The daughter of the late spiritual leader of Shas, the Sephardi ultra-Orthodox party, said Sunday that Shas would "disappear" and has announced plans to establish her own political party.
Speaking at a conference in Tel Aviv hosted by the Gesher Leadership Institute, Adina Bar-Shalom, the daughter of the late Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, said, "Politics gives us abilities that don't exist anywhere else."
According to Bar-Shalom, "There is a group that has been established – secular, haredi and [national] religious – who have been working together for two years already. We have time, and we are working on a run for the next Knesset."
This is not the first time Bar-Shalom has discussed her political aspirations. Previous reports said she had been approached by the Yesh Atid party, as well as asked to join forces with former Yisrael Beytenu MK Orly Levy-Abekasis, who has announced that she plans to found a party of her own.
Bar-Shalom accused Shas leader Arye Deri of shuttering the Haredi College in Jerusalem, which she founded, saying, "I trusted him and thought he was loyal to [my] father's legacy. I'm very hurt. I believe that as an elected official and as interior minister, he could have done a lot if he'd wanted to."
The Council for Higher Education in Israel announced in 2016 that it would be closing down Bar Shalom's college, citing budget deficits and declining enrollment.
"I went along with him, and it was a mistake. He knew how to negotiate between and connect worlds and was head and shoulders above others. It's too bad he went to prison and got ruined," Bar Shalom said.
