Rabbi Chaim Amsellem, who heads the Am Shalem Party told Galei Tzahal (Army Radio) on Thursday morning that former IDF Chief of Personnel Branch Major-General (Retired) Elazar Stern has joined his party and he will receive the number two position.
The former senior officer, who sports a kippa sruga, was tenacious in his battle to end draft deferments for bnei yeshiva as well as trying to end the Hesder yeshiva program.
The news of Stern joining ranks with Amsellem, who broke away from Shas to launch his own party, has taken the political community by surprise and the news is too fresh to quote polls citing if Stern’s prominent slot on the party lineup will be viewed as a plus by Amsellem supporters.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
Join the official YWN WhatsApp status
4 Responses
What’s the difference. Mr. Amsellem is running as a vanity candidate. He has zero chance of getting even one seat in parliament. He knows it as does everyone else.
small kipa seruga? what is that supposed to mean?? i happen to know Mr Stern… he is a yirah shemayim, and he as a person would never ever write on a blog such as this defining a person by their kippa… his stance regarding learning was NOT to take boys out of yeshiva!!! his stance was to take boys who are marked as in yeshiva but not really going or learning to go to the army.
If this is the despicaple retired Israeli general Elazar Stern who headed the expulsion of our brothers and sisters from Gush Katif in 2007, then he deserves to be condemned and ostracized. Certainly, not to be elected to anything.
He claimed he “was just following orders”.
He is the same person. It speaks volumes about r. Amsalem that he would join forces with such an ocher yisrael.