"Liar, blind fox, son of a priest": Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef attacks Netanyahu and Edelstein

Tensions between the ultra-Orthodox factions and the coalition are at their peak: Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, a member of the Shas Council of Elders, was recorded yesterday (Wednesday) sharply attacking Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Chairman Yuli Edelstein - against the backdrop of the conscription law crisis.

"The prime minister said that you can enlist in the Haredi army and come out Haredi, why are you a liar? Why are you lying?! How dare you lie like that?!" said Rabbi Yosef, in a documentary published on Channel 13 - before further exacerbating the tone: "Maran (-Gara Yosef zt"l) said that he was a blind goat, and I say a blind fox, not a blind goat. Is that how you lie? Can you enter Haredi and come out Haredi? There is no such thing in the world.

"Anyone who goes into the army is spoiled. There is no doubt about it. Therefore, all your brothers of draft age, uncles, cousins - encourage them not to pay attention to all this incitement, to sit down and study. They plan to arrest young men, the police want to arrest young men, there are many attempts, you will be strong and have great ambitions to become scholars of Torah."

Rabbi Yosef also lashed out at Yuli Edelstein: "There is someone whose father converted to Christianity and is a priest. This one grew up in a priest's house and he causes all the trouble for the yeshiva students. He wears a kippah, a slouch hat. He wears a kippah and he causes all the trouble. Your father is a priest, converted to Christianity! You will come and harm Torah students? What do you have against Torah students?! Take your shoes off your feet from this place."

He continued his remarks by referring to the decrees of the draft law that is being formulated: "They are making all kinds of decrees, every yeshiva student needs to be fingerprinted in the morning and evening, no driver's license until the age of thirty, no traveling abroad, no nationalization until the age of thirty, no discount on property taxes, no discount on daycare, no receiving an apartment in the lottery, what fines, what sanctions. They really disrespect the Torah scholars, they despise the Torah. Really.

"Who knows what punishment there will be? What plague will come for what they do? The Holy One, blessed be He, does not condone this, it is a disgrace to the Torah. You will be strong. The line is the Torah, not an army or a mortar."