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AMERICAN
CANCER
SOCIETY'
Help us keep winning.
decision may well give Labor
a decisive advantage in the
current negotiations.
While Agudat Yisrael has
been consistent in its opposi-
tion to a Shamir-led
government, Degal Hatorah
and Shas have been more
ambivalent.
Degal Hatorah, a two man
faction dominated by 96-
year-old Rabbi Eliezer
Shach, voted in favor of the
government "with great
reluctance."
Five of the six Shas mem-
bers abstained and the sixth,
Rabbi Yitzhak Peretz,
subsequently resigned from
the party. The reason for
Shas's refusal to support the
Likud in the no-confidence
vote was the dovish position
of party mentor Rabbi
Ovadia Yosef, former
Sephardic chief rabbi, who
maintains that pikuach
nefesh, the saving of lives, is
more important than main-
taining Israeli control over
the West Bank and Gaza.
Early this week, however,
•Rabbi Yosef met with Rabbi
Shach in the latter's Bnai
Brak headquarters. Rabbi
Shach, who has long shared
Rabbi Yosef's dovish views,
reportedly criticized Shas's
abstention and demanded
that the party support a co-
alition with the Likud. One
reason for this apparent in-
consistency is Rabbi Shach's
rivalry with the Brooklyn
based Lubavitcher Rebbe, a
power in Agudat Yisrael,
who is supporting a coalition
with Labor.
Another, and perhaps
more important concern:
Most of Shas's voters are
hawkish former Likud sup-
porters, who have been
threatening to bolt the party
because of its perceived shift
to the left.
As a result of the Shach-
Yosef meeting, Rabbi Yosef
reversed his position and in-
structed his followers to in-
form President Chaim Her-
zog that they favor Yitzhak
Shamir as the next prime
minister.
Political observers here
view this as a highly signifi-
cant development. It signals
that Shas, a party founded to
represent Sephardic Or-
thodox interests, is actually
dominated by the Lithua-
nian-born Rabbi Shach. It
also means that, for the first
time in memory, the ultra-
Orthodox community in
Israel is split, with Agudat
Yisrael supporting the
dovish Peres, while the
"doves" — Rabbi Yosef and
Rabbi Shach — favor the
Likud.
Even more significant has
been the absence of demands
for religious legislation.
Following his meeting with
President Herzog, Agudat
Yisrael leader Menachem
Porush signalled his will-
ingness to join a coalition
that includes the militantly
anti-religious Mapam and
Citizens Rights Party (Ratz),
and called for no more than
the maintenance of the re-
ligious status quo.
"We want to open a new
page in the relationship
between the religious and
secular communities," he
said. Reportedly Herzog, the
son of a former chief rabbi,
applauded the new openness
of the Aguda faction toward
non-Orthodox parties.
The major demand put
forward by the Agudat
Yisrael faction has been
monetary: they are asking
for an increase in govern-
The Orthodox
parties have not
raised the Who Is A
Jew issue.
ment funding for their pri-
vate schools. Labor politi-
cians have been receptive to
this demand, agreeing that
the Orthodox schools have
been discriminated against,
and promising to channel
more money to their schools
and yeshivot.
Shas and Degal Hatorah,
for their part, continue to
focus on the international
situation, calling upon
Shamir to make a supreme
effort to enter talks with Pa-
lestinians. Political
observers here believe that
such an approach signals a
desire on the part of the
rabbis to expand their
parochial concerns, and in-
fluence the course of diplo-
macy.
The failure by the Or-
thodox parties to raise the
controversial Who Is A Jew
issue has also been noted by
secular politicians.
Although they remain nom-
inally committed to chang-
ing the law, the Orthodox
parties have refrained from
raising the question this
time.
"They don't want to stir
up American Jewish anger,"
said a senior Likud figure.
"Right now we need the help
of American Jews to settle
Soviet immigrants, and no
one wants to be blamed for
endangering that support."
Whatever their motiva-
tion, there is a new sound to
the music emanating from
the Orthodox parties this
week. More involved in na-
tional affairs, less concerned
with sectarian and