A former hareidi Jew, head of the “Light” Party, has petitioned the Central Elections Committee to disqualify the hareidi-religious parties for their anti-democratic stance. Yaron Yad’an, 47, founded the “Light” Party this year, with the goals of nullifying exemptions from the army based on Torah study, nullifying the religious education networks, and separating synagogue and state in the Jewish State. His party's petition to the Elections Committee states that the hareidi parties express “values and statements regarding democracy and government that do not jibe with the values of democracy.” Yad’an is famous in the hareidi world for having become religiously observant at the age of 17, establishing a hareidi family of seven sons, and then, after his bid to become Rosh Kollel [top rabbi in a Torah study institute] was thwarted, deciding that he and his family would become secular. “One evening,” it was reported in the now-defunct hareidi newspaper Yom HaShishi, “he came home and cut off the sidelocks of all seven sons, took off their yarmulke from their pure heads, and made the following terrible declaration: ‘From now on, we are all secular.' … The terrifying screams of the children that night shocked the community…” The newspaper’s report, which was upheld later by a court that ruled against Yad’an’s libel suit, also stated: “A wretched and unstable Jew named Yaron Yad’an was taken in from the street in Tel Aviv by Torah students and brought close to Torah, receiving help in finding his bride - a newly-observant young woman from Rechasim, where he remained to study Torah for several years until he was named the director of the local Kollel. Then, with delusions of grandeur, he crowned himself a ‘Torah giant' and demanded to be named educational head of the Kollel. The scholars prevented this because of his very non-commendable character traits and because of rumors regarding his modesty. He therefore went and left his studies, and then left his Creator, as ‘revenge’ against G-d Who had not fulfilled all his lusts…” “Light” Party sources say that if the Elections Committee does not disqualify the Shas and United Torah Judaism parties, they will consider turning to the Supreme Court. A source in the Shas Party told the Ladaat.net site that it would not comment on the matter, because “responding to a party that would not pass the minimum vote threshold in a school vote for student council would mean giving significance to something that does not exist.”
