Tag: Moshe Gafni

Shas generally toes the UTJ line on issues of state and religion, but it is considered more moderate and usually negotiates compromises between UTJ and the five other parties in the governing coalition. The 2013 death of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the Shas founder and longtime leader, greatly diminished the power of that party's rabbi council. The supreme council of Degel HaTorah was similarly affected by the death in 2012 of Rabbi Shalom Elyashiv, after which the so-called Jerusalem sect refused to submit to the authority of Elyashiv’s successor, Rabbi Aharon Steinman, and broke from the party. Agudat Yisrael's Council of Sages consists of the chief rabbis of the various Hasidic courts comprising the party, and what matters there is size. Litzman is a seasoned politician. Together with his colleague Moshe Gafni from Degel HaTorah, he managed the affairs of the ultra-Orthodox regarding the government and the Knesset. In August 2015, following a Supreme Court petition by the anti-clerical Yesh Atid seeking to abolish these pretend deputy posts, which had only been created to appease the ultra-Orthodox, Litzman made history by becoming health minister, the first ultra-Orthodox politician to serve as a full-fledged government minister. In the fall of 2015, he informed the prime minister of a coup plot by Yesh Atid Chair Yair Lapid, who served at the time as finance minister in the government, which did not include the ultra-Orthodox. In November 2017, the ultra-Orthodox website Behadrei Haredim documented work being done on the railway on the Sabbath, despite a coalition agreement that only emergency repairs would be conducted on the Jewish day of rest. After issuing an initial ultimatum — opposing the 2019 budget unless the military draft bill passed a preliminary Knesset vote — Litzman projected an even tougher stance and demanded final Knesset passage in return for supporting the budget.