HOW MANY FACES will Aryeh Deri show Israel?
Aryeh Deri the criminal.
Aryeh Deri the sacrificial lamb.
Aryeh Deri the reluctant leader.
ONE THING DERI IS NOT is modest. According to a Times of Israel article headlined Shas head Deri tells supporters: Your cries have reached me Deri told a follower who contacted him by phone - the call was broadcast for all to hear - that Your cries reach all the way to the north,” he said. “I love you, and I promise you one thing, my brothers. I have not forgotten what the Maran [Shas’s late spiritual leader Ovadia Yosef] told me in the hospital before he died. He held my hands, cried, and said to me, ‘Aryeh, I am asking you, promise me two things: To continue to care for my sons, the precious poor, and that heaven and Judaism will be loved even more.”
Unless I suddenly don't know how to read - and admittedly I did not hear either Deri's or Yosef's words - I don't see where the late Shas figurehead had anything to say to or about Deri other than he was "evil," and that is from a leaked exchange between the rabbi and one of his followers.
A Wikipedia entry notes that
Since 1999, several of Shas's MKs, including Aryeh Deri, Rafael Pinhasi, Yair Levy, Ofer Hugi, and Yair Peretz have been convicted of offences including fraud and forgery. In addition, elected MK Shlomo Benizri was convicted of bribery, conspiring to commit a crime and obstruction of justice on 1 April 2008. Benizri subsequently resigned and Mazor Bahaina, number thirteen on the Shas list, replaced him.
The party was mired in scandal after the indictment and subsequent conviction and imprisonment of its former party leader, Aryeh Deri, on corruption charges in 1999. While Yosef distanced the party from Deri and installed Yishai as the new party head, many Shas voters saw Deri as the victim of a discriminatory political witch-hunt and continue to support him.
According to one web site: : Former Shas Party leader Aryeh Deri was convicted Wednesday by the Jerusalem Magistrate's Court on one of the five charges brought against him in a public wrongdoing trial where he was accused of corruption and conflict of interest.
Deri has already served a three-year sentence on criminal charges after being convicted of accepting bribes from close aides.
The current case had to do with five counts of fraud and breach of trust for actions he committed as Interior Ministry director-general from 1996 to 1998 and as interior minister from 1988 to 1993.
OK, there are those who will criticize this scrivener for daring to repeat what has been all over the Israeli press and most Jewish media outside of Israel.
Why pick on poor Deri when other Israeli politicians - and the list is embarrassingly long - also have been involved in scandals, court dates, and incarceration for a few.
Because, simply, Deri wants to - and will if Shas' Council of Torah Sages has its way - lead Shas, ostensibly a party representing observant Sefardi Jews.
The one politician who could have led Shas, Eli Yishai, bailed and formed his own political party.
The whole mess played out on Israeli Channel 2 when someone - Deri accuses Yishai - of dishonoring R. Yosef by "leaking" negative comments R. Yosef made about Deri. How that dishonors the late R. Yosef is beyond my ken.
According to the Wikipedia entry for Deri:
On the 28th of December 2014, Channel 2 released video footage in which the founder of Shas, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, can be seen harshly attacking Deri. Yosef called Deri a wicked man and a thief. He accuses him of being an too independent too follow any authority. The release of these tapes has been referred to as the Doomsday Weapon against Deri. That same day Deri handed a resignation letter to the rabbinical board of Shas who refused to accept it. On the following day, December 29, Deri presented his resignation to the Parliaments' chairman Yuli-Yoel Edelstein
You can read more about the remarks at the following URLs:
Jewish Press: http://www.jewishpress.com/tag/aryeh-deri/
Jerusalem Post: http://tinyurl.com/o2e3b6a
