A vehicle protest organized for Wednesday by the mainstream Haredi camp, including Agudat Yisrael, broader Haredi circles, the Edah HaChareidis, the Jerusalem Faction and others, is expected to proceed in an orderly manner. In a morning conversation on the “Kav HaMeyda” hotline run by Itzchak Dzalovsky, Rabbi Moshe Maya, the senior member of Shas’s Council of Torah Sages, urged people to take part in the demonstration.
Maya was quoted as saying, “It is excellent, this protest is a חובה, perhaps through it we will merit fulfilling the duty of protest.” His remarks amounted to open support for the rally and were presented as a clear directive from a prominent Shas rabbinic figure.
Later in the evening, however, Shas spokesman Asher Medina publicly distanced the party from the protest in an interview on Kol BeRama radio. He said, “We will not participate in tomorrow’s protest. Shas and Degel are refraining at this time from taking part in such steps, some with vehicles and some with horses, and we will mention in the name of Hashem our God.”
The statement sparked outrage among mainstream Haredi circles and among organizers, according to reports by journalist Avi Muskov. Sources familiar with the matter told B’Chadrei Chareidim that this was a “shocking red line” and that, if the party had chosen not to join formally, the spokesman should at least have remained silent rather than publicly contradicting the ruling of a senior Torah leader.
