Public relations official Yossi Rosenbaum, a haredi resident of Beitar Illit who is a member of the Likud election committee, requested to speak at a Central Election Committee meeting last Wednesday.
The meeting's agenda was a request to disqualify the Blue and White party from running in the elections due to the hate campaign led by Yair Lapid against the haredi sector.
"I have never expressed myself here on the committee. I'm here for the third or fourth term; I don't always think I'm the smart one so I try not to express myself," Rosenbaum said. "I look like a typical haredi and for those who don't know, I represent Likud here, not UTJ or Shas."
''I'm a liberal haredi and I can say that I'm a person who works 17-18 hours a day and I'm not exaggerating. I have a strategic consulting business. I represent very large bodies in the economy. I pay every month - more than 50% of my income goes to the State of Israel."
"And I'm telling you, that's how most of the haredi people I know around me are. Once I was walking in the Givat Ze'ev neighborhood of Jerusalem and I saw a secular man walking his dog. I then saw him take out a bag from his pocket and pick up his dog's waste and throw it in the garbage. I approached him and said, 'If only all the secular people were like you.' He asked me, 'Why do you say that?' I said to him, 'I'm used to it. Whenever I do something good, everyone comes up to me and tells me, 'If only all haredim were like you.'"
"I'm telling you. All the haredim are like me. I speak from my heart. I have a picture here. I'm a Karliner hasid, from the Karliner hassidus in Tiberias, hasidim like me with peyot [sidelocks] and wearing black and white, no different than a typical haredi. We have an entire unit in the army who enlist. I have a picture of them in uniforms, I'll send it to you. Karlin is the fourth biggest hassidus in Israel. It includes 2,500 families and they live in Mea Shearim, Beiter Illit and Modiin Ilit - only in the haredi centers."
He continued, "My problem is, I, for example, didn't enlist in the army but I volunteered thousands of hours for ZAKA (volunteer disaster rescue team). I want that you should see the haredim as haredim like me, because that's what they are. I volunteer for United Hatzalah (emergency rescue services -ed.). There are 5,000 volunteers like me, who leave their work and homes in order to help the Jewish people. Between me and you, you don't really want them in the army. You don't really want me to be the [IDF] Chief of Staff, you don't want a Chief of Staff like me. So let's set things straight."
"When I hear Yair Lapid, I feel hurt on a personal level. I feel like he's running a campaign against me on a personal level - racist language, anti-Semitic language. I walk down the street - people curse at me. For what? I'm taking something from somebody? I pay more taxes than anyone else. Even if the Likud votes against disqualification [of Blue and White], I'm voting for it as a sign of protest."
Watch the video below (Hebrew):