Hareidi Knesset Member Yaakov Litzman now is a full-fledged Cabinet minister, the first time since the days of the Ben-Gurion government that Ashkenazi rabbinical leaders have approved the position.

Unlike the Shas Hareidi Sephardi party, the Ashkenazi Yehadut HaTorah (United Torah Judaism party always has insisted that its Knesset Members not take a full Cabinet post, even if in effect they serve as minister, such as Deputy Health Minister Litzman.

The party did not want its members to carry out the responsibility of a full-fledged Cabinet minister, a post that could place Hareidim in a conflict with issues of Jewish law, such as abortion.

An appeal by an NGO to the High Court that a deputy minister cannot serve as minister without being called as such. The judges ruled in favor of the petitioners, leaving the Torah sages little choice but to allow Litzman to become a Cabinet member, with certain unspecified limits.

Torah sages from several Hareidi sects, including Vishnitz, attended a meeting Thursday morning that the Rebbe of Gur organized to discuss the spread of Shabbat violations in the country.

When the topic of Litzman’s becoming a Cabinet minister came up for discussion, and after a telephone conversation with the Rebbe of Belz, approval was given for Litzman to become a Cabinet minister, and he was blessed to “sanctify G-d’s name.”

At last, the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee has a new chairperson: Likud Deputy Foreign Minister Ze’ev Elkin.  It’s taken six months to get there.

Elkin will chair in rotation with senior Likud lawmaker and coalition chairperson Yariv Levin. Likud MK Tzachi Hanegbi is expected to replace Elkin as deputy foreign minister.

To soothe the ruffled feathers of Yesh Atid chairman and Finance Minister Yair Lapid, his choice for the post – Yesh Atid MK Ofer Shelah – will instead be made a senior deputy minister.

Lapid has been negotiating with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu over the issue, forever and a day. The position remained vacant since Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman was forced to leave while facing corruption charges in a trial that acquitted him of the allegations last November.

The appointment now goes to the Knesset House Committee for ratification. If approved, Elkin will take the first rotation, until January 1, 2015. Levin will then serve 17 months, until June 1, 2016. Elkin returns at that point, and remains until 2017. Levin will also continue to serve as coalition chairperson until November 2014, and simultaneously chair the Knesset House Committee.

Deputy Minister for Development of the Negev and Galilee Ayoob Kara on Monday called on Western democracies “to stop their intolerable procrastination, which allows the Assad regime to continue its massacres.”

Ayoob Kara, who is also a Likud MK, was visiting a tourism fair in the Druze villages, addressed the Syrian issue and declared that “the massacre committed by the Syrian regime in the town of Hula, where children and women were murdered, demands of the free world to take action and stop the intolerable lip service and foot-dragging which enables the Assad regime to continue the massacres, and, on the other hand, strengthens the presence of Al-Qaeda and other extremist organizations which exploit the vacuum left by Western countries, to take over the cities and strongholds of the opposition.”

More than 100 civilians, including many children, were killed since Friday in bombing by the Syrian army in Hula, a town in central Syria, according to the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights (SOHR).

Deputy Minister intends to hold a meeting on the Syrian problem with President Putin during his visit to Israel next month.

A Druze, Kara is one of the most outspoken conservative Knesset members, and a strong supporter of Israel. He opposed the uprooting of thousands of Jews from Gush Katif, Gaza, is a hawk on the Iranian nuclear threat, and supports Jewish settlement in Judea and Samaria.

With one exception, Labor MK Raleb Majadele, all the non-Jewish members of non-Arab Knesset factions are Druze.

On the eve of Yom HaShoah, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet on Tuesday adopted the recommendation of the Prime Minister, Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz, Deputy Minister for Senior Citizen affairs Leah Nass and Knesset Finance committee Chairman Moshe Gafni, and decided to increase the budget for the basket of services for Holocaust survivors, setting it at NIS 225 million for 2012.

The Cabinet also decided that more than 8,500 Holocaust survivors will receive a NIS 580 supplement to their monthly support payments (which are currently between NIS 2,000-7,000) thanks to the NIS 50 million increase in support payments for needy Holocaust survivors.

At the start of Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Netanyahu said, “Today’s decision adds to the many actions we have taken in recent years on behalf of holocaust survivors. We want to remember those who perished, the six million brothers and sisters, and heed the lessons of the Holocaust in order to ensure the future of our people.”

According to Deputy Minister for Senior Citizen Affairs Nass, there are some 200,000 Holocaust survivors currently living in Israel, 70,000 of whom lived in concentration camps and ghettos. “In recent years, we have succeeded in reaching 120,000 survivors, helping them utilize their rights and receive the Government assistance to which they are entitled.”

Finance Minister Steinitz noted that the budget for the Holocaust Survivors Rights Authority, headed by Ofra Ross, currently stands at NIS 2.9 billion, up from NIS 1.5 billion in 2005, and added that the Rights Authority is currently dealing with almost 90,000 Holocaust survivors, up from some 51,000 in 2005.