Top Shas rabbi said looking to oust longtime leader Deri over poor election result

Shas chairman Aryeh Deri was reportedly on a collision course with the party’s spiritual leader after leading the ultra-Orthodox faction to one of its worst-ever election results on Tuesday.

The near-complete Central Election Committee vote count on Wednesday night showed the Sephardi party winning just seven seats, down from 11 in 2022. If correct, it would be the worst showing for Shas since 2015, when it also won seven seats. Exit polls on Tuesday night projected the party winning just six seats, which would have been its worst result since 1992.

Accordingly, Channel 13 and the Kan public broadcaster reported that figures within Shas, including its senior spiritual leader, former chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, began tentative steps on Wednesday to remove Deri from his post, believing him to be the root of the issue.

Yosef and his associates were preparing to request the convening of Shas’s rabbinical body, the Council of Torah Sages, to discuss the disappointing election results.

Following the meeting, Yosef will demand to take over as chair of the Council of Torah Sages, setting the stage for removing Deri from his position as chairman and replacing him with an ally of the spiritual leader.

The argument for replacing Deri, who first led Shas between 1990 and 1999 and returned to the position again in 2013, is twofold, according to Kan.

Firstly, his opponents believe that under his leadership, Shas incorrectly assessed that its main challenger in Tuesday’s election would be Itamar Ben Gvir’s far-right Otzma Yehudit party, when in reality, most defectors ended up voting for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud, the report said.

Secondly, Deri’s opponents believe that he neglected the party’s traditional ultra-Orthodox voter base during the election campaign, and instead chose to focus on lower-income, periphery communities and non-Haredi Jews.

Despite Yosef’s sway in the party, sources told Kan that they were not optimistic about his chances of ousting Deri, as he is the party’s “sole ruler.”

The ultra-Orthodox party’s losses on Tuesday night came against the backdrop of a bitter fight over the issue of Haredi military conscription, which both Shas and the Ashkenazi United Torah Judaism made a central part of their campaigns.

The High Court of Justice has repeatedly pressed the government to enforce Haredi enlistment after its 2024 ruling that there was no legal basis for blanket exemptions for yeshiva students.

The issue has become a major source of political and social tension and emerged as a central issue in Tuesday’s election, as Ultra-Orthodox leaders have argued that compulsory military service threatens their religious way of life and the continuation of full-time Torah study.

Earlier this month, Deri declared that Shas would not join or support the next government unless it passes legislation preserving sweeping military service exemptions for Haredi yeshiva students.

He has butted heads with Yosef several times over the outgoing government’s failure to enact such legislation, with the spiritual leader believing that the Shas chief has not adequately tackled the issue.

In October 2025, Yosef and his allies on the Council of Torah Sages were heard in a leaked recording blaming Deri for the lack of progress in regulating draft exemptions.

“If my father [Rabbi Ovadia Yosef] were alive, none of this would be happening,” Yosef was heard saying in the leaked audio. “If my father were alive, he would yell at him.”

And in August, the Haaretz daily reported that Yosef had privately urged associates and students not to vote for Shas, arguing that the party must “bring down the right” instead of continuing to prop it up.

Yosef denied the report and publicly mended fences with Deri several days later.

Deri has not publicly commented on the election results, with the exception of a brief written statement on Tuesday night in which he said he was waiting for the “actual results” after the disappointing exit polls.

“The exit poll results show significant discrepancies, so we will have to wait for the actual results,” he said in a written statement after the party cancelled its election night event in Jerusalem. “Based on the data I have, Shas will achieve a very good result that will reflect the tremendous work that was carried out on the ground.”