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Shas and Shimon Peres

If Shas decides to support Shimon Peres for President, the Shas party will have finally reached the lowest point of its deeply despicable history.

Shas, the party that is supposed to stand for Sefardi rights, will have gone along with the fraudulent railroading of Israel's first Sefardi President by the Olmert government and endorsed his replacement with Olmert ally, secular socialist Shimon Peres. While its leader Rabbi Ovadya Yosef, regularly fulminates against secular Jews and preaches hatred of secular Jews and Ashkenazim to the home crowd-- Shas has repeatedly made deals with them to keep the flow of Shekels coming to its institutions.

It was Shas which backed the Rabin government and which bears 'Direct Responsibility' for the passage of Oslo and every death by terrorists operating from the Palestinian territories since then. The blood money that flowed into Shas' institutions and Aryeh Deri's pockets were more than enough to salve their consciences. The only relevant halachic psak din that should be asked of Rabbi Ovadya Yosef is this, 'How many dead Jews are worth the funding of Shas schools?" "How many murdered, religious and secular, Ashkenazim and Sefardim, are worth the shekels Shas has received from the Left Wing politicians they have pledged their allegiance to?"

Shas' former leader Aryeh Deri has already spent time in jail for his crimes. Deri has already called for Shas to support Peres as "Hakarat Hatov". Peres has met with Rabbi Ovadya Yosef, but made no clear commitments yet. As is usual he is likely biding his time and considering offers. The alternatives would be clean honorable men like Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau and Reuven Rivlin, but Rabbi Lau would have nothing to offer directly to Shas, while a vote for Peres would undoubtedly be handsomely repaid.

Meanwhile Eli Yishai, who has become the new Aryeh Deri, is all too willing to hint at every turn that Shas would support anything from the Disengagement to the release of Palestinian terrorists, if the price is right. While the current corrupt Sefardi Chief Rabbi, Rabbi Shlomo Amar, is set to replace Ovadya Yosef-- Shas cronies conduct a war against former Sefardi Chief Rabbi, Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu, a genuinely great and decent man, who has defied the authorities and campaigned courageously against the dirty politics of the Olmert government.

In the previous election, Rabbi Ovadya Yosef promised followers who voted for Shas that they would go to heaven. I can't speak for Shas voters, many of whom vote out of a religious duty or out of a belief that Shas is actually a party that supports Sefardi interests-- rather than supporting the interests of Shas party cronies-- but the Shas leadership is bound far down below.

The sad thing is that unlike the voters for a lot of Haredi parties who really don't care what happens to Israel, Shas voters are good decent people who are misled into voting for a party that provides them with some needed services, particularly when they are discriminated against by the Ashkenazi Haredi establishment-- but also exploits them and uses them for its own leaders' ambitions. There is little point in writing to criticize Ashkenazi Haredi parties whose voters will vote for them no matter what-- viewing it as a religious duty. There is a use in criticizing Shas which misleads many into thinking it's right wing and which co-ops votes by people who genuinely care about the security and survival of Israel and the Jewish people.

Comments

  1. B"H I really which your logic was wrong about Sha"S and its motivations, but it right on. Even more so, Aryeh Deri was convicted on the basis of one witness, a known criminal who was finally tracked down and brought back to Israel. Deri also sat in jail, while Ashkinazi crooks like Pres. Ezer Weitzman ran around freely.

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  2. yup

    the establishment crooks get a blank check because they're part of the old boys network

    peres himself should have been in jail ten times over

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  3. Anonymous6/5/07

    how is Shas warring against Rav Mordechai Eliyahu shlitat, who is a real tzadik unlike other unmentioned Rabbis

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  4. they're trying to shut down his station

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  5. That's terrible.

    Did I read correctly, that Shas is promising voters that they'll go to heaven if they vote for them? How manipulative is that?

    It smacks of something else, too, but I don't want to write it, since its supports are decent people. The comparision would be wrong.

    Still, reading it the first time around, that voters would go to heaven...sigh. Why are they telling voters THAT?

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  6. I'm sure when it comes to the money funding the schools the response would be, "You do what you have to do. It's all for a good cause."

    It tends to be the most popular excuse I've heard.

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  7. home education, I am telling you people.. its the only answer :D
    but do you listen to moi??
    NOoooooooooooooo

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  8. I do find it curious that the only really successful Sephardi party is Shas, given that (and I could be wrong about this), as with Ashkenazim, there is a large proportion of Sephardim who are not haredi. Yet the chiloni Sephardim seem to always split their vote between Likud and Labor, neither of whom seem to take them very seriously (and when Sephardim get into positions of power within those parties, they seem to have a bad habit of forgetting about their own communities).

    What happened to the Israel Black Panthers of the 70s? Did they just fade away into the establishment parties?

    Peres? Ugh. I find him intolerable. He's the epitome of what's wrong with Israeli politics, a man who's never met a cause he didn't mind selling out. The only good part about him becoming President is that he'd finally be pushed out of any real leadership position.

    Regarding criminality- it's rather disheartening that corruption and disrespect for the law (and by extension, the citizens) seems to run so deep in the Knesset.

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  9. shalom sultan...when barak was p.m. shas and meretz were enemies...then all of a sudden in order to keep barak in power they merged and became part of his government...that was the moment that both those parties for me became 'toast'...great post tx

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  10. yes they all sell themselves for a shekel and a bmw

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  11. Reb Sultan, you are wrong.
    The Shas MKs are very fine people, and Rav Ovadia Yosef, Shlit"a is the Gadol Hador.
    As much as I normally like your writing, this post is over the top, and shows much disrespect to Rav Ovadia, Shlit"a.
    Rav Deri was railroaded to jail, as Ben-Yehuda mentioned above.
    Yishai was and is anti-Disengagement.
    Those who hate Shas scream "Oslo, Oslo, Oslo!!!" Yes, Oslo was a mistake, but one that was made via a sound halachic process.
    Other than that one mistake, Shas has only made great decisions in the Kenesset.
    This whole post screams of terrible motzi shem ra, and I hereby file my objection to it.

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  12. oslo was part of the larger spectrum of the kind of political deals shas has cut over and over again

    and eli yishai suggested that supporting disengagement was on the table

    and how exactly do you justify 'rav deri's support for peres then and now?

    great decisions in the knesset, can you please tell me what those are?

    need I really mention shas' current support for olmert and yishai rebuking amsalem for even suggesting olmert should resign?

    titles do not make someone above reproach and shas has done too much damage for its leadership to have any kind of immunity

    I could go into what kind of gadol yerovam was or the greatness of the 250 with korach but you know all that better than me

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  13. The "political deals" that you discuss have halachic merit. Supporting Torah education at times outweighs other political considerations.

    Their support for Peres has more to do with their mutual agreement on how to deal with the economy more than anything else.

    Their support for Olmert, as much as it stinks, is a necessary evil. They need to be in the government to support Torah education. Yes, it comes down to money. Hakesef Ya'ane et Hakol. But, as bad as that sounds, it's the truth, and again, a necessary evil.

    Your comparisons to Yeravam ben Nevat and Korah Ve'adato is not something you or I can make. I vehemently protest making such comparisons, even if you think that they are Emes. There are many rabbis that I vehemently disagree with, and I dare not make such comparisons.

    Read this for more details.

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  14. these are not merely "political considerations", they're life and death for hundreds, thousands and even millions of people

    obtaining money for an organization is not worth human life-- certainly not a single murdered child

    there is no halachic basis for being a party to spilling blood in order to obtain money for torah education

    that's such a fundamental inversion of Darchei Hashem it's hard to find a better example

    it would be a thousand times better and more moral and more halachically acceptable to set up a beit znus and collect money from that to fund torah education-- than to do this

    supporting leaders like peres and olmert and backing plans like Oslo means playing with the annihilation of millions of Jews-- at worst it's risking another Holocaust to obtain funding for schools

    that isn't a necessary evil-- it's simply evil

    if there is no israel, there will be no torah institutions to support in either case, compromising everyone's survival to obtain some shekels means drilling a hole in the boat to get a little water

    I wasn't making a comparison to yerovam, based on what the gemara says-- there's no point of comparison since he was a far greater talmid chacham than anyone today could possibly dream of being

    but knowing torah and living torah can be two different things and a gadol is only as great as his deeds are-- not as great as his learning is

    that is the lesson of yerovam and of so many other great talmidei chachamim, one of which massacred the kohanim of nov

    lo hakesef yaaneth et hakol, HaKadosh Baruch Hu yaaneh et hakol

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  15. Reb Sultan,
    The basis for your statements are that R' Ovadia was receiving money and thereby spilling blood.
    Has Veshalom!!!
    Rav Ovadia's Psak was intended to prevent the spilling of blood. Things, we know, unfortunately, turned out differently.
    However, the Psak - Bimkomo Omed. Unfortunately, the generals at the time misinformed Rav Ovadia Shlit"a and he therefore supported Oslo.

    I consider the sanctity of Eretz Yisrael and the sanctity of its Torah institutions of equal importance. On this, we apparently differ.

    If you are one to say that Rav Ovadia's deeds are not as great as his learning, I refer you back to the link I linked to earlier.

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  16. things were always going to turn out 'differently'

    setting up a terrorist state was never going to prevent the spilling of blood... one didn't need to be a general to understand that

    the illegal payments that were made to shas was the real basis for shas' support of Oslo. A Psak created to benefit yourself has no validity even if it had turned out for the best. A psak made to benefit Shas that cost thousands of lives-- is a horrific act.

    In payment Shas joined forces with secularists whose ultimate goal was the destruction of religion and whose policies have drawn close the destruction of the State of Israel. Hakesef Yaaneh et Hakol.

    To do so Shas lied to its own voters. It betrayed whatever principles it had and its actions have left yetomim and almonot across the land-- and instead of changing, Shas today continues to prop up the Olmert government in the aftermath of the Lebanon War.

    "I consider the sanctity of Eretz Yisrael and the sanctity of its Torah institutions of equal importance."

    What about the sanctity of Jewish lives? The sanctity of the land is for most an abstract. The sanctity of lives is not. If another catastrophe strikes Israel under this government-- what will the response of Shas be? The generals fooled us again?

    "If you are one to say that Rav Ovadia's deeds are not as great as his learning, I refer you back to the link I linked to earlier."

    I can't speak for his learning, I can speak for his deeds and there is no one alive today who can match the learning of men who have been reviled for thousands of years for what they did.

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