Yishai: Amsalem is no Amalek, 'Yom Leyom' will correct

“No Jew should be called Amalek; such sayings are not acceptable,” interior minister says about Shas MK.

By JONAH MANDEL
Eli Yishai (photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski)
Eli Yishai
(photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski)
Shas chairman Eli Yishai stressed on Monday morning that rebel MK Haim Amsalem was not Amalek, the biblical nemesis of the Jewish people to whom Amsalem was compared in a recent edition of Shas’s newspaper Yom Leyom.
“No Jew should be called Amalek; such comments are not acceptable,” Yishai told Israel Radio, adding that at his request, the newspaper would publish a correction.
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A complaint to the Tel Aviv Police, filed on Thursday over threats and incitement to violence allegedly implied in the Yom Leyom article, as well as a letter to State Attorney Moshe Lador and Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein asking that they order a criminal investigation into the alleged incitement, has yet to be addressed by the law enforcement agencies.
Yishai also said that claiming haredim did not seek vocational training or join the labor force was slanderous of an entire movement that did indeed encourage people to work – a reference to part of Amsalem’s critique, which helped bring about his ousting by the Shas Council of Torah Sages.
Amsalem remains firm in his refusal to abide by the decision.
The minister also said that Shas’s stance, backed by the head of the council, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, was to encourage those who were not Torah scholars to seek employment.
What prevents more haredim from joining the workforce is the Finance Ministry’s failure to allocate enough money to help them get jobs, Yishai said.