A majority of the National Union/Tekuma party’s rabbis are against a split in the national-religious camp, Arutz Sheva has learned Friday.
Three of the four Rabbis – Rabbi Isser Klonsky, Rabbi Chaim Steiner, and Rabbi Gidon Perl – opposed the split during the Thursday night meeting over the game-changing potential to break off from Jewish Home.
On the other side, Rabbi Dov Lior adamantly opposed joining with Jewish Home, leading the final decision to be made by the party’s Central Committee. The meeting of the rabbis came after the Tekuma council discussed whether or not to run jointly with Jewish Home, but could not reach a decision as a vote on the issue resulted in a tie.
In the previous elections Rabbi Lior opposed running jointly with Jewish Home, and instead supported running together with former MK Dr. Michael Ben-Ari’s Otzma Leyisrael party, as was the case during the 2009 elections. Ben Ari’s party is running in the current elections as Otzma Yehudit.
Tekuma and Jewish Home have been largely at odds lately, with Tekuma sources this week explaining that there is a religious divide.
According to them, Jewish Home’s controversial decision to actively court the secular and Druze public threatens to remove the Torah core principles from the party. They pointed to the slew of anti-religious legislation in the last Knesset and warned if the Jewish nature of the party is watered down it likely will no longer be interested in properly defending the Jewish nature of the state.
If Tekuma breaks off from Jewish Home, it is expected to join with former Shas chairperson Eli Yishai’s new Yachad party (the name of the party has yet to be finalized). Ariel and Yishai have been discussing the possibility of a joint run extensively.
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