Religious rights group petitions to disqualify Shas candidate for failing to resign from public post

The religious rights group ITIM submits a petition to the Central Elections Committee to disqualify Shas No. 6 Dror Amos from running in the October 27 election, arguing that he failed to resign from his senior public position within the legally required timeframe and continues to hold the post.

Amos, a reserve IDF major, currently heads the Haifa Religious Council and has remained in the position since joining Shas’s Knesset slate. ITIM argues that as a public official, he was required under Israeli law to resign at least 100 days before Election Day.

The organization separately calls on the Religious Services Ministry to immediately suspend Amos and place him on unpaid leave. It also notes that public employees are prohibited from participating in election campaigning, arguing that Amos cannot campaign for Shas while continuing to exercise the powers of his public position.

He “cannot have it both ways: managing religious services in the morning on behalf of the state and garnering votes for Shas in the evening,” says ITIM attorney Yair Mevorach Shaag.

More broadly, ITIM argues that Amos’s candidacy highlights an improper blurring of the line between state religious services and party politics, with a serving religious council chief moving directly into a prominent position on the slate of a political party.

“Religious services in the State of Israel belong to the entire public, not to any party apparatus,” says ITIM founder and chairman Rabbi Seth Farber. “When a system intended to provide official, sensitive and fair services to every citizen becomes a political springboard, public trust in religious institutions collapses.”

Amos was a notable addition to the Sephardi ultra-Orthodox party, allowing Shas to prominently feature a reservist on its slate despite staunchly opposing efforts by the outgoing government to draft Haredi men.