Degel calls on Agudah to stop fanning flames

In a rare step, the secretary of the Degel Hatorah Council of Torah sages appealed to his counterpart in Agudat Yisrael to call its representatives to order and reduce the tensions that have arisen between the two haredi parties over the municipal elections in October.

For the first time in 30 years, Degel and Agudah will not be running on the joint United Torah Judaism slate in Jerusalem, and will also be running separately in Haifa, Beitar Illit and Elad.

Degel has actually come to an agreement with Shas for mutual support of their respective candidates in those cities, at the expense of Agudah candidates such as Yossi Daitsch who is running for mayor of Jerusalem, and Israel Porush in Elad.

On Wednesday, Jerusalem Municipal Council member Yaakov Halperin of Agudah issued a broadside attack against Degel and Yaakov Kanievsky, the grandson of the most senior rabbi of the “Lithuanian” non-hassidic haredi community, Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky.

Yaakov Kanievsky is the most influential member of his grandfather’s court and retinue, and Halperin lambasted him on the Kol Barama radio station for essentially running the affairs of Degel through his grandfather’s authority and doing what is in his own interests.

Later, Avraham Rubenstein, secretary of the Degel Council of Torah Sages which Kanievsky heads, wrote a letter to the secretary of Agudah’s Council of Torah Sages calling on Agudah to rein in its representatives.

“A regrettable and embarrassing situation has been created in which some of Agudat Yisrael’s representatives are speaking for themselves to various media outlets and are fanning terrible flames of dispute between the community of God-fearing people, through the shameful disparagement of our great rabbis,” wrote Rubenstein.