Unusual collaboration: Shas and Yesh Atid promote law prohibiting ascent to Temple Mount

Opposition Leader Yair Lapid and Shas Party Chairman Aryeh Deri have spoken in recent days, for the first time in ten years, to jointly promote a bill that would adopt Rabbi Ovadia Yosef's halachic ruling, prohibiting Jews from ascending the Temple Mount, Channel 12 News reported.

According to the report, the unusual collaboration resulted from the tensions between Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and the haredi parties, following his ascent to the Temple Mount.

In the conversation that took place between the two rival politicians, Aryeh Deri agreed to support Yesh Atid's bill, that would only be submitted after the break, during the next Knesset session.

MK Amit Halevi of the Likud responded to the announcement: "Even a joint vote by the Knesset members of Shas and Yesh Atid together will not turn this great mitzvah into a prohibition. There is no Rabbi, including Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, who thinks that those who go up to the areas built by Herod on the Temple Mount and pray there violate any prohibition, and therefore he also allowed individuals to ascend as permitted by Jewish law."

"The only thing that will come out of such a collaboration is a reward for the enemies of God, who are the enemies of Israel and humanity. In today's circumstances, where the most sacred site for Jews has been hijacked and turned into the center of a religion that calls for murder and barbarism supposedly in the name of God, it is of great importance to go up to the mountain and return it to its rightful owners, so that it can once again become a divine beacon and a source of blessing and world peace. I call on the Shas Knesset members to vote with their feet and join the those that ascend the Temple Mount as permitted by Jewish law, instead of voting with their hands with Yesh Atid Knesset members against the tenets of Jewish tradition," MK Halevi said.