Sorry. I registered with them years ago and never go over the 10 stories a month limit. Occasionally they have a really good archaeology story.
Here you go.
Here you go.
Quote: Outgoing Interior Minister Eli Yishai is so sad, he’s beside himself. Soon he will bid farewell to the perks of government power: assistants, spokesmen, a bureau and honors, and he will have to descend to the rank of an ordinary Knesset member without even knowing what it is that people do in the opposition.
In the bitterness of his heart he cries out: “An entire public has been boycotted solely because of its faith,” and Shas MK Nissim Zeev repeats after him: “They have boycotted us, this is lawlessness, this is a coalition of hatred for the ultra-Orthodox,” and Shas MK Aryeh Deri is also grumbling about the “boycott” and is demanding to be appointed party chairman, as though he didn’t have a key part in the failure in the election.
Shas and United Torah Judaism are certain they were anointed directly by God to rule, and they are His representatives on earth. They are unable to grasp that they simply lost in the election. Had Shas won 19 Knesset seats and Yesh Atid 11, they would be in and Yesh Atid chairman Yair Lapid would be out. And then they would not even have dreamed of looking out for Habayit Hayehudi but rather would have been glad to see its chairman Naftali Bennett in the opposition, the way they were glad to see his party’s predecessor, the National Religious Party, in the opposition for many years as they, the ultra-Orthodox, continued to control all the bastions of religion and its budgets. Therefore it is clear why Lapid and Bennett did not want to see them in the government.
Only when the ultra-Orthodox are in the opposition will Finance Minister Lapid be able to cut the huge budgets they receive, both for their yeshivas and in the stipends for married Torah learners. Why should a yeshiva student not pay any tuition fees and also receive a stipend of NIS 850 a month, along with guaranteed income of NIS 1,040 in addition to subsidies for housing, day care and property taxes − while a young secularist or religious Zionist, after serving in the army, has to pay high tuition fees at the university, receives not a shekel from the state and will be serving in the reserves while he is studying? Is there no limit to discrimination?
Only when the ultra-Orthodox are in the opposition will Lapid be able to replace the criterion for receiving state-subsidized housing from “years of marriage,” the criterion outgoing Housing and Construction Minister Ariel Atias tailored for the ultra-Orthodox, to “utilization of employment potential,” which is more just and suited to secular and religious Zionist citizens. Without the ultra-Orhtodox, it will be possible to stop the excess budgeting for “ultra-Orthodox cities” and the pressure on mayors to build ritual baths at the expense of community centers. Only if Yishai and UTJ’s Meir Porush are in the opposition will it be possible to determine that only those who go out to work will be entitled to stipends, discounts and guaranteed income.
Only when there are no ultra-Orthodox in the government will it be possible to impose on them the core school curriculum and conscription into the Israel Defense Forces. Only when they are in the opposition will it be possible to open the economy to competition from imports with the aim of lowering the cost of living. Without the ultra-Orthodox it will be possible to cut in the right places and prevent a profound crisis, and all this directly concerns the middle class because this is the meaning of reducing the burden on those who serve, work and pay taxes.
A government without the ultra-Orthodox is also in Bennett’s interest. They, after all, defamed and insulted the religious Zionists for years. They saw Habayit Hayehudi − which means “the Jewish home” − as a “home of gentiles,” in the words of Shas spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef. The Torah learning by religious Zionists does not count for them, and men with crocheted skullcaps aren’t even good for a prayer quorum. For many years Shas and UTJ ejected the religious Zionists from all the positions in the religious establishment, from the Chief Rabbinate down to the kashrut systems, and this isn’t just influence and jobs. Bennett’s voters want him to restore their honor and their status.
From so much arrogance the ultra-Orthodox grew completely unrestrained. They called secular people “ravishers of unclean women” and sent their women to the backs of the buses. They spat on anyone they didn’t think was properly dressed, they harassed minorities, they hated foreigners and they tried to impose fanatical and backward Judaism on all the Jews in Israel. Now they are paying the price of that arrogance.
So what we have here isn’t a boycott, nor is it hatred, rather it is a political attempt to achieve a different, more just distribution of the resources and thereby keep the promises Lapid and Bennett gave their voting public.
