The Labor party issued a statement late Monday calling on rabbis and rabbinical court judges to “abstain from political activity.”
The statement, issued by the party’s Platform Committee for Religious Affairs, surprised many who had expected a statement more conciliatory towards the religious community.
However, campaign spokesman Avraham Burg — son of former National Religious Party leader Yosef Burg, and himself religious — said that “it represents a new style and therefore a new approach as well.”
The statement also reaffirmed several Labor Party positions, including opposition to “religious coercion,” promotion of “Jewish unity among all streams of Judaism” and opposition to the “Who is a Jew?” amendment to the Law of Return.
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