Deri said he had been aware of the controversial 2008 videotape in which former Shas mentor Rabbi Ovadia Yosef criticized him.
By GIL STERN STERN HOFFMANAryeh Deri(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
Shas leader Arye Deri, who quit politics with great fanfare this past week, hinted Sunday that he is already on the way back.When asked if he would make a comeback in an interview with Channel 2’s Ilana Dayan, Deri said “a man who cannot change his mind is not human.”Deri said he had been aware of the controversial 2008 videotape in which former Shas mentor Rabbi Ovadia Yosef called him a bad man and said the public perceived him as a thief, blaming him for Shas enabling the passage of the Oslo Accords.He said he had been warned by rabbis that his nemesis, former Shas chairman Eli Yishai, had shows them the tape a month ago.“[Yishai] promised the rabbis the tape would not be broadcast,” Deri said. “I could not fathom that he would broadcast it anyway.”Deri refused to respond to Yosef’s charges against him in the tape.Meanwhile, Channel 1 reported about efforts by the Belz hassidic rebbe to reunite Shas. According to the plan, Rabbi Reuven Elbaz would head Shas in the March 17 election and neither Deri nor Yishai would run. Jerusalem former chief rabbi Shlomo Amar and Yishai’s new mentor, Rabbi Meir Mazuz, would be added to the Shas Council of Torah Sages.
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