Shas it to me!

Elections gimmicks. The Meretz party had the best shtick during the 1999 election. They had their activists stand on major traffic junctions throughout the country and hand out little fans. Israel is a nation of people who love grilled meat. Throughout the spring and summer the smell of cooked animal lingers in the air. It's the second national pastime - politics being the first of course. Israelis aggressively fan the fires of their coals to get them as hot as possible. It�s a skill that took me years to perfect.

You use whatever you have to l'nafnef (fan) the coals. A piece of cardboard, newspaper, notebook - you make due with what you have. Meretz handed out little fans near all the national parks with their logo and slogan prominently displayed on them. Thousands of grillers throughout the land waved the flag of Meretz while fanning their flames. It was the most creative election tschoka I have ever seen.

The ultra-Orthodox Shas party does something a little bit different. They hand out amulets blessed by Rabbis. I kid you not. Amulets. Labor party Secretary-General Ofir Pines-Paz asked the Central Elections Committee chairman to issue orders against Shas and to ban them from handing out the amulets. The Labor party should concern themselves more with the positions of the Shas party rather than the harmless amulets they hand out.

It frightens me that 17 members of my government (the third largest mandate in the Knesset!) are religious fundamentalists whose only interests lie with themselves and not the greater good of the Jewish people. A party who makes political choices based on what their Rabbis say and make important political decisions based on how much money they are going to receive. The Shas party are political whores who will form a coalition with anyone, as long as the government coffers are filling their pockets. As I have mentioned before there are many corrupt politicians in the Knesset. But Shas takes the cake. I obviously don't need to mention Aryeh Deri's thievery. Last month, Labor and Social Affairs Minister Shlomo Benizri from Shas was questioned (for the second time) by Police on taking bribes from contractors. Over the holidays in September, the Health Minister, also a Shas member spent a full week in the David Intercontinental Hotel in Tel Aviv and racked up a bill of over 6000 dollars. He attempted to write off all of his expenses to the Knesset, which is essentially the taxpaying public.

When the Knesset voted on the current budget for the coming year, the vote was postponed for four hours because the Shas MKs want to go hear a lecture given my Rabbi Ovadia Yosef. They basically blackmailed the Likud party. They told them, �Postpone the vote, or we won't support the budget�. Both the Labor and the Likud parties are slaves to the Haredim.

Everyday that Shas remains in the government Israel begins to resemble a theocracy more and more. A nation closer to Iran than my ideal democracy.

Shas spearheaded the censorship of pornography on Israeli television. The pornography was strictly pay-per-view television. Majority of Haredim do not even own televisions so there would be a zero possibility that their "constituents" would be exposed to the "corrupting" movies. I�m not a fan of porn myself but gosh darn it if I want to watch Debbie Does Dallas it should be my right.

Two months ago an amusement park in Haifa was fined 235,000 shekels by the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs (A Shas controlled ministry) for operating on Shabbat. This act violated the status quo of Haifa where all entertainment centers, movie theaters and transportation operate on Shabbat.

When it became apparent that the first openly gay member of Knesset, Uzi Even would be sworn-in in November, Nissim Zeev of the Shas party declared he would not be shaking Even's hand after he is sworn in. "That man represents debauchery and bestiality in mankind" he said. Eli Ishai, chairman of the Shas party stated, "This represents a moral decline".

I'm elated that the polls are showing that Shas is going to take a huge hit in the next election and that their seats are projected to decline by 50 percent.

Three possible reasons for their decline.

1) We are switching back to voting just for parties and not a prime minister and a party.

2) Ex-Shas leader Aryeh Deri's decision not to be involved in the party.

3) A general disgust with Shas'shenanigans over the past couple of years.

Whatever the reason is, the projected decline is a welcome one.

United Torah Judaism, the other Ultra-Orthodox party in the Knesset is equally as dangerous to Israeli society. They currently only have five seats but because of the natural growth of their community their political power will continue to grow and grow.

There are 300,000 ultra-Orthodox students. They do not serve in the army. They declare themselves to be students of Yeshivot. Many of these students aren't students at all. Their personalities for whatever reason aren�t conducive to sitting in a Yeshiva and learning all day. Meanwhile, they continue to receive government stipends.

I have no problems with Jews learning in Yeshivot. I do have a problem however when an entire segment of our society does so.

Before the state of Israel was established and majority of the ultra-Orthodox world lived in Eastern Europe very few learned full-time in Yeshivot. The Kollels were only for the greatest religious minds. Everyone else worked for a living. The same is the case in America today - the ultra-Orthodox work for a living.

The full-time Yeshiva students get married have a numerous amount of children whose costs we also cover.

Not to mention that the Haredim do not even recognize the state of Israel. Their religious beliefs state that there cannot be a state of Israel until the messiah arrives.

I and all other tax paying Israelis carry the burden of hundreds of thousands of people that do not even acknowledge that the state of Israel exists! They exercise their voting rights in a country that they do not believe in! The absurdity of it all!

We, the Israeli taxpayers cover their costs!

We are taxed almost fifty percent of our salaries to cover, among other things, the growing rate of 'unemployed' in this country. Financially, the burden on Israelis is enormous. A large number of Israelis live in overdraft and are in debt because of the heavy load of taxes.

Jerusalem, is the second poorest city in the country. Over 10,000 secular Jews leave Jerusalem every month because of the Haredi influence. In time, Jerusalem will be the poorest city in the nation and be completely religiously controlled. Nearly half of the city council is made up of Haredi parties. Yeshiva students and their families are also exempt from paying municipal taxes forcing an even stronger financial burden on the Jerusalem taxpayer. Basically, the city is being controlled by people who don't pay taxes themselves.

We need to get the yeshiva students in the work force. It is a documented fact that the Haredi non-participation in the work force results in a loss of more than 30 percent of the Gross National Product. That is a 13 BILLION loss for the Israeli economy.

Separation of Synagogue and State

I have always been a firm believer in the separation of church and state. I believe that if a Conservative, Reform or secular Israeli Jew desires to get married in the religious ceremony of his/her choice, it should be his/her right to do so. Going to the Rabbinate to register my marriage and dealing with the Rabbinic authorities was among the most humiliating experiences of my life. What could have been an eye opening and rewarding experience for me as a Jew instead left me with a horrible taste in my mouth.

It is an embarrassment that Jews who want to be married in a non-orthodox (Conservative, Reform, secular etc) ceremony need to fly to Cyprus to do so.

If an Israeli wants to have a secular funeral for their relative, I believe it is their right to do so. I believe the attempt to convert Israel into a halachic state endangers the very essence of the state of Israel. I believe that each citizen is entitled to decide what to believe in, what to eat, what to buy, when to buy, when to travel, when to have fun, where to have fun, whom to marry, how to marry/ divorce and where to be buried.

I hear criticism from my American friends all the time about my feelings towards the non-taxpaying/draft dodging segment of our society. To many American Jews, the ultra-Orthodox represent a lost world. It's a novelty for them to visit the haredi neighborhood of Mea Shearim in Jerusalem - it gives them the feel of shtetl life that no longer exists anywhere else in the world. To them, it�s authentic Judaism. To me, it's depressing.

Tags: bbq, israel, knesset, Meretz, Shas