Senior Shas figures said to discuss return of Eli Yishai to helm party

Senior figures in the Shas Party have begun to sound out former chairman Eli Yishai about retaking the party’s helm should the incumbent — Interior Minister Aryeh Deri — be charged for corruption.

Yishai, Deri’s bitter rival for the party’s leadership, was sidelined shortly before the death of Shas spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef in 2013, when the party’s decision-making body appointed Deri in the belief that he could lead Shas to more seats in the Knesset.

Yishai had already replaced Deri as party leader after the latter was jailed for graft in 2000. After Deri’s return to the leadership in 2013, Yishai left the party in 2014 and ran unsuccessfully for the Knesset at the helm of his own Yahad list in the 2015 elections together with the extreme-right Otzma Yehudit party. Yahad won no seats, falling below the 3.25% Knesset threshold.

Now, interior minister Deri faces new corruption accusations in the wake of an investigation that began in April 2016. He was questioned for 11 hours by police on Monday, and his wife was also questioned.

The investigation, which initially focused on unreported real estate, has since expanded to suspicions of money laundering, fraud and breach of trust, theft by an authorized person, fraudulent registration and tax offenses, according to police.

On Monday, 14 people were detained for questioning prior to the interrogation of Deri and his wife Yaffa.

On Thursday, the Israel Hayom newspaper reported that rabbinical figures and members of Knesset from Shas had contacted Yishai on Monday to sound him out.

On Monday night, Yishai reportedly met and spoke for several minutes with Rabbi Yaakov Cohen at a Jerusalem event.

Cohen is the son of Deri backer Shalom Cohen, who chairs the party’s decision-making body, the Council of Torah Sages.

Sources within the party told the paper that officials are not close to any decision, but that the contacts were forced on the party by Deri’s legal troubles.