Whispers before the primaries: A parade of senior Likud members at the engagement of the son of a rabbi who served time in prison
Defense Minister Katz left the cabinet meeting to attend the wedding of the son of the mayor of Kiryat Ata - and that same evening also arrived at the engagement of the son of Rabbi Yoshiyahu Pinto, who served a year in prison for bribery. Along with him, ministers Kish, Amsalem, Zohar, and Silman, Knesset Speaker Ohana, and former Mossad chief Dadi Barnea were also documented. Silman: "I received a blessing for success in the primaries."
Not only the Defense Minister, and not only the wedding of the mayor's son: on Thursday, Minister Israel Katz left the Security Cabinet meeting to attend the wedding of the son of Kiryat Ata Mayor Yaakov Peretz, and alongside that, also arrived at the engagement of the son of Rabbi Yoshiyahu Pinto, who was previously convicted of criminal offenses and sent to prison. "All Katz cares about is videos. Netanyahu doesn't count him."
Katz was not the only senior Likud member fighting for a high spot in the primaries who attended the event. Alongside Katz, many others in Likud arrived at the son's engagement — Meir Eliyahu Pinto — including Education Minister Yoav Kish, Minister of Regional Cooperation Dudi Amsalem, Culture and Sports Minister Miki Zohar, Environmental Protection Minister Idit Silman, and Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana. All of these were documented whispering with the rabbi, head of the "Shuva Israel" institutions, who served a one-year prison sentence for giving a bribe to the late Brigadier General Ephraim Bracha.
On the rabbi's Facebook page, former Mossad chief Dadi Barnea is also seen hugging and shaking hands warmly with Pinto at the engagement event. Last year, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also met with Rabbi Pinto during his visit to Washington. On Thursday, Netanyahu did not even know that Katz had left the cabinet meeting, and asked: "Where is the Defense Minister?".
Minister Silman wrote online that she received a blessing from Rabbi Pinto for success in the primaries. She noted that the engagement was for the grandson, not the son, and added:
"Facing the alienation on the left from tradition and rabbis, the right is exactly the opposite. The blessing of the righteous has accompanied me from my first day in politics, and I believe in their blessing with all my heart."
The investigation against Rabbi Pinto and his wife was opened in August 2012 on suspicion of giving a bribe to a police officer as well as on suspicion of money laundering offenses. He was convicted in a plea bargain for offering Brigadier General Bracha $200,000 with the aim of causing him to assist him and provide classified information from the police investigation.
"I feel like a criminal, — Rabbi Pinto confessed to the committee that discussed whether to release him early from prison. — How many people left religion because they saw a rabbi giving a bribe. I feel pangs of conscience... I didn't just say I was wrong. I didn't come here to get a third off. I sat with the social worker and cried. I reached the depth of my pain over the bribe. I made the Torah a tool to dig with, which is worse than a bribe. I used my status as a rabbi in connection with all these things."
In 2019, Rabbi Pinto was crowned as the head of the rabbinical courts of the Jewish community in Morocco. At a ceremony held in Casablanca, with the participation of representatives of the kingdom and hundreds of locals, he was officially appointed as a supreme judge, and declared: "Today we are embarking on a new path."
