The decision was made by Torah Sage Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv following months of deliberations and numerous visits and consultations with fellow rabbis.
UTJ MK Avraham Ravitz announced the decision, saying his party would join for a trial period of three months – after which Rabbi Elyashiv would gauge the government’s willingness to keep the promises it made to the party. MK Yisrael Eichler said that amongst the guarantees made to the party were promises not to interfere with the hareidi school system, allowing it to remain independent. “In three months it will be clear whether the government stands by its word,” he said.
Small hareidi schools were due to be closed, and many placed under government supervision during the implementation of the recommendations put forth by the Dovrat Commission.
Ravitz told Channel One television that Rabbi Elyashiv, "Like every Torah scholar, took into account a wide variety of issues" in making the decision to allow the UTJ to join the government. The decision comes despite an extensive campaign to let the government fall. Internal opposition included UTJ members and several of the rabbis on the party’s Council of Torah Sages.
The Admor of Sadigura, one of 15 rabbis on the Council of Torah Sages, sent a letter to his colleagues, asking them to vote "nay." He wrote that joining the government at this stage would support the destruction of the Jewish settlement enterprise in Gush Katif. He said that monetary matters must be separated from the matter of the "destruction of communities, yeshivot and synagogues in Judea, Samaria and Gaza."
With UTJ’s five Knesset seats, in addition to Likud's 40 and Labor's 21, the Sharon government will once again have a Knesset majority - though 13 Likud members have already declared their intention to vote against PM Sharon’s disengagement plan.
Some 300 demonstrators – mostly hareidi yeshiva students – gathered outside the home of UTJ party chairman MK Yaakov Litzman Tuesday evening to protest his willingness to join the Sharon government – enabling it to push ahead with PM Sharon’s plan to expel 8,500 Jews from their homes in Gaza and northern Samaria.
Rabbi Elyashiv limited his consent, not allowing UTJ MKs to take any appointed positions. Two parties make up the UTJ faction, though. The Degel HaTorah faction's MKs will not accept positions, but MK Litzman, from the Agudat HaTorah faction, is slated to become Chairman of the Knesset Finance Committee. Degel HaTorah MK Avraham Ravitz will become Deputy-Minister of the Welfare Ministry once UTJ officially joins the coalition.
The coalition agreement is scheduled to be signed Thursday evening.
NRP chairman Effie Eitam said that the UTJ's decision is a humiliation for the entire hareidi-religious public. "The Prime Minister intends on destroying everything holy to the religious public and is simply using UTJ temporarily to push his withdrawal plan through," Eitam said. "He will toss them aside after three months when will have already used them to push through the destruction of the synagogues, schools, cemeteries and kollels (full-time Torah study centers) of Gush Katif and the northern Shomron.
UTJ MK Avraham Ravitz announced the decision, saying his party would join for a trial period of three months – after which Rabbi Elyashiv would gauge the government’s willingness to keep the promises it made to the party. MK Yisrael Eichler said that amongst the guarantees made to the party were promises not to interfere with the hareidi school system, allowing it to remain independent. “In three months it will be clear whether the government stands by its word,” he said.
Small hareidi schools were due to be closed, and many placed under government supervision during the implementation of the recommendations put forth by the Dovrat Commission.
Ravitz told Channel One television that Rabbi Elyashiv, "Like every Torah scholar, took into account a wide variety of issues" in making the decision to allow the UTJ to join the government. The decision comes despite an extensive campaign to let the government fall. Internal opposition included UTJ members and several of the rabbis on the party’s Council of Torah Sages.
The Admor of Sadigura, one of 15 rabbis on the Council of Torah Sages, sent a letter to his colleagues, asking them to vote "nay." He wrote that joining the government at this stage would support the destruction of the Jewish settlement enterprise in Gush Katif. He said that monetary matters must be separated from the matter of the "destruction of communities, yeshivot and synagogues in Judea, Samaria and Gaza."
With UTJ’s five Knesset seats, in addition to Likud's 40 and Labor's 21, the Sharon government will once again have a Knesset majority - though 13 Likud members have already declared their intention to vote against PM Sharon’s disengagement plan.
Some 300 demonstrators – mostly hareidi yeshiva students – gathered outside the home of UTJ party chairman MK Yaakov Litzman Tuesday evening to protest his willingness to join the Sharon government – enabling it to push ahead with PM Sharon’s plan to expel 8,500 Jews from their homes in Gaza and northern Samaria.
Rabbi Elyashiv limited his consent, not allowing UTJ MKs to take any appointed positions. Two parties make up the UTJ faction, though. The Degel HaTorah faction's MKs will not accept positions, but MK Litzman, from the Agudat HaTorah faction, is slated to become Chairman of the Knesset Finance Committee. Degel HaTorah MK Avraham Ravitz will become Deputy-Minister of the Welfare Ministry once UTJ officially joins the coalition.
The coalition agreement is scheduled to be signed Thursday evening.
NRP chairman Effie Eitam said that the UTJ's decision is a humiliation for the entire hareidi-religious public. "The Prime Minister intends on destroying everything holy to the religious public and is simply using UTJ temporarily to push his withdrawal plan through," Eitam said. "He will toss them aside after three months when will have already used them to push through the destruction of the synagogues, schools, cemeteries and kollels (full-time Torah study centers) of Gush Katif and the northern Shomron.