Man Insists 1,223,427th Attempt To Mix Religion, Politics Won’t Be Total Debacle

1,223,427 “learning experiences.”

Credit: Et haZamr, via Wikipedia

Jerusalem, November 30 – A lawmaker for one of Israel’s many parliamentary factions insisted today that following anticipated elections next year, his party will embark on yet another effort to bend the country’s institutions to better suit the sensibilities of a particular strand of interpretation of ancient lore, vowing that this time, unlike all the other countless times, the results will turn out well.

MK Aryeh Deri of the Shas Party, which claims to represent the interests of traditional Mizrahi Jews – those descended in the main of communities across the Middle East and North Africa, long an underclass in Israeli culture, economics, and politics – vowed to supporters during a Zoom livecast rally today that the unpleasant fallout from all the previous attempts notwithstanding, the coming year will see positive results from the party’s ongoing attempts to cement Jewish religious sensibilities into the workings of the state and its institutions.

“I realize that some question the wisdom of this repetitive approach,” he acknowledged. “Nevertheless, ideology remains our guide. The ideology behind our political decisions – aimed as much at establishing a halachic state as at securing funding for out pet institutions and cronies – does not allow for such cowardly notions as wondering whether insinuating that ideology into the institutions of the State of Israel is good or bad. If we question ideology, what does that say about the founder of that ideology? We dare not think of impugning the wisdom and vision of our master Rav Ovadiah,” he insisted, referring to Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the late former Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel who founded Shas, and whose considerable corpus of responsa on Jewish law is replete with cases where the sage reconsidered previous analysis and reversed his decisions.

“The previous one million, two hundred twenty-three thousand, four hundred twenty-six cases in which religion and politics mixed, always doing more damage than good, were just learning experiences,” explained Deri. “This time, we and our like-minded allies in Degel HaTorah and Agudat Yisrael, along with a slice of the religious Zionist parties and some Likud people, will succeed. From the existing monopoly the Rabbinate has on marriage and divorce, we aim to coerce the rest of Israeli society, one institution and regulation at a time, to adhere to tradition. We are, after all an ostensibly Jewish state. It’s that pesky ‘democracy’ that keeps getting in the way, as if the desires of the vast majority of the citizenry should have any bearing on what we know is best for everyone.”

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