Rabbi David Yosef, a member of the Shas party's Council of Torah sages and the son of the late Sephardic rabbinical authority Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef, launched a blistering attack on MK Yehuda Glick (Likud) over his refusal to return to the Knesset during the Shiva mourning period for his wife in order to vote on the Supermarket Law.
"If this was a vote regarding the Temple Mount, he definitely would have come vote despite it being the Shiva (mourning) period," said Yosef, alluding to Glick's advocacy for Jewish prayer rights on the Temple Mount.
"However, when it comes to the holy Shabbat, they made a new religion for themselves, a religion of only the Temple Mount," continued Yosef. "What about Shabbat?"
Yosef continued to attack Glick, alleging that "his religion is distorted if all he cares about is the Temple Mount. Of course Glick should have left his wife's Shiva and voted- it isn't even a halachic question".
Shas leader Aryeh Deri had come under attack from across the political spectrum after he attempted to convince Glick to return to the Knesset after burying his wife in order to vote for the Supermarket Law, which forbids various businesses from opening on Shabbat. The law eventually passed last week by a razor-thin margin of 58-57.
Deri eventually apologized for his efforts at swaying Glick, tweeting that the Supermarket Bill "was intended to preserve the holiness of the Sabbath," and stressed that "If I hurt the feelings of my friend Yehuda - I apologize."
Last week, Glick brushed off the incident and maintained that he did not have any hard feelings towards Deri. "It’s very hard to upset me," Glick said in an interview with Hadashot (formerly Channel 2 News). "It was irrelevant, so I was not in a place to get hurt or angry. The moment they told me that Deri had apologized, I asked my rabbi to tell him I was not angry with him, that he can be completely calm, that if I met him I would give him a hug."