from among the rabbi’s students, who said: “The rabbi demanded I promise I won’t vote for Shas, that I’ll ask my family not to vote for the party, and that I’ll publicize his request as much as I can.” The source from within Shas said he’d heard the rabbi make similar comments, adding that Yosef “doesn’t even hide it.”

According to the report, Yosef – whose father, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, founded Shas as a vehicle for advancing the interests of the Sephardic ultra-Orthodox community – has lost faith in the right-wing bloc after it failed to pass a law codifying longstanding exemptions for ultra-Orthodox men from mandatory military service.

“He said, ‘The time has come to topple the right. The right hasn’t brought us anything. It’s only possible to come to arrangements with the left,’” said the source within Shas. One of the rabbi’s students told the newspaper: “He told me, ‘Netanyahu and religious Zionism hate us, but the left respects us. The left just wants to govern, and doesn’t want to hurt us.”

Last month, Yosef made headlines when he said there was “no chance” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would ever repent of his secular lifestyle, but that Yashar party chairman Gadi Eisenkot might. The comments were interpreted to hint at Shas’s shifting political alliances.

Eisenkot, in response, said that he envisages partnering in government only with those who “accept that the State of Israel is a Jewish, democratic liberal state, accept the Declaration of Independence, and accept the obligation of serving in the IDF and in national and civil service.”

On Wednesday, former prime minister Naftali Bennett — whose B’Yachad party is polling as the second-largest faction in the anti-Netanyahu bloc — said of Shas chairman Aryeh Deri: “Who’s talking about bringing in Deri? He’s the leader of draft evasion. He goes around and encourages Haredi youths, even those who aren’t studying Torah, and tells them, ‘Don’t draft.'”

The ex-premier, who has said only “Zionist” parties would be included in his coalition, said he would not tolerate a situation in which “Deri sends our children to Lebanon or to Gaza, and he’s proud that his own grandchildren are draft dodgers.”

Sam Sokol contributed to this report.