Outrage as UTJ candidate likens situation of ultra-Orthodox in Israel to Jews in Holocaust

A new candidate for the United Torah Judaism party on Thursday likened the current situation of the ultra-Orthodox community in Israel to Jews during the Holocaust, drawing condemnation.

Eliakim Stark, No. 6 on UTJ’s list — which has consistently polled at least 8 seats ahead of the October 27 election — made the comments at an election event in Beit Shemesh, when he talked about the woes of many young Haredi men who cannot fly abroad to meet women as part of the community’s shidduch matchmaking system, since they are under military draft orders and would be arrested at the airport.

“When one wants to do a shidduch abroad, [the bride’s family] needs to come to Israel because he can’t [fly abroad],” Stark said.

“I have taken upon myself not to talk about the Holocaust in the first years, but… I have no other definition. Our situation is close to what was in the Holocaust… It reminds me of stories from our grandparents,” he said.

At another point during the event, Stark slammed Central Elections Committee Chairman and Deputy Supreme Court President Noam Sohlberg, alleging that his worldview is “bash the Haredim to show you’re a man, to show you’re successful.”

He also claimed that in Israel, “it is better to be a terrorist — to kill entire families, and then your wife is protected, they won’t take her house, daycare, social security — than to be a Haredi Jew.”

Stark, 34, belongs to the Belz Hasidic group. Born in Belgium, he has lived in Jerusalem for years and served as a behind-the-scenes adviser and political activist seen as close to the community leaders and also to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s circle.

He will replace the Belz sect’s longtime political representative in UTJ, Yisrael Eichler.

At the same event, Eichler charged: “I estimate that this is the last time they let Haredim vote in the election.”

The remarks are slammed by opposition members, as well as by Ofer Winter, the head of the new right-wing People of Israel party that has pledged to join the pro-Netanyahu bloc but has also vowed to pass a law to draft ultra-Orthodox men to the military. Netanyahu has launched a campaign against Winter, claiming he will join forces with the opposition.

“The shocking remark by soon-to-be MK Eliakim Stark is a disgrace to any Israeli and any Jew,” Winter said. “It doesn’t come in a vacuum, but against the backdrop of the silence of the prime minister and senior government officials in the face of shocking calls against the IDF in the Jerusalem Faction protests.”

The Jerusalem Faction is an extremist ultra-Orthodox sect that has been holding regular rallies and riots against military draft for Haredim and against the occasional arrests of draft dodgers.

Winter said the remarks show why the next coalition must not rely on UTJ, and urged Haredi leaders and well as the premier and ministers to denounce them.

Opposition Leader Yair Lapid, whose father was a Holocaust survivor, said: “There’s one thing that guarantees there will never be another Holocaust — a strong and proud Jewish army. The same army you’re encouraging evasion from.”

Yisrael Beytenu party leader Avigdor Liberman of the opposition said: “Horrific. A representative for UTJ, without whom Bibi doesn’t have a government, explains that in Israel, it’s ‘better to be a terrorist.’ And if that’s not enough, he compared the situation of the draft dodgers to Jews in the Holocaust.”

Haredi MKs regret backing gay MK as Knesset speaker

Also Thursday, UTJ lawmaker Yitzhak Pindrus said the appointment of Likud’s Amir Ohana, a gay lawmaker, as Knesset speaker was a “desecration of God’s name.”

“There’s one thing that, in my opinion, was an error,” Pindrus said in an interview with Mishpacha, a Haredi outlet. “They voted for a Knesset speaker, which, on some level, I think involves a desecration of God’s name.”

“I think this desecration of God’s name comes with a price,” he added, saying that rabbinic authorities should have been consulted on Ohana’s appointment, and that he doubts they were. “There are things about which it is written [in the Torah], ‘And the land shall not spit you out.'”

Ohana has been speaker of the Knesset since late 2022.

Channel 13 said Aryeh Deri, chair of the Sephardi ultra-Orthodox Shas party, also expressed regret over supporting Ohana’s appointment in private conversations.

Deri has called Ohana’s elevation to the post a mistake multiple times, according to the report.

“We have no divine assistance because we helped appoint Ohana,” the network quoted Deri as saying. “We shouldn’t have supported him as speaker of the Knesset.”

Ohana does not appear to have addressed the statements publicly.