MK (Bayit Yehudi) Ayelet Shaked earlier in the week announced a Bayit Yehudi ultimatum to Maran HaGaon HaRav Ovadia Yosef Shlita. She announced that if Maran and Shas do not respond within a week regarding a deal for the race for new chief rabbis, the deal is off the table. She was referring to the deal by which Shas will support the candidacy of Rabbi Yaakov Ariel Shlita for Ashkenazi chief rabbi and Bayit Yehudi would support Rabbi Moshe Shlomo Amar for a second term as Sephardi chief rabbi.

The MK’s ultimatum left Shas MKs fuming, angered at the chutzpa of the young lady publically announcing an ultimatum to a Gadol Hador, weighing exactly how they would respond to the affront to a Torah giant.

A campaign was launched calling on the public at large to inundate Shaked’s mobile phone with SMS text messages on the matter until such time she retracts here words and publically apologizes to Rav Ovadia. It appears the campaign has taken off and Shaked has been under cyber attack with a non-ending stream of text messages. Some of the messages were offensive and some contained threats against her. After receiving the threats she decided to report them to Knesset security officials.

The daily Yisrael Hayom adds the Shaked also told Knesset security officials that she received threats from “chareidi elements” resulting from comments she made during a Bayit Yehudi faction meeting pertaining to Rav Ovadia.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)