Aryeh Deri, chairman of the Shas party, met Thursday with Israel's Sephardic Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef in an effort to resolve a leadership dispute that has roiled the ultra-Orthodox political movement. The conflict centered on Rabbi Yosef's desire to serve as president of the Council of Torah Sages, Shas's rabbinic decision-making body, a position Deri has opposed.
The two sides have now reached an agreement, according to party sources. Deri presented Rabbi Yosef with a letter from Rabbi Shalom Cohen, the elderly head of the Council of Torah Sages, stating that "Shas has preserved and continues to preserve the legacy of Maran, the halachic authority of the generation, our teacher Rabbi Ovadia Yosef of blessed memory, and that the Chief Rabbi, by virtue of being the continuation of his father's path, whom he crowned before his passing, will be the guide and instructor on the legacy of Maran of blessed memory in the Shas movement and its institutions."
Rabbi Cohen asked Rabbi Yosef to assume responsibility for guiding and directing his late father's legacy and leadership among the movement's representatives and institutions. Under the compromise, rather than holding the formal title of council president that Rabbi Yosef sought, he will serve as the movement's spiritual leader, a distinction that appears to preserve both men's standing within the party structure. Rabbi Ovadia Yosef ztz"l, who founded Shas in 1984 and served as its spiritual authority until his death in 2013, remains a towering figure in Sephardic Jewry.
