"Everyone Does It!"
The leader of a religious party justifies repeated crimes.
(Picture from Wikimedia Commons)
The big story in Israel at the moment is Bibi’s government changing the relationship between the judiciary and the legislature - from a bad one with which there is too much judiciary control, into a terrible one with which a government with the slimmest majority can do whatever it wants. But meanwhile, the government also pushed through the “Deri Law,” to ensure that Aryeh Deri can be appointed minister despite his second criminal conviction from which he escaped prison via a plea deal which he reneged upon. I noticed an interview with Deri in which he was directly asked what he thinks about the propriety of his returning to public office in light of his crimes. He replied as follows:
"There is no citizen in the State of Israel who, if they had applied on him the test that they did to me for six years, would not have been found guilty of such offenses of failure to report. There is no one like that. I have nothing to take stock of. I take stock of myself in front of the Master of the Universe."
It’s astonishing that he can say such a thing.
First of all, it is simply not true that everybody fails to report income. There are many people who are actually honest citizens and are scrupulous about it - even though they are not figures in public office, representing religious Judaism. Either Deri is lying (again), or he really does not know any such people - in which case it is quite an indictment of the sort of people in his social circle.
Second, Deri didn’t just fail to report income. He actively lied and falsified documents in order to cheat on his taxes!
It’s just remarkable that Deri is not ashamed to express no shame about his crimes. He claims that he only holds himself accountable to God - as if God doesn’t care about stealing from public coffers. And the entire government coalition is evidently perfectly happy for someone who repeatedly steals from public coffers, and expresses no regrets about it, to be a minister in charge of public coffers.
The chillul Hashem with this government, the “most religious in the history of Israel,” never stops. I was speaking today with a secular Israeli who just couldn’t understand why there aren’t more religious Jews speaking out against it. Those of us who are against it need to make sure that we speak out.
Slifkin, you should be ashamed of yourself for maligning Deri. I have no doubt he has accountants and lawyers that advised him he was technically on safe ground in his reporting his income. But the fact is, the Left is out to GET him. To me the proof was that they agreed to a plea bargain. Believe me, if it was so clear cut that he cheated on one shekel of taxes they would have had his butt in jail. His original conviction years back for bribery, was also a fraud. The main witness was so unreliable and such a crook himself, that ANY court in America would have dismissed the case. The Left was out to Get him. And Slifkin, I see you don't know why they were out to get him. It is because he was GOOD, even Great at his position as Interior Minister. That's why Bibi wants him, and not just because he needs Shas. Deri is a fabulous minister, just like Netanyahu, that's why he's gone out on a limb to keep him. As for Deri reneging on the plea deal. Those who "offered" him the deal are a bunch of low-life mamzerim, to save himself, Deri fooled them, and rightfully so (Tehilim 18:27). Wouldn't you as a frum yid in the USSR, about to be put in a KGB insane asylum, put on an act to keep yourself out of such a place?
Tell me about upstanding law and order ministers on the left. Rabin was caught with foreign dollar bank accounts, something totally illegal back then; nothing happened to him except a little shame.
We should remember what Rabbi Sacks z"l wrote:
"That is the challenge of Judaism in the state of Israel in our time. Its place is not in party politics. , not as an arm of the state, not as a set of segregated enclaves, not as an 'adversary culture', and not as a territorial ideology. Is role is to create, shape, drive and motivate civil society. If religion is not seen by Israelis as a unifying force in society, if religious Jews are not admired for their work with the poor, the lonely and the vulnerable, if Judaism is not the voice of justice and compassion, then something is wrong in the soul of Israel. To be sure, some of this work happens already; there are admirable examples. But there is much more to be done. Judaism in Israel today has lost the prophetic instinct when it needs it most. Judaism is about society, not the state."
Future Tense : from the chapter "A New Zionism"