It seems nobody in politics can get along.

UTJ confirmed today that they, Degel and Agudah, are considering the possibility of running on seperate tickets. That would be including all ramifications of such a move. Meaning, they would be 2 seperate parties in all respects - seperate representation in the Knesset, with each getting their reps spots on various committees, seperate tickets, etc. It seems they just can't get along and can't overcome the differences.
Will the parts be worth more than the whole or less remains to be seen.

And in other news, the National Zionist parties are duking it out with each other. What was meant to be the all-encompassing NZ party - Bayit Yehudi, or the Jewish Home, has been crumbling ever since the moment it was formed, with all the infighting of the various factions and personalities. Ichud Leumi is threatening to break off.
HaTikva, who never joined the union, is duking it out with them for the same voters. They are calling Bayit Yehudi a party like Kadima but with a kipa, becauseof the moderate leader that was chosen for Bayit Yehudi. Many personalities in the NZ leadership are disturbed by the fact that the leader, Daniel Hershkovitz, is fairly moderate and has promoted co-existence with the Arabs.

It looks like they will do pretty lousy in the elections unless they get their act together quickly. They will go from a party with 9 seats currently, between the factions, to probably something like 4 or 5 unified, as everybody is upset at them for various reasons.
They are an example of the parts being worth more than the whole.

Can't people just get along? Are the differences between them so great? And if yes, why insist on running together anyway?

They just opened and they are already squabbling and in trouble.

Ha'Bayit Ha'Yehudi opened up to replace the former NRP as the single unified home for the various parties that over the years have splintered to form small parties. They are already seeing, in their first days of existence, a prominent MK abandoning the joint party.

The fight is over the form of the primaries. He wants them, and someone else does not. Anyone who does not want primaries, in any party, it is because he is afraid of something. Generally he is afraidf the people will not choose him, but sometimes he could be afraid that someone specific will get chosen (like Bibi is trying to manipulate the Likud primaries to avoid Moshe Feiglin from getting in).

In this case, Zevulun Orlev is worried he will not get in, so the board of the new party decided not to have primaries for the various positions of members, but only for the chairmanship.

What's the point of primaries if you have no real desire to ask the people what they want, and are not interested in their opinion...

If they are already starting out with argument and break offs when they were supposed to unify all the right-wing zionists, it can't be good....

I never really understood why Haredim try to get involved in running the Rabbanut, whether it is in the sense of the Chief Rabbinate positions or other positions of leadership within the Rabbinic Council.

I am not talking about haredi people who take jobs with the Rabbanut, such as mashgichim or jobs as rabbis of cities or neighborhoods. That I understand.

What eludes me is why Haredi leadership gets involved. Why does Rav Elyashiv try to influence the election of the Chief Rabbi, for example?

The general Haredi public does not rely on the Rabbanut for pretty much anything, whether it be for kashrus of esrogim, meat, marriages, divorce, conversion, vegetables, shmitta, and even things as mundane as popsicles, etc. And it is not like the Haredi influence in recent years has effected a change in the perception of the general Haredi public towards the Rabbanut, so that too is not a goal.

So why?

Yesterday there were elections for the council of the Rabbanut of Israel. Shas was pushing rabbis it supported for the council. Rav Elyashiv and his guys were pushing rabbis they supported for the council. NRP was pushing rabbis they supported for the council.

Rav Elyashiv and Shas got into a bit of a row about this election. One of the leading rabbis Shas was supporting was Rav Avrohom Yosef, the Chief Rabbi of Holon and son of Rav Ovadia Yosef. Rav Avrohom Yosef is a brilliant person, and he sounds like he is personable and forthcoming (he used to give (maybe he still does) daily halacha talks on the radio I would sometimes listen to).

Rav Elyashiv fiercely opposed Rav A Yosef being elected to the council of the Rabbanut. The reason is because Rav A Yosef, like his father, has supported the use of hetter mechira. Rav Elyashiv is against hetter mechira to an extreme, and considered that alone to be enough of a reason to reject supporting the election of Rav Yosef.

This led to a rift between Shas and Rav Elyashiv/Degel. They could not come to an agreement of mutually supporting each others candidates (for ashkenazy and sefardi positions), because Rav Elyashiv would not support Rav Yosef, and it was all or nothing, so each ran alone. Actually, Shas came to an agreement of joint support with the NRP.

It turns out, that all of Shas' candidates got in, along with all of NRPs candidates. Not a single candidate of Rav Elyashivs made it in.

(I am not going to comment on the candidates themselves, because I do not know most of them. I know Rav Kook by reputation and he is supposed to be a very worthy rav, no matter which party or backer was supporting him, so this is not necessarily about qualifications)

So for the first time in recent years, the Rabbanut is back to a situation where it is being controlled by Rabbonim and a community that use its services and trust in it, and no longer by rabbonim who use it, perhaps cynically, as a method of control.

NRG/Maariv is reporting that Eli Yishai, the Chairman of Shas and the Minister of Industry, said in an interview today about the conversion situation that "the Mafdal politicians will all end up being Reform jews. When we vote in the Knesset against the Reform, they [Mafdal] vote in favor of the Reform. 30, 60 years ago, they fought against the Reform. Today they don't. Many of their voters have switched to supporting us - they are looking for real Judaism."

It is one thing to argue about policy. It is another thing to have the chutzpah to say that you are authentic Judaism and another group, an orthodox group no less, is not.

Ynet reports that The Kibbutz HaDati movement has rejected the cherem on Shefa Shuk, even after the Rabbonim of the Dati Leumi (or some of them) community have come out in favor of it.. The Kibbutz Ha'dati movement is part of (a large group within) the NRP.

The scretary of the Kibbutz Ha'Dati Org, Nehemia Rafel, has announced, "Using boycotts is not our way, and definitely does not effect any additional Shmiras Shabbos or additional Ahavas Yisrael. I am against businesses opening on Shabbos, both from a Halachik standpoint and from a social standpoint, but I am against sanctioning a boycott.

The use of boycotts in the Haredi sector is well known, and more than a few have been harmed by it, including Rav Kook and Rav Soloveitchik zt"l.

Boycotts are not designed to fight just against the problematic issue, but to harm all the assets of the person boycotted. That is not our way. We need to differentiate between a cherem and a consumer boycott, which is an important tool in the socio-economic system.

Placing a cherem on Dudi Weissman (owner of Shefa Shuk), at the same time as public transportation and other services are running unhindered on Shabbos, raises questions as to the real motivation behind the boycott."

They claim that Rav Eliyahu and the rest of the Zionist Rabbonim joining the Haredi cherem has no indication of what the stance of the National religious public is. "The Kibbutz HaDati was among the first to define a social contract in Israel, one of whose central chapters is the States character and Shmiras Shabbos. But until it is accepted, every citizen has to follow the law that defines very clearly the rules for opening businesses on Shabbos."

I remember in the days before the disengagement, the NRP was still taking part in Ariel Sharon's government, despite the clear direction Sharon was taking ni bulldozing his plan through against the wishes of his party and his government partners. The NRP was coming under a lot of criticism at the time for giving Sharon a base of power from which to launch his disengagement, despite the fact thay they were against the disengagement.

The NRP responded that, as political parties always do when they want to excuse themselves for staying in the government (see Shas now as an example), they they can do more to thwart the plan from within (we all know how successful and realistic that was).

After much public debate on the matter, they asked the Rabbonim of the NRP - Rav Mordechai Eliyahu and Rav Avraham Shapira (zt"l) what they should do. The Rabbonim declared very definitively that the NRP should leave the government.

Despite the Rabbinic decision, the NRP decided to stay in, for the time being (they left the government at a later point in time). The NRP brushed away all criticism that they went against the Rabbinic decision by saig that the NRP asks advice of its rabbonim, but it has never obligated itself to follow such advice. The NRP is not subordinate to its Rabbonim the way the Haredi parties are subordinate to theirs.

Their response now to the cherem on Shefa Shuk (whose whole status still remains unclear), is reminiscent of that response from the NRP pre-disengagement.