Free Republic

May. 17, 2006 0:44 | Updated May. 17, 2006 5:48 Olmert promises UTJ 5-year extension of Tal Law By ANSHEL PFEFFER Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has promised United Torah Judaism that the coalition will support a five-year extension of the Tal Law. Although the law, which allows yeshiva students to defer their army service, was not canceled by the Supreme Court in its ruling last Thursday, the court stressed that the law ran against civil equality and may be considered unconstitutional in the future. While official coalition talks between UTJ and Kadima are to resume only in a couple of...

Dec. 13, 2004 1:21 | Updated Dec. 13, 2004 13:20 Bye-bye, religious parties By ELLIOT JAGER Michael Melchior and Moshe Feiglin make strange bedfellows. Yet in talking to both men last week, I was struck by how much they had in common. They agreed that the era of religious political parties in Israel was coming to a close, that mixing politics and Judaism had been detrimental to civil society, and that an alternative way had to be found to instill Jewish cultural values into the body politic. The Danish-born Melchior is a velvet-yarmulke-wearing Orthodox rabbi and Labor-Meimad Knesset member. But...

Dec. 9, 2004 1:16 | Updated Dec. 9, 2004 22:58 Early results: Likud endorses national-unity government By GIL HOFFMAN Prime Minister Ariel Sharon casts his ballot at the Likud party meeting in Tel Aviv. Sharon is seeking his party's approval to include Labor in the government Photo: AP With most of the results in by 11 p.m. Thursday night, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon received a big political boost when the Likud central committee voted 65 percent to 35 percent to authorize him to begin negotiations on a national-unity government with Labor and haredi parties. Sharon, who received election returns on...

Coalition Permutations Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Shinui Party leader Tommy Lapid met privately this morning for the first time since the election. They agreed during their two-hour chat to work towards the goal of forming a joint government - without the National Union. The two did not come to an agreement on Shas, however, though Lapid said he would accept United Torah Judaism as a coalition partner. Shinui's main campaign promise was that it would not sit in a coalition government together with the hareidi parties Shas and UTJ. Meretz MK Zahava Gal'on said, "It's not even 24 hours...