Mrs Adina Bar Shalom, daughter of HaGaon HaRav Ovadia Yosef ZT”L, has announced she is withdrawing from the 21st Knesset race and her Achi Yisraeli party is bowing out.

She made her dramatic announcement on Tuesday night after years of preparing to enter Knesset, having bowed out last time at the behest of the Shas party. This time however, she was determined to give it a go but now announced that she feels she must leave the list of parties, number 47, but she feels this is the responsible thing to do in light of recent events, and her sense of “responsibility to the electorate”.

The party statement reads that it will continue to work to advance its values, creating a dialogue towards solving machlokes and learning to accept different values in a unified society.

In a related matter, Degel Hatorah leader MK Moshe Gafne announced that he is going to work to persuade Eli Yishai to withdraw his Yachad party from the race, fearing that he may once again cause some 120,000 votes to be trashed, which translates to a victory for the left-wing and secular parties.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)