Shas chair Deri tweets Memorial Day prayer for fallen members of ‘holy and pure security forces’

Shas chair Aryeh Deri tweets a prayer for the souls of the “thousands of soldiers and members of the holy and pure security forces, who bravely sacrificed their lives for the defense of the people and the country,” as well as the thousands of victims of terrorism.

“They are resting in paradise,” he writes, quoting a memorial prayer for the dead.

Deri has previously rejected statements by ministers from his ultra-Orthodox party who have called for limited enlistment of Haredi youth, stating that only rabbis of the Council of Torah Sages can decide policy on this issue.

In an interview with ultra-Orthodox media earlier this year, Rabbi Moshe Maya, a senior member of Shas’s leading Council of Torah Sages, argued that Haredi Torah learning provides the basis for Israel’s right to exist and that military service would lead ultra-Orthodox soldiers to abandon religion.