Otzma Yehudit minister suggests far-right party may target Shas voters in election

A minister from the far-right Otzma Yehudit suggests his party may try to attract voters from the Haredi Shas party in the upcoming election.

“The Sephardic Haredi public is Zionist. It was Zionist before Shas arrived and pulled it more toward the Litvak side of the map,” Heritage Minister Amichay Eliyahu tells the Kan public broadcaster, referring to the so-called Lithuanian stream of Ashkenazi ultra-Orthodox Judaism.

“We made a mistake, we gave up on them and fought them, even my sector [of the community] we didn’t get close enough to them, until the Otzma Yehudit party was established,” he says.

Eliyahu is asked about comments last night by Shas spiritual leader and former Sephardic chief rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, who said he has lost hope in the possibility that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will ever “repent” — apparently for his perceived refusal to heed core ultra-Orthodox demands related to drafting Haredi men and sanctioning evaders — but expressed hope that the main Netanyahu rival in the upcoming election, Yashar party chair Gadi Eisenkot, could still do so.

“I think there’s an opportunity for Shas voters to come to Otzma Yehudit,” Eliyahu says.