Showing posts with label Yisroel Eichler. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Yisroel Eichler. Show all posts

Jun 18, 2026

Eichler's absurdity

Deputy Minister Yisrael Eichler has been part of a weird situation for the last several months....

Because of a dispute between Degel Hatorah and Agudat Israel, the two factions (not including the sub-factions) making up the political party Yahadut Hatorah regarding a rotation agreement that was supposed to be implemented moving Yitzchak Pindrus back into the Knesset for Degel, the beis din ajudicating the case came up with a solution ro resolve the issue. The solution was to have Yisrael Eichler be appointed as a Deputy Minister which would allow him to resign from the Knesset and open a spot for Yitzchak Pindrus under the "Norwegian Law".


Eichler became Deputy Minister in the government Ministry of Communications despite Yahadut Hatorah, United Torah Judaism, his party, having had left the coalition back in July 2025. This was an absurd situation in which UTJ was not part of the coalition due to their protesting the government's handling (or actually, not handling) of the draft law they wanted/needed but one of their members took and held a government position as Deputy Minister.

It now gets even more absurd.

Deputy Minister Eichler gives an interview to Mishpacha Magazine for this week's edition of the publication. The purpose of the interview is to talk politics and Eichler's work and the Day Care Law he is trying to get passed, among other things.

During the interview Eichler makes an interesting and absurd statement. He says, "I am not a partner in this government and I have not participated in any government meetings. [Being a Deputy Minister] is purely a technical matter."

I remember back in 2015 Yaakov Litzman took the position of Minister. That was the first time a UTJ representative took a ministerial position. Until 2015 the approach of UTJ was to not take ministerial positions in government saying this basically absolves them of any government decisions that might be against halacha such as chilul shabbos and the like. Since Litzman broke the ice, UTJ reps have regularly taken more and increasingly more ministerial positions. 


So they used to avoid being a partner in the government by refusing to take ministerial positions, and now they take ministerial positions but still deny membership and responsiblity for government decisions. Absurd.

Further, taking a position as Deputy Minister is an expensive matter and it comes with great responsibility. There is important work to do both in the ministry and in the government. It comes with offices, advisors, car and driver, pension and all sorts of discretionary funds and budgets. Yet Eichler takes all that and is obviously, by his own admission, not doing his job. he does not participate in government meetings. It is just a technical appointment to satisfy the dispute between Degel and Agudah and get Pindrus back into Knesset. 

Cynically, it is all just a matter of jobs to them to help themselves to a parnassa and not actually do anything they are supposed to be doing as a matter of representing their voters and the people of Israel (in ministerial positions especially, more so than just as Knesset members, they are supposed to be representing all of Israel not just their voters).

Absurd. Eichler is a Deputy Minister when his party is not a member of the government coalition and then claims even as Deputy Minister he is not part of the government that is doing things he does not agree with. It makes sense and fits very nicely with a government that does not take repsonsiblity for anything and blames everything on everyone else.



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Mar 5, 2025

Quote of the Day

When you are in exile sitting in captivity by someone you will have to choose between taking the pita or the water..

  -- MK Yisroel Eichler, when asked about the priority in advancing the day care subsidy law vs advancing the draft exemption law..

Eichler compared the issue of advancing these laws to being held in captivity and having to choose to eat a moldy piece of pita or drinking some water... Eichler is an expert at saying provocative things to create a ruckus...



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Feb 24, 2025

Quote of the Day

Maybe we should turn to US President Donald Trump to help us with sending humanitarian aide to the Haredim who are persecuted in this country with basic human rights denied them...

  -- MK Yisrael Eichler

Eichler is always funny and good for a crazy provocative statement.

Eichler will say the State is stealing milk and bread form Haredi babies. I dont think it is a basic right that the State has to feed your kids just because you choose to not do it yourself

Jan 1, 2025

yesterday's budget drama

Yesterday's drama with the budget vote was crazy. Good for PM Netanyahu for maneuvering and finding a way to make it work and overcome the opponents from within the coalition, especially while sick in the hospital recuperating from surgery. Impressive.

That being said, while Netanyahu is kind of stuck and is letting Ben Gvir make a fool of him. He should have fired Ben Gvir last time Ben Gvir voted against a budget vote a couple weeks back, but he didn't, and so far he hasn't after this vote yesterday that went down to the wire and required Netanyahu himself to leave his hospital bed and shlep down from the hospital to vote, and Netanyahu is too weak to fire him because he is afraid of losing his coalition.

The coalition is large enough now that he can technically afford to kick out Ben Gvir, but then he will barely have a majority again and will be at other people's whims without Ben Gvir to bail him out. Keeping Ben Gvir in the coalition makes Netanyahu look weak but it keeps his coalition alive, even if they arent voting in tune with the coalition.

UTJ is more complicated. They too should be fired but won't be. the politicians always quip that UTJ is one party but acts like 7 parties. Each MK represents a different community and each MK acts and behaves like he is his own party and nobody is beholden to any party decisions. When the coalition needs something, the head of the coalition needs to go to each MK from UTJ to make a separate deal rather than just talk it out and deal with the one head of the party. This played out precisely yesterday. The Degel faction voted with the coalition. Goldknopf voted against, and Netanyahu worked out a deal with Eichler and Porush and Tessler and Rot to have enough abstentions instead of votes against so the budget vote could succeed. Masterful on Netanyahu's part to work that all out, but dysfunctional of UTJ.

How can UTJ continue to function properly and efficiently and reliably when none of the MKs follow the instructions of the head of UTJ? How can the head of UTJ make decisions without working it out with the members factions and MKS - did he expect them to be beholden to the Gerrer Rebbe's decision, when the entire essence of the party is that it is made up of different factions each beholden only to his own rebbe? What good is being head of the party if he has no control over the MKs within? In any other party they would sanction the MKs who did not follow the decisions of the party (like Otzma might do for ALmog Cohen who voted with the coalition instead of with Otzma), but he cant punish Degel and he cant sanction the others either. At the same time, how can the head of the coalition work out anything with a party that can't be relied on?

Eichler and Porush were so proud yesterday of going behind Goldknopf's back and working out the deal with Netanyahu, in exchange for a promise of the Draft Law being presented next week. I don't know if the Draft Law will be presented next week or not, but Netanyahu has promised this in the past several times and has not delivered, so I am not sure why they are accepting this promise now, especially Eichler who is fairly militant on this issue.

That being said, if Netanyahu does not follow through with the presentation of the Draft Law next week, Eichler will have egg all over his face. I wonder what he will do then.





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Oct 4, 2023

Quote of the Day

We are living in a State in which we don't have any rights. All we have is the obligations to pay taxes and property taxes, and other social obligations..

 -- MK Yisroel Eichler (UTJ), at an election rally (municipal) for UTJ

I wonder what he thinks his people deserve but dont get.. he mentioned housing not being built for Haredim but that makes no sense and he himself said there is a lot of building for Haredim in Bet Shemesh (in addition to other projects around the country led by Haredi Housing Minister Goldknopf)




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Sep 11, 2023

Eichler goes back in time and forgets he is part of the government

The other wild thing that happened last night is MK Yisroel Eichler responded to PM Benjamin Netanyahu's comment about Uman.

Netanyahu had commented that it is dangerous to go to Uman and people need to be safe and responsible, and he also said that God hasnt always protected us, especially in Europe. 

Eichler flipped out, as he is wont to do. Eichler went on an anti-Zionist screed that would put Satmar to shame. The only thing he forgot is that he and his friends swerve in the Israeli government and have representatives in WZO and perhaps it is time to put the fight from 80 years ago to bed.

So that I did not have to translate it, I took the recap of what Eichler said from Times of Israel:

Eichler wrote that “for over a century, the God of Israel has saved the Land of Israel from the idolatry of power, vulgarity and assimilation of the secular regime.”

The Germans were halted on the way to conquer Israel by extraordinary miracles, not because of the Zionists, Eichler argued.

He went on to claim that the Zionists had in fact turned their backs on the Jews of Europe, thwarted rescue attempts and disdained “the Jews of the ghettos,” while adding that some had collaborated as Judenrat. Eichler said that the once-revered military had been revealed in its “incompetence and contemptibleness” in the Yom Kippur War in 1973, and that former top generals who oppose the current government’s judicial overhaul had recently shown themselves to be “rebels” who are “inciting a bloody [civil] war” in the country and giving it a bad name abroad “like the worst of our Islamic enemies.”

“When you see who the generals were, you realize that only thanks to the miracles of God Almighty do we survive,” Eichler fired.

He added that “some Zionists even called the Jews in the ghettos ‘Human dust, they should meet their fate.'”

“Be silent when you blame the God of Israel for your failures and crimes,” he declared. “If it weren’t for those who keep the Torah, Israel would have long ago been erased from the map of the Middle East.”

Just like the Zionists were not able to stop the Holocaust, neither were the Torah learners. We dont know why God sent us that punishment, and it does not serve Eichler well to blame it on the Zionists. Also, being a Belzer chassid, he should be grateful that the Zionists saved his rebbe, the Belzer Rebbe, who escaped Europe at the last moment through Hungary after having been granted a travel certificate from the Jewish Agency that were supposed to go to Zionists.

Regardless, the battle he is screaming about is one that took place back in the 1940s and is really irrelevant today. Today Eichler himself, and his other anti/non/somewhat Zionist peers serve in the Knesset and represent the government themselves! And as much as the State of Israel has supported Torah learning and helped it flourish over the past 50-70 years, this now is a government that is supporting Torah learning at unprecedented levels. Eichler would do well to take a breath. He can oppose what Netanyahu said without losing his mind.





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Jul 20, 2023

It's all about me

Yesterday in an interview, MK Yisroel Eichler (UTJ) related to the protests and to the air force pilots (and others) threatening to refuse to continue to volunteer for the IDF and to the coming IDF draft law to exempt Haredim from service.

Eichler said commented on them already preparing the draft law to be passed, if the State will still exist  after the holidays, with everyone afraid to talk, the protests shutting down the country, etc. 

The more interesting part of what Eichler said is when he said that for 75 years they have been spilling our blood for not serving in the army, everyone needs to be a part of the Israeli melting pot, people who dont serve shouldnt get budgets, etc. Suddenly now they lose control over the government and are burning everything down and stopping to serve in the army. It seems army service isnt as holy as they made it out to be, and they should apologize for how they treated us the past 70 years.

I dont know if he really doesnt get it, or if he is just a populist so says things that arent accurate to raise hairs.

they arent threatening to stop serving in the IDF, and they arent threatening to stop serving because they lost control of the government. They have mostly been out of government (with short interludes) for more than 40 years already, and this is only happening now, not 40 years ago. Throughout Bibi's long tenure they continued to serve and never threatened anything. Only now. And the reason is because of the attempt now for a full exemption of Haredim form army service while also giving them unprecedented funds in the budgets and coalition agreements. Justify it as much as you want, that lack of equality is upsetting them. they think of themselves as funding the Haredim to unprecedented amounts and Haredim are being given practically a blanket exemption from army service and form education and from the workforce. They have had enough. And they arent refusing IDF service, they are refusing, if they decide to carry out their threats, their volunteer reserve duty. I am not justifying it and not saying they should, but the story is very different than what Eichler is saying.

Eichler is good at turning everything into being about him, about his community and playing the victim card. He's not the victim here. It's about me but not as the victim, as the cause. the two sides have both gone way too far in this. I dont know how it will be reigned in and what has to happen but this is too much.




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Feb 5, 2023

Quote of the Day

If Netanyahu will fold on [the judicial reforms issue] that will be the end of the ability of religious Jews to live in the Land of Israel. They are fighting for the Supreme Court so that they can make us leave our religion. The Supreme Court is the head of those chasing down the rights of the Haredi minority sector... everybody admits that the IDF does not need a mandatory draft law. I have proposed a law to cancel the mandatory draft. Mandatory draft is just so they can make us leave our religion. It is Yaharog V'Al Yaavor.

  -- MK Yisroel Eichler (UTJ)

I love his "the world was created for me" approach. All anyone wants to do is make the Haredim no longer religious, and surely they think it is possible, as if it is still the 1950s when there really was a battle over religion despite the massive numbers of religious people in Israel.. And remember when everyone in UTJ was scoffing at the Leftists who claimed they would leave the country if Netanyahu won - taunting them to keep their promises (some even suggested that would be a good solution to the housing crisis), Eichler sounds no different - if I dont get my way we will have to leave the country. The religious and Haredi community have flourished like nowhere else, either because of or in spite of the way the government works here. There is nothing about any way the governemnt works that even if it went totally against UTJs preferences would force them to leave.




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May 8, 2022

Tweet of the Day



MK Yisrael Eichler, the UTJ representative of the Belz sector, paid a visit to Bet Shemesh today. Despite Shimon Goldberg, the Belz city councilman in Bet Shemesh, recently announcing he will be running for mayor and will be the next mayor, Eichler sat with the current mayor, Dr Aliza Bloch, and in their meeting he said to her, "You can record this, I wish you to complete in your upcoming second term what you began in your first as Mayor of Bet Shemesh". Journalist Ari Kalman tweeted this saying it looks like it wont be easy to get Bet Shemesh back under Haredi leadership, as Eichler expresses support for Bloch.

Elections are a long way away. What he says today about support can easily be changed by tomorrow. Maybe he will support her, maybe not. Anything he said now is really meaningless.

Regardless, I want to know why she is shuckling while he is talking.





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Apr 6, 2022

Quote of the Day

What a kiddush hashem in the world! The assistant to the President of France or Argentina is telling his boss that the Israeli government has collapsed. The boss asks why - because of the security situation? No! Because of chametz on Pesach!


  -- MK Yisroel Eichler (UTJ)

lol




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Feb 21, 2022

Quote of the Day

Minister [of Transportation Merav] Michaeli wants to implement public transportation on Shabbos. I plead with her to start first with public transportation during the week.

  -- MK Yisroel Eichler (UTJ)

Eichler always has a sharp and witty way about him, and even when I disagree with his efforts and opinions, he always has something sharp to say that is worth listening to. In this case I agree. Public transportation is inadequate in so many ways and in so many parts of the country - she might first put her efforts to making public transportation reliable and efficient in general, during the week when it is most needed, especially as Merav Michaeli repeatedly says she wants more people using public transportation and fewer using private cars. 

This reminds me of the famous story I heard of an MK pleading with then Prime Minister Moshe Sharet (I think it was him) to move Israel to a five day workweek, instead of a six day workweek. His respsonse was that first we should get the Israelis to work one day a week, then 2, then 3 and eventually we will get them up to working five days a week..



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Nov 7, 2021

MK Eichler in Knesset against the Reform (video)




I never understood the point of bringing up something from 100 years ago as if it is today's policy and they still have to answer for it.

And the truth is, back then most frum Jews and almost all from rabbonim and Hassidic Rebbes were opposed to the State of Israel. Even today many frum jews, especially those living abroad but even many in Israel, are of this opinion as well that one can be a good Jew anywhere in the world and we don't need a state - they deal with it because it is here, but if the State would do something they don't like, they could leave i a minute. Rav Shach threatened several times that if yeshiva funding was cut they would all leave the country and open yeshivas elsewhere.




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May 10, 2021

Proposed Law: keep Knesset stable

Hamechadesh is reporting that MK Yisroel Eichler (UTJ) has proposed a law that would give the Knesset more stability in the wake of the two years and counting of political instability.

Eichler has proposed that the Knesset should be set in place for a period of 18 months, regardless of what happens with the government coalition. Meaning, even if no government can be formed by any candidate, the Knesset will not go to new elections before 18 months has passed. Once the 18 months deadline has come and no government formed, the Knesset will automatically dissolve and go to elections. During the 18 months, a government can be formed at any time, the Knesset will continue to function normally working on passing laws and overseeing the transition government

Eichler explains in his proposal that the ongoing elections are destructive to the country, with the political rift increasingly tearing apart Israeli society. Additionally there is a heavy financial cost to the ongoing election cycle, with billions being spent on elections a couple of times each year - elections that go nowhere. Additionally, countries look at us weird, not understanding what is going on here, and this causes diplomatic issues.

According to Hamechadesh, several MKs form other parties have signed on to support the proposal.

As I have said before, I am all for electoral reform but it needs to be done properly. the issue needs to be studied with official recommendations for an overhaul and for all encompassing changes - not individual changes devised by political hacks looking to improve their own personal political situations. This might be a good idea, and it might not be a good idea - I don't know. I do know we cannot reform the broken electoral system in little parts with each being designed to help this group or that group differently. This will just deepen the problems, in a different way. 

Also, it looks to me like this is another method of trying to save Netanyahu with the direct elections proposal that recently went nowhere. The Knesset wont dissolve for 18 months, no matter what happens - so what happens when nobody successfully forms a government but the 18 months has not yet passed? We seemingly would go to elections just for the premiership but not for Knesset. So it seems that this is a ploy by Eichler to propose the same law under a different name. Instead of calling it "direct elections for PM", he is calling it "no elections for Knesset if we need elections".





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May 9, 2021

Porush Eichlet send letter to Netanyahu with solution to election problem

I dont get it.

PM Netanyahu had 28 days to try to form a coalition. He failed. Netanyahu spent much of that time working to prevent an alternative government rather than trying to form a coalition. He never even got together with Gdeon Saar and his people to try to persuade them (not that there was much of a chance), and he spent more time attacking Naftali Bennett and Yamina than trying to finish a coalition - even though they agreed to join a Netanyahu government if he could get 61.

When Netanyahu's 28 days came to an end with no coalition, the mandate was given to MK Yair Lapid to try to form a coalition. He is working to that goal now, and he might or might not be successful. Odds are against him being successful, but all we can do right now is wait and see.

Today Deputy Minister Meir Porush and MK Yisroel Eichler, both from UTJ, sent a letter to PM Netanyahu. They suggested that Netanyahu step aside for a year and a half and allow someone else from the Likud to be Prime Minister, thus enabling them to form a full right wing coalition. After the year and a half, Netanyahu would return to the premiership. 

Porush and Eichler are assuming that Saar and Bennett would be fine with such an arrangement and join this government.

What I do not get is, why now? Right now it is not in Netanyahu's hands to form a government. He had just about a month to try. Where were they then? Right now it is in Lapid's hands. If Lapid fails, we almost definitely go to elections. The President almost definitely won't give it back to Netanyahu after he already failed. So why now?

And, despite the why now, what is this new proposal anyway? Netanyahu offered everybody and their cousin, except Gideon Saar, first slot in a rotation arrangement. How is this new, dramatic, letter to Netanyahu presenting a new option, not previously explored? The problem with such a promise is not that Netanyahu refuses to make the promise, but that nobody believes anything he says because in the past he has broken so many promises to all the people now opposed to him - they no longer trust a word he says and are no longer willing to work with him. And if UTJ or Shas offers to guarantee the promise be kept, we all know how that turned out last time and that nobody will accept such a guarantee now because of it.

So, what are they trying to accomplish with this letter?









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Apr 8, 2021

Proposed Law: no more putting people into groups

It seems that with nobody knowing how long this Knesset will last, they are trying to get as many laws in as quickly as possible that will draw some favor with their constituents. Elections are coming, they have to win back some of the people who didn't vote for them last time. 

Kol Hai News is reporting that MK Yisroel Eichler (UTJ) has proposed a law that would attempt tp prevent incitement against Haredim in the media.

According to Eichler's proposal, the slander law, aka the lashon hara law, would be amended to include banning slander or shaming of a person due to his or her sectoral or social identity.

Just as a person could sue for damages of slander without having to prove damages, a group could sue as well for damages - a group could sue someone for hurting them, even without proving actual damages. So, as the example given is, someone who says "the Haredim spread Corona" could be sued, or if the report states " a Haredi criminal did..." the reporter could be sued.

Eichler says this law would force reporters and media sites and companies to be more careful with what they say and how they report, to not generalize and stereotype Haredim or any other group.

Whenever something like this comes up it makes me wonder how "Haredi" (or any other group) would be defined legally. Meaning, if someone says Haredim spread Corona, could I sue? Can my secular cousin claim he is Haredi and sue? How do they determine who has the right to sue? Do you even need to be Haredi, or claim to be, to sue or can anyone sue?






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Mar 10, 2021

Quote of the Day

I am best friends with Smotritch, but he is also our greatest ideological enemy, because he takes care of the Zionist yeshivas, and because he believes in the State while we do not.

  -- MK Yisroel Eichler (UTJ)

I was getting tired of all the election stuff, every day the same stuff. Eichler is always good for a jolt of something a little different.



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Dec 1, 2020

Quote of the Day

...Yakov prepared for war with Eisav by "doron, tefilla and milchama" - bribes/gifts, prayer and war preparations. Eisav came with 400 men to destroy Yaakov, and how did Yaakov successfully fight off Eisav and his 400 soldiers, when all he had were his wives and children? Only with the strenght of the Torah (he kept the 613 mitzvos while in the house of Lavan) and prayer.

The sole moral basis for this government is the commitment of the Likud and Kachol Lavan to take care of the law for the yeshiva boys to continue learning torah in peace and quiet. 

Until now it has not yet been set in law. And not just that but Kachol Lavan has joined every law proposal against Judaism that is raised by the Hellenists just like in the Second Temple era. They can give 150 political justifications, but it does not justify the existence of this government.


  -- MK Yisroel Eichler (UTJ)

I love Eichler. He's so much fun.



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Sep 8, 2020

Quote of the Day

Whoever came up with the concept of a lockdown is a war criminal. Gamzu doesn't understand anything in managing a lockdown. He understands medicine, he should stick to dealing with medicine.

  -- MK Yisroel Eichler (UTJ)



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Jul 27, 2020

Quote of the Day

Children numbers 4 and 5 will grow up with the feeling that the State doesn't want them. They are going to talk to us about equal rights/benefits? There is no greater theft and damage than taking away the grant of these children..

  -- MK Yisrael Eichler (UTJ)

I love Eichler. he is so much fun. 

the State doesnt want them? Because they didn't get free money once?
theft? taking the money away from the children? it is money that wasnt given to children. Nothing was stolen and nothing was taken away.

As I have said before, I happen to agree with the UTJ position on this. I think the State should be giving the money for all children, not just up to the third child, in this case. It is a special grant that was announced to be for everyone, not only for people who qualify under certain categories, such as elderly, poor, Holocaust survivors, children, served in army, etc. Everyone. So why cap it at a number of children?

But it isn't theft. Nobody is stealing money from these children, or telling them they are not wanted.



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Jun 30, 2020

Mk Eichler Upset at Knesset Podium about abusing the religious (video)

MK Eichler (UTJ) has a way with words....





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