The deadline for parties submitting their lists of candidates for the elections is fast approaching.

Shas took [Sephardic haredim] from a public that works and serves in the IDF, and made it extreme ‘Sephardic Lithuanians’. I tell these people to look at photos of their grandfathers and fathers. Weren’t they Zionists? Didn’t they work and go to the army?

  -- Rabbi Chaim Amsalem

The following exchange that took place between Aryeh Deri and Rav Amsalem's people is enlightening and entertaining.

As Srugim reports, Aryeh Deri went on the radio criticizing Rav Chaim Amsalem for his plan about drafting the yeshiva students. Deri said that all the MKs of Shas served full service in the army, and some are handicapped form it, except for himself and Arial Attias who both served shortened services as jobniks. the only SHAS MK who did not serve at all was Rav Amsalem, who had been a Shas MK until recently.

The head of Am Shalem's campaign called in to respond and said that the reason Rav Amsalem did not serve in the army is because he was actually learning in yeshiva, he was considered an iluy, a prodigy of sorts, to which, he says, Rav Ovadia Yosef can testify, and in Rav Amsalem's plan he says yeshiva students should all do army service except for those considered to be iluyim. On the other hand, he continued, Deri sat in jail after the courts declared him a criminal, and now is trying to badmouth Rav Amsalem. Rav Amsalem learned torah and did not sit in jail.

I love it, though it does leave a bad taste...

Last night it was revealed, by a journalist who thought he had stumbled upon the scoop of the century, that Am Shalem, the political party founded by Rav Chaim Amsalem after he was unceremoniously chased out of the SHAS party, cannot run in the upcoming elections for Knesset.

There is a procedure for registering a new party for elections, and the registration takes about 45 days, with the entire process taking about 91 days. The journalist discovered that Am Shalem has not yet even begun the process. That means, there is no way Am Shalem could possibly compete in the upcoming elections.

Seems like a pretty big fashla if you ask me..

Rav Amsalem's response though is even more surprising.

Rav Amsalem said that Am Shalem is not a party, and was never registered or intended to be one. He, Am Shalem really, is running under a different party name, that has already been registered in the past. "Achi Ezer" is the name of the party and it was registered by supporters of, and with the blessings of, Rav Mordechai Eliyahu zt"l. The party, Rav Amsalem says, is identical in its goals to that of Am Shalem, and therefore it was decided to use Achi Ezer instead of go through the procedures and expense of opening up and registering a new party.

Clearly this was all thought out and planned in advance. There is no way this could have happened so quickly simply as a response to Raviv Druker's discovery. Rav Amsalem would have had to think of the solution on the spot, find out that this party was available for use, he would have had to figure out who administered the name and negotiate use of the party. All in one night? Clearly this has been the plan all along.

The question is why we have not heard about it until now. Rav Amsalem has marketed himself through the party name Am Shalem. He has spent money on signs, he has spent valuable media time and other resources getting the name Am Shalem into our heads. Was he going to spring the name switch on us at the last minute, in some sort of surprising news story, and hope that people will remember the new name when they go into the voting booth?

Rav Amsalem had/has something up his sleeve. I don't know if Druker, the journalist who revealed the info, stumbled across it and blew it, or if Druker was used perhaps, willingly or not, in some sort of grand marketing scheme.

In a surprising local development, Rabbi Dov Lipman has resigned from the Am Shalem party of Rabbi Chaim Amsalem. Lipman had headed up the Anglo division and had worked very hard to build a following among the anglo crowds in Israel. Whether the party would succeed in the elections or not is something nobody can tell, as just because people support the idea of a party, does not mean they will actually vote for that party on election day. But it was a pretty good start.

The news talks about how Am Shalem has decided to move in a different direction, which caused Lipman to decide to resign. I asked him what happened, and his response is that instead of focusing on the votes of English-speaking immigrants, Rabbi Amasalem chose to change directions and focus instead on the potential Sephardic voters, presenting himself as an alternative to Shas.

Shas is made up of a lot of sephardic haredi cotes, but it is also made up of probably even more Sephardi votes that come from traditional jews rather than haredi. Amsalem is looking to get some of those votes. With Shas appearing more and more Haredi, it seems Amsalem is expecting some of the less haredi supporters might "jump ship" if there were a more reasonable alternative that spoke to them.

I say good luck, but it probably wont happen. The traditional Sephardi voter is very obedient to Rav Ovadiah, and it would take a miracle for a significant number of them to vote against Shas. Especially when election time comes and they pull out the brachot and promises of olam ha'ba for voting Shas.

The question is what is Rabbi Lipman going to do now? He has been very active locally, but only as an activist, as his political focus was nationally for Am Shalem. Now that he is no longer running and campaigning for Am Shalem, is he going to throw himself into the local political mix? Will he prepare now to run for a spot on the city council or perhaps even present himself as a candidate for mayor in the upcoming elections next year?

I asked Lipman, and his response was "there are have been people from all populations pushing me to run for Mayor for a while. I cannot say I have ruled it out but I also am not actively pursuing. I have been actively involved in local issues all along including preparing the general population for an important election and will continue to do so".

Lipman isn't declaring himself a candidate yet, but he seems to consider himself one of the possibilities. No matter who the candidate will end up being, the only chance the general public has of unseating Moshe Abutbol (or whomever the agreed upon haredi candidate would be) is to be unified and have all groups, despite other differences, support the one candidate,

In the last election, Moshe Abutbol did not receive the majority of votes for mayor. not even close. However, the general population split their votes among two candidates - former mayor Danny Vaknin and Shalom Lerner. if they can unify the vote around one candidate and get people to support and actually go out and vote for the person, they will at least have a chance of succeeding. Lipman also said to me "the most important thing from my perspective is unity of the general population and moderate chareidim. That is the ultimate goal."

I don't know if Lipman will be that candidate, but whomever it will be is going to have a lot of work to do to keep everyone happy and motivated.


------------------------------------------------------
Reach thousands of readers with your ad by advertising on Life in Israel
------------------------------------------------------

Quote of the Day

Judaism respects women more than any other religion...The teaching that the 'honor of a woman is inside' applied many years ago but now the honor of a woman is to be involved, outside, and totally equal to men...If a male soldier is at an event and women begin to sing it is forbidden for them to shame the singers and get up and leave..

  --- MK Rav Chaim Amsalem

Rav Amsalem gets the qotd 2 days in a row. If he wasnt in trouble with the mainstream haredim until now, now he definitely will be saying a statement of Chazal is no longer relevant and must be changed!

Quote Of The Day

The recent episodes of religious extremism have no basis in Jewish law, they are new ideas, and they fit into the category of the Talmudic idium, "those who add things actually end up detracting." Our Sages teach in the Jerusalem Talmud: "Just like it is forbodden to permit that which is forbidden, it is also forbidden to forbid that which is permitted. These new rules do not add to the honor of Torah, they desecrate God's name, and I condemn them

  -- MK Rabbi Haim Amsalem, speaking in the Knesset

I was thinking about the Amsalem event coming up in Bet Shemesh and a thought struck me based on something somebody pointed out to me.

Rav Amsalem was attacked relentlessly for many positions he took a stand on, with his opinion as stated being considered controversial. He took a lot of criticism, and eventually got himself thrown out of Shas when he commented on the need for men to go to work and the kollel life being a syndrome imported form the ashkenazim. The main attacks on Rav Amsalem began when he started commenting on the conversion system and the IDF converts. Rav Amsalem was insistent that the IDF converts must be considered Jewish.

When he was thrown out of Shas, it was said in the name of Rav Ovadiah Yosef, one sin leads to another, and Amsalem began by distorting the halacha in regards to conversions, and ended up attacking the Torah incorrectly.

Now that Rav Ovadiah Yosef and Rav Amar came to a conclusion regarding the IDF converts, a conclusion that considers them Jewish as Rav Ovadiah himself will approve those conversions and take responsibility for them, it seems that at the end of the day he is really agreeing precisely with what Rav Amsalem had said.

Strange how these things turn out...