Rabbi Amichai Eliyahu, son of Tzfat's Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu and an MK for the Otzma Yehudit party, on Tuesday morning said that he would like to see a chief rabbi similar to his grandfather, the late Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu.
"I would like a chief rabbi who is of the same type as my grandfather," Rabbi Eliyahu told Kol Hai Radio. "But the first parameter is fear of Heaven. There are haredi rabbis who I would not want to see in that position, and on the other hand, there are Religious Zionist rabbis who are unfit."
Regarding the coalition negotiations, which his party has called a halt to, he said, "Yesterday there was a backtracking in the negotiations, because the Likud needed to compensate [Shas chief MK Aryeh] Deri, so they gave him the Negev and Galilee [Ministry]. We promised to act on the issue of the periphery. We will insist on receiving the tools that will allow us to strengthen the periphery."
"We are not insisting on portfolios, we are insisting on tools to carry out what we promised our voters. If we do not give the public what we promised, we will not be worthy of faith. The awful outgoing government gave enormous budgets to [United Arab List chair MK Mansour] Abbas. The moment this tax, that we are all paying, is removed, it will lighten the burden on the economy."
Regarding outgoing Prime Minister Yair Lapid's recent statements, Rabbi Eliyahu said, "This is characteristic of him. He speaks very highly of healing and unity, but at the end of the day, they create rifts. We do not need to unite with Lapid and his friends, everything they spoke against, they ended up doing themselves - appointing relatives, and corruption, and other things. They always took care of themselves and not the State of Israel. And so I am happy to see that they are leaving now."