As an emerging star in Yeshivah Hevron, he was known as “Machlouf Leib” — the rare individual who could bridge the Sephardic and Lithuanian yeshivah worlds. Later, Aryeh Deri proved his talents, galvanizing the disillusioned Sephardic masses, reigniting their pride and power with a political party they could call their own. They saw him as their leader — and later, as the victim who paid the price for their victory. Now Aryeh Deri retells the story in his own words

The small barbershop in Jerusalem’s Shmuel HaNavi neighborhood was a mixture of smells: talc and tonic, shampoo and the faintest hint of cigarettes — officially prohibited but evident nonetheless by butts piled up in a small tray in the corner. The day I happened in there, the smell was something deeper, muskier, heavier. It was the smell of discontent and restlessness.

The owner, a young, immaculately dressed Sephardi, had enough customers waiting for him that it seemed to require protzektzia to merit a glance from him. Several young men worked assiduously all around him, but as I stood there — a young American waiting patiently for a seat, trying to figure out my place in line — I soon realized that there was no line. People were coming in from the street to join the conversation, jumping in with a familiarity that suggested that they came in often, and that the topics rarely varied. Many entered, sat, chatted, and then left, dispensing with the formality of a haircut altogether. There were bigger things going on there.

Eventually, someone took pity on me and cut my hair. (Maybe they tried out new barbers on unsuspecting Americans?) Of course, it became my barbershop of choice, and throughout the years that I lived in the Holy City, I looked forward to my trips there. Left out as I was, there was something in the atmosphere: passion, conviction and a youthful zeal, suggesting that the small storefront was a hotbed of political activity. The conversations centered around one person, essentially, and one cause. Their praise was reserved for him and his people, their most venomous criticism for his detractors and enemies. Every surface in the store boasted his picture, or slogans proclaiming his righteousness. They were the troops, and he was the one they would rally around.

Our Man Behind the Brick Wall

That little store was Aryeh Deri territory. Behind its plate glass window, they cheered him on and offered elaborate praises for his success. These twenty-somethings revered him. As children they had felt the anti-Sephardi bias prevalent in social, academic, and political circles. They had grown up as the young phenomenon from the Hevron yeshivah was launching a Sephardic revolution, rallying staggering numbers of supporters around the banner of Sephardic pride. They had cheered as the rising star of Israeli politics “showed” the Ashkenazic elite and led a campaign breathtaking in its ambition and success. They all shared in the accolades as the country, and Jews the world over, paid homage to the Sephardic avreich who wielded his influence and power to rebuild the infrastructure of the Israeli yeshivah world. And theirs became a cultural figure, an icon — the tall, dashing young man with the elegant ties, pipe hanging at a rakish angle from his lower lip.

When during that long, hot summer of 2000, as the government’s relentless, ten-year investigation into the Shas leader and his dealings concluded with a guilty verdict and jail sentence, the regulars at the barbershop prepared for war. The government hadn’t just attacked “Rabbi Aryeh,” they insisted; it had targeted the Sephardim and their successes — the Torah world and its triumph. Rabbi Aryeh was being hunted in an unprecedented fashion, and the government was pursuing him with a vengeance, investing millions of shekels and years of manpower so as to “settling the score,” said the people in the barbershop.

They weren’t alone in that claim. Aryeh Deri was becoming a hero.

Through it all, the long trial and sentencing, his appeal continued to grow. Rabbi Aryeh became larger than life, earning new adherents at every juncture. In a symbolic move, the politician removed his tie, as if underscoring his determination to leave politics behind, and spent the months before the sentencing learning in kollel. Overnight, the open-necked white shirt and suit jacket, Rabbi Aryeh’s look, became all the rage. Deri would emerge from the shelter of the kollel and find reporters, supporters, and fascinated onlookers waiting for a glimpse of him. With an indifferent smile that only added to his charisma, he would acknowledge the adulation of the masses and duck into his car. The paparazzi took to reporting on his every moment: what he was learning? With whom? Had he seemed tired?

When the day came at summer’s end, those adherents didn’t give up. Rabbi Aryeh was accompanied to jail with a convoy of thousands, sent off with a rally that was like nothing the unpretentious  town of Ramle had ever seen. The greatest rabbanim came to offer chizuk, famous singers adding blessings of their own. The music played, the crowd roared, and with their shouts of encouragement ringing under a darkening sky, Aryeh Deri, once the great hope for the future, was swallowed up by the prison gates.

They will get back to their own lives, said the media. They will soon forget him, predicted the pundits.

They were wrong.

In a large tent, Deri’s close-friend and chavrusa, Rav Uri Zohar, began to hold court day in, day out, saying shiurim to a group of talmidim. Others began to join and more rabbanim were added to the roster. By the middle of Elul, it was clear that the newly formed Yeshivat Sha’agat Aryeh meant business. When Succos bein hazmanim arrived, the ad hoc yeshivah in the tent was the destination of choice for families all across the country. Tens of thousands arrived daily to learn, sing and offer support.

“Every night men, women, and children stream to the prison area in a demonstration of ethnic resentment and religious fervor that echoes the discontents of Israel’s underclass,” reported the New York Times.

And behind the imposing brick wall? Media reports told of Aryeh using the time to return to his first love, learning Torah. One of the secular newspapers obtained a picture from behind bars — taken from an airplane flying overhead — depicting Deri sitting under a tree surrounded by inmates.

The people didn’t forget him, and through the long years that followed, they hung on to the tidbits and updates. When he was released early — for good behavior — they greeted him with song and dance, hoping he would lead them again. No, he said, not this time around.

And so, for the better part of the past ten years, Aryeh Deri has remained a private citizen, learning, working, spending time with his family. The media was never far, public fascination never really gone, but he managed to maintain a relatively peaceful existence.

Then came the Emanuel saga, with the High Court ruling against the parents’ right to keep their children home from school, and once again, chareidim and chilonim locked horns on a grand scale. The secular press, eager for a voice within the chareidi camp that could explain and enlighten, reached out to him. As in days of old, Rabbi Aryeh spoke, offering a solution that was startlingly simple and politically savvy, allowing all sides to save face. He met with the Slonimer Rebbe, spiritual leader of those chassidim who refused to send their daughters to school with girls from homes they considered less vigilant. His suggestion — one that he echoed in the pages of the secular newspaper, Ma’ariv; “Let the chassidic girls form their own track in the school” he said, “as is their prerogative, and the government should cut its funding to them. They want to be left alone and the government should save the money and leave them on their own.”

A few months later, the tragic Carmel forest fires devastated the region and took many innocent victims. The response of Chacham Ovadia Yosef was taken out of context and manipulated by a cynical media, and again, Deri was called on to explain.

Most recently, there was a near blow-up involving a disagreement between leading poskim regarding IDF conversions, and again, the clear, calm thinking of Aryeh Deri averted what could have been a major public battle between the camps of chareidi Askenazim and Sephardim.

Is Aryeh Deri back?

And a more basic question: Who is Aryeh Deri?

Machlouf Leib

On a late winter day in Jerusalem, I visit his office on beautiful HaPalmach Street in the Holy City. He stands outside, jacket-less, greeting me with the famous smile and welcoming me.

I listen to his story, the story of an individual and a movement, enraptured.

Many articles about accomplished people point to humble beginnings — but here, we’re talking humble. The story of the Deri family is the story of thousands of other immigrants who left Meknes, the Morrocan city of one hundred minarets, for a tent in an Israeli absorption camp. Along with an entire generation, they dreamed of a better tomorrow, willing to grab whatever meager opportunities would come their way so that their children might grow up as sincere, committed Jews and productive citizens.

The Deri family eventually settled in Bat Yam. Young Aryeh Makhlouf was sent to learn in the mother of Sephardic yeshivos, Porat Yosef.

I notice how his face lights up — literally — as I ask him about the most peaceful time in his life.

“The rabbanim in Porat Yosef introduced us to a world where great gaonus in learning fused with true saintliness,” he recounts. “They were exceptional people with short beards and simple clothing, radiating simplicity. They had no gabbaim or shamashim. I loved it. I was particularly close to Rav Ben Zion Abba Shaul, and spoke with him learning frequently.”

Aryeh was different from many of the other boys in yeshivah. He seemed possessed of a certain energy, perhaps a drive to think outside the box, to broaden his horizons. “Look, the Sephardi boy is characterized by his ‘temimut’ — I was different,” he concedes.

His rebbi, Chacham Ben Zion, told him, “Go to Hevron; you belong there. You will acquire new dimensions.”

Back then, Aryeh Deri had no concept of the term “inferiority complex.” “I knocked on the door and asked to be accepted, and in those days, it wasn’t a big deal. I came into this elite Ashkenazic yeshivah with my tallis and ha‘avarah sephardit and didn’t apologize. Other Sephardic boys would change their minhagim to fit in; not me. When I got an aliyah to the Torah, I proudly gave the gabbai my full name, Aryeh Makhlouf, even though some may have laughed at the ‘ethnic’ name. When chodesh Elul came, I organized a Sephardic minyan for Selichos.”

In the annals of Hevron Yeshivah, in fact, Aryeh Deri is known by his nickname: Makhlouf Leib, a reference to his “mixed” identity, a proud Sephardi who distinguished himself in the leading “litvishe“ yeshivah. In time, he was appointed gabbai of the dormitory, a respectable position, evidence of his organizational skills and the trust of the roshei yeshivah. The bochur rose through the ranks of the yeshivah, and his rebbeim predicted a bright future for him in the olam haTorah. He got married, committed to realizing their vision.

“My wife, Yaffa, wanted to marry a talmid chacham.”

And so, with that hope in mind, the newly married avreich joined the kollel of Yeshivas Mir. “But I had no money, so we moved out to a newly established yishuv, Maaleh Amos, where we could afford to live.

“They were giving a few hundred dollars a month to settle there. Rav Noach Weinberg was behind the initiative. It was mainly a community of American baalei teshuvah, and my friend Rav Uri Zohar and I were looking for a place we could learn in peace, so we went there. It was clear that we needed a real talmid chacham among us, and I convinced my rosh yeshivah from Hevron, Rav Hillel Zaks, to come live there as well. We tried, but it didn’t work out — it was no shidduch, Americans, Israelis, baalei teshuvah, Sephardim and Ashkenazim. It didn’t go, but I had tasted large-scale askanus for the first time and I had learned a thing or two.”

Restoring the Crown

It was 1983. The Israeli political climate was ripe for change. The regular players — Labor, Likud, the chareidi, communist, and nationalist parties — were all front men for a much deeper, more subliminal drama being played out in outdoor cafes and in front of kiosks. Resentment at the Askenzaic political elite had reached a boiling point. In the yeshivah world, the population of Sephardic bnei Torah had exploded and they were a force of their own. Yet their political representation was nil and their institutions received disproportionate funding from the religious parties.

The sleeping giant, the Sephardic electorate, was disorganized and, in many places, far from certain that it had the power to take on the establishment. The Jerusalem City Council included a small party called Shas, but it was only on the municipal level.

Chacham Ovadia Yosef, the spiritual father of Sephardic Jewry, was ready to act. Enter Aryeh Deri.

The relationship between Deri and his mentor had started years earlier, while Aryeh was still a talmid in Hevron and a close friend of David Yosef. “Rav David had asked me to learn privately with his younger brother, and I accepted. It was an opportunity to be welcomed into an absolutely glorious house. They lived on Tchernichovsky then, and it was a home filled with Torah. At night, the Rav would be sitting and writing, or in conference with other rabbanim — there were always other rabbanim coming and going: Rav Zolty and Rav Goldshmidt, Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach and even, yblct”a, Rav Elyashiv would visit regularly to discuss pressing issues.”

“Spending as much time in the house as I did, I attracted the notice of the Rav and he drew me close. Once a week, I would come in to him to get paid for my tutoring job. He would ask how much he owed me and then climb a ladder to ascend into this little cupboard where he kept his cash. He would hand me the money and would always chat with me, treating me like a friend, rather than an awed yeshivah bochur. I was a frequent guest for seudot. In time, our relationship progressed and he was like a father to me.”

Back to 1983.

As the Sephardic bnei Torah attempted to galvanize political power, young Aryeh Deri, with his eloquence and diplomatic skills, was drafted to the cause. “I went to Yechezkel Eschayek — himself a Sephardi — the attendant and confidant of Rav Shach, and explained the potential of a Sephardic voting force. He heard me, and arranged for me to come in to the rosh yeshivah, Rav Schach. Rav Schach listened to my presentation, the picture I painted, and it was clear that he appreciated it.

“I walked out of that room with the sense that, with the Rosh Yeshivah’’s backing, we would change the world. You have to understand, there was this tremendous lack of self-confidence in our camp. The Sephardic community in this country went through so much humiliation since the establishment of the State, a war against their traditions and culture — and it had an effect. Rav Yitzchok Peretz would say that in his travels through South America and Mexico, through France and Canada, Sephardic Jewry enjoyed prestige and success, with beautiful communities and institutions. Here, we felt incapable of rising and standing tall. When Rav Ovadia appeared and announced his intention to restore the glory of Sephardic Jewry to its rightful place, it awakened dormant sparks of hope in our hearts. Suddenly, young Sephardim had a campaign, and a great man to rally around.”

Not only did they have their own Torah giant, they also had the backing of the Lithuanian world’s halachic decisor. “Rav Shach and Rav Ovadia were not a natural match, not at all,” Deri muses. “They were different types, but there was a mutual appreciation. I would consult with both of them, in preparation for that first election, and they usually said the same thing. They shared a vision.”

And Aryeh Deri couldn’t be happier. “This was the dream of my youth, to bridge the litvishe yeshivah world and the Sephardic olam haTorah.”

Makhlouf Leib. The dual identity.

The elections came and the new party, Shas, with the backing of the litvishe olam haTorah, shocked everyone — well, almost everyone — by winning four seats.

“I felt like I had done my job. We had a party, we had a resurgence of pride and we had gedolei Torah at our head. The future was bright. I was excited to return to private life and follow my own dream: to open a Sephardic Hevron. I wanted to open a yeshivah that would inject our bochurim with that gaavah d‘kedushah, that pride and self-esteem, where they would feel that learning Torah and being a ben Torah was the pinnacle of success and accomplishment.”

A Din Torah by Rav Schach

Aryeh Deri may have thought his political career was over, but Rav Yitzchok Peretz, the party’s founding chairman and a respected and treasured friend, wasn’t hearing any of it. He wanted the talented young man to stay on with the fledgling Shas.

“Though I’d accepted the position of secretary for the Moetzes Chachmei Torah, the supreme leadership body of talmidei chachamim, I didn’t want to spend all day in politics,” Deri recounts. “Rav Peretz called me to a ‘din Torah,’ in front of Rav Schach, and I pleaded my case.”

Rav Shach listened to the arguments. Rav Peretz felt that he needed Deri’s services while young Deri wanted to return to yeshivah.

Rav Shach relaetd the story of a fundraiser who came to complain to the Chofetz Chaim. “I spend all day collecting for the yeshivah, building Torah, but what of my own Torah learning?”

The Chofetz Chaim replied by asking the fellow how much a pair of hand-crafted shoes cost. “Six rubles, was the answer. “And what about a pair from the factory?” “Three rubles,” answered the collector.

“How come,” asked the Chofetz Chaim, “the shoemaker, who gets six rubles for each pair, lives a simple life, while the factory owner, who only get three rubles, is a wealthy man?”

The meshulach explained that the industrialist mass-produced shoes and sold many more pairs than the shoemaker, who could only make a few pairs in a day. Thus, the sheer volume of sales made the factory owner wealthy.

“You are like the factory owner,” said the Chofetz Chaim, “enabling hundreds of people to learn and making a small profit on each one, rather than the full profit of the shoemaker.”

Rav Shach looked up at Aryeh Deri.

“You will do for the olam haTorah on a grand scale from within the government.”

Conversation closed.

The Youngest Minister

In the newly formed government, Rav Peretz became minister of the interior and Deri became the mankal, the general director, of the office.

Early on, the religious party had its first issue, when an American woman who’d undergone a Reform conversion came to Israel and asked to have her passport stamped as a Jew, as mandated by the law at the time.

“She knew that there was no way Rav Peretz would do it, and she was looking for a fight,” Deri remembers the tension. “Rav Peretz wouldn’t fight though, and after consulting with Rav Shach and Rav Ovadiah, he resigned as minister. He couldn’t break the law, but he certainly wasn’t going to allow her passport to be stamped.”

The number-two man, Aryeh Deri, was appointed as the new sar hapnim, the youngest minister in the country’s history.

“I was furious, insulted. How come Rav Peretz was told to quit and I was left there all alone? I went to Rav Shach and said, ‘What, I’m a Shabbos goy? It’s not good enough for him but it’s good enough for me?’”

Rabbi Aryeh pauses before continuing. “That was the beauty of interacting with Rav Shach; he knew how to listen. He let me argue, making it clear that he understood my frustration. He wouldn’t pasken without first giving you the sense that he was hearing your perspective. He just listened.

‘Then he spoke. ‘Yesh lev, v’yesh moach — there is a mind and a heart, and they don’t always say the same things. The heart says that Rav Peretz must go, but you are staying.’”

The gedolim, explains Rabbi Aryeh, felt that a rav — especially a public one like Rav Peretz, who served as chief rabbi of Raanana — couldn’t even afford to enter dialogue in so sensitive an area. “But I was a politician,” clarified Aryeh Deri, “and it was my job to figure something out.”

So he did, the young minister, creating a new stamp with an asterisk, effectively discounting the validity of the stamp. “It said something like ‘yehudiya’ and then, on the bottom, it said ‘providing the conversion was a legitimate one.’”

Soon enough, the youngest interior minister in Israel realized Rav Shach’s vision, working assiduously to benefit Torah institutions. In fact, Rav Shach said, more was done for yeshivos during that era than in the decades preceding it.

“In short, I made time to meet with every single yeshivah and kollel head who came to my office and tried to help.”

The party faithful were ecstatic. “Suddenly, we saw a new generation of Sephardim taking real pride in our accomplishments. They knew what we were doing for the entire olam haTorah and they wanted to be part of it. Our network spread to the development towns with heavy Sephardic populations. In municipal elections, we were successful in having dozens of mayors elected under the Shas banner.”

WE WERE PARTNERS

At the age of twenty-seven, Interior Minister Deri was a guest of the city of Bnei Brak, where the mayor led him on a tour of the local institutions. The climax was a visit to Ponovezh, where he was welcomed by the elderly leader of world Torah Jewry, Rav Shach, at a special reception.

Deri towered over the diminutive rosh yeshivah, who took his arm and led him through the beis medrash, as hundreds of talmidim standing in respect watched in awe. He led the delegation to the dining room where there were refreshments in Deri’s honor.

“We were so committed to his vision: whatever he said, we did. When the Rosh Yeshivah founded his newspaper, Yated Ne’eman, our El Hamaayan network funded it. We bought the first thousand copies and distributed them for free.

“We were partners, Rav Shach’s messengers.”

The glory days of Shas would not last forever, though.

In the late 1980s, when relations between Agudah and the yeshivah world grew strained, the yeshivah world vied for a party of its own, true to its ideals.

“What followed was a period of confusion,” Deri describes the forces at play. “Degel HaTorah was established, and we no longer had Rav Shach as our head, since he had made a decision to form his own party. At the same time, he worked assiduously to make sure that it wouldn’t be at our expense. He took a most unusual step just after the split. He asked if he could come visit Rav Ovadiah on Chol HaMoed Succos, a big kavod, and sure enough, he came.

“The Rosh Yeshivah asked for a pen and paper — his attendants were surprised that he would do so on  Chol HaMoed — and wrote that he was instructing all Sephardic bnei Torah to vote for Shas, which he said was their mandate and responsibility. It was a big show of support for Rav Ovadiah and his party, but many of Rav Shach’s own people were upset, since it was unlikely that Degel HaTorah, the new party, would muster the required percentage of votes without the Sephardic bnei Torah. They didn’t have enough people to cross the minimum threshold to enter.

“Look, I was caught between a rock and hard place. On one hand, Degel wasn’t my problem, and Shas had plenty of support, but on the other hand, I was worried for the kavod of the Rosh Yeshivah. If the new party wouldn’t receive the necessary support to launch, it would be embarrassing for him.

“I felt like he was my father.”

Ever innovative, Deri hit on a solution. He went to Rav Shach and asked him for the name of a trusted talmid. “All my talmidim are trusted,” was the response.

Deri pushed for a name, and Rav Shach suggested Rav Boruch Weissbecker, the rosh yeshivah of Beis Mattisyahu. Deri paid him a visit.

Deri handed him a note and suggested that he circulate it in the yeshivos, across the country. It was addressed to Sephardic bnei Torah and it advised them to vote for Degel HaTorah, in honor of Rav Shach — but asked them to work on behalf of Shas until the election.

He smiles and explains. “You have to understand us, we are passionate people. I couldn’t take away the right of a Sephardi to be a ‘pe’il,’ to work for Shas. I could only ask that their actual vote go to Degel.”

The note helped. Degel slipped through the crack in the door with just a few votes. Rav Shach saw Deri not long after the election and embraced him. “I had the sense that he understood how dedicated I was to his cause.

“And we, Shas, didn’t suffer from it — we went up to six seats!”

Everything Was a Sugya

Deri breaks from the storyline to reminisce about Rav Shach.

“Everything was a sugya. He thought about any question as if it were a difficult Rambam. He would consider it from all angles, and only then offer an opinion. It was clear that he saw things in a totally different way than we did.”

The Deri family would come to visit Rav Shach every Yom Tov. “He would go find candies for my children and chat with each of them. He once showed my young son how to shoot an apricot pit across the table, a popular game in cheder at the time. He gave special chizuk to my wife, knowing how hard it was for her that I was never home.”

Deri remembers those days. “There were many nights that I would sleep in the office — I simply couldn’t leave if I knew that with more time, I could help more mosdos. Rav Ovadiah would constantly call my wife to strengthen her and thank her, assuring her that she was a partner in the zchus.”

Deri took no vacations — except one overnight trip to America. “Rav Beinish Finkel asked me to serve as guest of honor at the Mirrer Yeshivah’s dinner in New York. I went to ask Rav Shach and he said that since I had learned there in kollel, I had to show hakaras hatov, so I went.”

At the time, he was welcomed to America at a special luncheon with the Moetzes Gedolei Torah, where Rabbi Sherer greeted the young politician on their behalf.

“It was an exhausting time, but I felt like I was accomplishing, each and every day. And how could I be tired if I had two role models, both older men who, despite their many pressures, always seemed to be learning?”

Our conversation is being carried out in Hebrew, and I wonder how Rabbi Aryeh managed to maintain such a high-profile position without a working knowledge of English.

This too is a story. “One day, Rav Shach called me in and offered an impromptu lesson in the shitah of the yeshivah world, as opposed to the shitah of Satmar, in regard to the Israeli government. He then went on to explain the centrality of American and European Jewry to the Israeli Torah world, and instructed me to learn English, so that I would be able to work with Jews from abroad. I insisted that I had no time, pleaded with him, but he stood firm. ‘Ata chayav, you must,‘ he said. I had a tutor come to the office at 6:30 a.m. — that was the the only time I had — and I learned a little English. Eventually, though, it proved too hard and time consuming, and I lost what English I had.”

It’s this story that leads us into the most painful part of his saga.

In 1993, Shas had its most successful election ever, winning seventeen seats. Shas emerged as a superpower in Israeli politics, its chairman the toast of leaders on both sides of the aisle. The highly visible Deri, a proud Sephardi and outspoken chareidi, also became the subject of a ten-year investigation by the government, which eventually resulted in a conviction.

He had the political skills to navigate thorny issues between religious and secular, but Deri wasn’t equipped for what he terms “the fire of machlokess between gedolei Yisrael.” The views of his mentor, Rav Ovadiah, differed from those of Rav Shach, and the two parties — Degel and Shas — went separate ways.

“HaSatan mekatreig. It was a difficult period. The rumor was that Rav Shach was upset with me, but I knew the truth. I was constantly getting and sending messages, and I knew that he understood. I remember when Rav Shach felt that a certain minister had publicly made a chillul Hashem, and had to be ousted. He sent me a message that Shas had the power to call for the minister’s resignation. I made my way to his home in the predawn hours, when they let me in, and we spoke. Of course, I did exactly what he asked. All this at the time when ‘we weren’t speaking.’”

Deri’s smile is grim.

By the end of the 1990s, it was election time, and the investigation was nearing its end. Politicos suggested that Deri, shrouded in controversy, step down from Shas leadership prior to the 1999 election. Rav Ovadiah insisted that he remain, and Shas rose still higher, earning twenty-one seats — less than twenty years after its founding! The election, largely seen as a referendum on public support for the beleaguered politician, did nothing to change the verdict, and in the summer of 2000, Deri was escorted to jail.

“Just before I started my term, I went in to Rav Shach, just to ensure that he had no hakpada on me. He was very warm, and later that evening, Reb Menachem Porush called my wife to say that he had been by Rav Shach, who told him with great excitement that ‘Aryeh Deri was here.’”

Deri began his prison term feeling that the Rosh Yeshivah understood him and the decisions he’s made.

“I was too young to appreciate his plans, back then. Now, I often go to his kever, when it’s quiet, and remember those glorious days.”

Bittersweet Times

Back when I was a young yungerman, living in Eretz Yisrael, I never dreamed that I would get to meet the hero of that long, hot summer, much less ask the question: Did he appreciate the outpouring of support, the ceaseless proclamation of his innocence and righteousness that filtered in through the bars, or did he just want to be left alone?

“It’s a good question. Look, I certainly was looking forward to the peace and quiet. At the same time, when Rav Uri Zohar sat down near a tree and said ‘I won’t be separated from my chavrusa,’ I was sure that soon people would forget, that the noise would die down. I had no idea that it would become a site of pride, of revolt. So I guess I had mixed feelings: I felt the love and I appreciated it. But when Yediot Aharonot sent a plane overhead and they snapped a picture from the sky, that was unappreciated. Why couldn’t they leave me alone? I was behind bars!

“There’s a vort that kept me going during those days, the pasuk says ‘Tzidkascha tzedek l’olam ... mishpatecha tehom rabbah.” Rav Chaim Shmuelevitz says that ‘tzedek,’ the Ribono shel Olam’s chasadim, fuse with ‘mishpat,’ the depths of judgment. On the surface it’s bitter, but underneath sweetness is flowing. I felt that way in jail — it was lonely and difficult, I missed my family terribly, but at the same time, I felt the chasadim.

“At the plain wooden table where we received visitors, I met for the first time the young man who would marry my daughter, and there, with some cookies and soda, we made an engagement party. It was rough, but my son-in-law is an exceptional talmid chacham, a gift from Hashem.”

I remark that I will never forget the media obsession with the wedding, and weeks before the great event, there were printed interviews with unnamed sources who worked for the caterer, the photographer, the orchestra, speculations about the guest list and kibudim list.

He laughs. “A very dear and treasured friend of mine from America came especially for the wedding. He feared there would be no one there.

The last word before this is chasadim, these two paras go in, if not delete down to “from America for the simchah”I met the young man who would marry my daughter while in jail and was allowed out for the wedding. I will never forget the outpouring of support.

A treasured friend of mine came from America for the simchah. Here I was, in the middle of a jail-term, allowed out for a short time, he assumed everyone would have forgotten. He came up to the head table to say mazel tov and there was a long line of well-wishers ahead of him. He gripped my hand and said, ‘The people haven’t forgotten you.’ It was heart-warming for me. I had tried to help as many people as I could, and here, when I was down and out, they were telling me they remembered.”

And they still haven’t forgotten. Even now.

Now You Have to Use It

So does Aryeh Deri, who seems to be able to conjure up extraordinary public interest and support by merely nodding to the cameras, have a comeback plan?

“Rav Meir Shapira was asked by gedolei Yisrael to serve in the Sejm, the Polish parliament. His rebbi, the Tchortkover Rebbe, told him he should go, explaining, ‘Hashem gave you the gift of eloquence for a reason; now you have to use it.’

“I feel like HaKadosh Baruch Hu gave me an ability to be able to communicate with secular Jews. We need to bridge gaps. The government laughs at us, at the yeshivos and avreichim. We live here, we pay taxes, we are good citizens, and they live here too. I dream of being able to create a good working relationship with them.”

There is little for me to say. I reach across the table and shake his hand.

Welcome back, Rabbi Aryeh.

The people await you....

Originally featured in Mishpacha Issue 355