Shas unveils election slate, with Deri retaining top spot and 2 newcomers, including a reservist IDF officer

Shas unveils its slate of candidates for the upcoming election, Hebrew media reports, with party chairman Aryeh Deri retaining the top spot and two new candidates joining the list.

The party has until 10 p.m. tonight to formally submit its slate to the Central Elections Committee.

MK Yinon Azoulay moves up from seventh place in the previous Knesset to second, followed by former religious services minister Michael Malkieli, MK Yoav Ben-Tzur and MK Haim Biton.

Maj. (res.) Dror Amos, chairman of the Haifa Religious Council and one of the slate’s two newcomers, takes the sixth spot, followed by MK Moshe Abutbul, former health minister Uriel Buso, MK Yosef Taieb and MK Yonatan Mishraki. Amos’s candidacy reflects Shas’s recent efforts to show openness to IDF service, having campaigned relentlessly in the past four years for a law that would enshrine the ongoing mass exemption from IDF service of young ultra-Orthodox men,

The other newcomer, Yosef Elnatanov, a representative of Israel’s Bukharan Jewish community, is placed 11th, followed by MK Erez Malul and former MK Simon Moshiashvili.

Deri had sought to remove Ben-Tzur from the slate, according to Haaretz, but was overruled by Shas’s Council of Torah Sages, led by former chief rabbi Yitzhak Yosef.

“This is a blow to Deri,” a source familiar with the matter tells the news outlet, saying Deri had been convinced he could secure Ben-Tzur’s ousting but that members of the rabbinical council insisted he remain.

Last month, Deri and Yosef held a reconciliation meeting after it was reported that the rabbi had instructed his students not to vote for Shas and called for the downfall of the right-wing bloc. The two subsequently reached an agreement giving Yosef greater influence over decision-making in the party alongside Deri.

According to recent polling, Shas is projected to win eight seats in next month’s elections.