''What a shame, disconnection and opaqueness': Smotrich lashed out at Goldknopf and Deri for visiting 'defectors' in prison

Aryeh Rivkind
7 June 2026   
Photo: 
Yonatan Sindel/Flash90

After his faction members 'stuck' the conscription law: The chairman of Religious Zionism, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, today (Sunday) attacked Shas chairman Aryeh Deri and United Torah Judaism chairman Yitzhak Goldknopf - who criticized the 'Torah prisoners of the world' imprisoned in Prison 10.

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Smotrich tweeted his X-account: "While the people of Israel are burying their heroic warriors and comforting bereaved families, ultra-Orthodox members of Knesset are living in a parallel universe and visiting deserters in military prison.

""What a shame. What a lack of awareness. What a disconnection and opaqueness.".

Deri, who met with about ten Haredim detained in prison during the visit, said at the end of his visit: "From here we cry out - stop treating Torah students as criminals! Yeshiva students are the pride of the Jewish people and the guardians of the embers of the people of Israel! Shas will continue to defend with all its might the status of Torah students, and will work this week to approve a Basic Law: Torah Study, which will anchor the supreme value of the Torah in the State of Israel.".


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