UTJ minister criticized for lobbying for son’s election the day after Oct. 7 attack
Party spokesman acknowledges Meir Porush sent letter seeking support on Oct. 8, but rejects claims ‘his political activity continued in full force’ as ‘a complete lie’
Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"
Jerusalem Affairs Minister Meir Porush engaged in political activity related to Israel’s planned municipal elections in the immediate aftermath of Hamas’s brutal attack on southern Israel on October 7, lobbying party officials and prominent ultra-Orthodox community figures to support his chosen candidates, it has emerged.
The Haaretz newspaper, citing senior sources within Porush’s United Torah Judaism party, first reported that on October 8, the longtime lawmaker sent a letter to the secretary of the Council of Torah Sages, UTJ’s policy-making council of rabbis, insisting on party support for his preferred candidates at the polls, then planned for October 31. These included his son Yisrael Porush, who is running for reelection in Elad, and Beit Shemesh City Councilman Shmuel Greenberg.
A spokesman for UTJ confirmed the letter was sent, but took issue with the newspaper’s characterization of Porush’s efforts, saying “the claim that ‘his political activity continued in full force’ is a complete lie and an attempt to defame a dedicated public figure based on partial and distorted information,”
A person saw Porush’s letter said he acknowledged at its top the “pain and grief” caused by the brutal attacks of the day before and said he’d considered putting off sending the letter, but decided to issue it as at that point it seemed the elections might go forward as planned.
The party spokesman confirmed this account, saying Porush had initially decided to shelve the letter on the night of October 7, but messaging from the Interior Ministry on October 8 that preparations were still being made to hold the elections on time led him to send it anyway.
A source within Agudat Yisrael, one of the two Ashkenazi Haredi parties that make up UTJ — and the faction Porush is a member of — told Haaretz: “Those he spoke to were in complete shock, really appalled.”
“With more than a thousand people having been murdered and massacred, with women raped, with soldiers still engaged in fierce fighting, he was making political deals for himself and his son.”
Another party source told the paper that since the war’s outbreak “He’s been talking and sending messages to activists and senior Haredi activists in every local authority he’s involved in.” The report added that Porush expressed anger at one local UTJ candidate for “using the war as an excuse” not to actively engage in political activity.
Within days of Hamas’s attack on southern Israel, in which more than 1,200 people were killed and over 240 taken hostage, the government announced that it would delay the elections by at least three months.
“The so-called claim that ‘his political activity continued in full force’ is a complete lie and an attempt to defame a dedicated public figure based on partial and distorted information,” the UTJ spokesman told The Times of Israel. “We do not know of any ‘political deal’ that was promoted on October 8.
“The minister is entirely occupied with the needs of the public following the war, and has become a personal representative of the tens of thousands of evacuees who were evacuated to Jerusalem, assisting them day and night,” the spokesman stated, adding that Porush has “participated in funerals and has comforted mourners, met with families of abducted and missing persons, and visited the wounded in hospitals.”
Reached for comment, Beit Shemesh mayoral candidate Greenberg told The Times of Israel that “since the day war broke out, I started a complete moratorium on political activity.
“I am unaware of a meeting involving Minister Porush following October 7 on my behalf,” he said, asserting that rather than campaigning, members of his staff have volunteered to assist Israelis displaced by the conflict.
Last week, the Religious Zionism party called for a further month-long postponement of the local elections due to Israel’s ongoing military campaign in Gaza, a call that was also backed by UTJ and, conditionally, by the Sephardic Shas party.
Following a meeting to discuss further delaying the municipal elections, now rescheduled for late January, government ministers voted on Wednesday to again push off a decision on the matter.
A statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said ministers unanimously backed his proposal to have the Israel Defense Forces notify the government which of the 2,189 candidates currently serving in the reserves “cannot be discharged, and a breakdown of the local authorities in which there are candidates who cannot be discharged.”
The Prime Minister’s Office said that ministers would convene again next week to decide on a date, once they “have the complete data from the IDF.”
Following the meeting, Interior Minister Moshe Arbel (Shas) reversed his earlier opposition to putting off the elections to late February.
