Remarks by ultra-Orthodox leader Rabbi Aharon Leib Shteinman excoriating the government over the haredi draft bill, which was passed this week, have sparked a controversy that appears likely to inflame existing tensions between the haredi and secular sectors in Israel. On Thursday, Israel Hayom published Shteinman's statements about the government and its ministers, saying "May God help us, they should all go to hell and suffer and be totally annihilated. ... May their names and memories be blotted out." Attorney Yoram Sheftel responded on Thursday to Shteinman's statements, angering haredi Knesset members. Sheftel took the same line in his response to the rabbi's remarks: "May his name and memory be blotted out, Rabbi Aharon Shteinman. You are debasing the Torah. You are a low, contemptible person. You have learned nothing from history and you continue to follow the same defiled, contemptible, rotten, despicable path of opposing true Jewish existence in the Land of Israel." The response from Sheftel caused a storm in haredi circles. Shas Chairman Aryeh Deri said that Sheftel's words were "contemptible, and that [he] should be fired from all his positions." United Torah Judaism faction chairman Menachem Eliezer Moses, called Sheftel "a crude person who crossed the line this time." Other United Torah Judaism MKs agreed with Moses. MK Moshe Gafni asked, "What can you expect from someone like this, who could stand in front of his people and defend [Nazi war criminal John] Demjanjuk-" MK Yakov Asher condemned Sheftel's "lust for publicity." MK Elazar Stern (Hatnuah) said that "slander and blasphemy won't get anyone anywhere, and the main victim will be the haredi public."
