Interior minister and Shas MK Eli Yishai, in remarks at the Or David rabbinical institution the day after apologizing for comments attributing Israel’s failures in the Second Lebanon War to a lack of prayer among IDF soldiers, asserted that the Jewish people’s survival over two millenia was secured by adherence to the Torah.

“For thousands of years, even before the State’s establishment, each person was somewhere else in the world – without a country, without an army, without the Shin Bet, without anything,” Yishai said. “The Jewish people survived the 2,000 years since the Temple’s destruction to this day only thanks to the Torah, which protected the people of Israel. The people of Israel would not have existed without the Torah.”

A two-day strike that disrupted municipal services nationwide came to an end late Tuesday night as the Union of Local Authorities and the Prime Minister’s Office found middle ground on a range of economic issues.

The most significant outcome of the understandings reached by the two sides was the granting of discounts on water tax rates, which have already risen sharply over the past year, and a freeze on planned changes to municipal tax rates that would primarily benefit large families but dig into the budgets of financially strapped towns.

Still unsolved are about a dozen issues, including education and special needs programs, the distribution of national lottery revenues and other services, with both sides insisting that the other should bear the burden of financing the programs. According to the agreement reached late Tuesday night, these issues will be examined by a committee that is to be established in the coming days.

Responses to the agreements were divided along party lines. Interior Minister Eli Yishai, of Shas spearheaded support for the ULA’s list of demands, with support from Labor and Kadima. Most of the mayors who agreed to end the strike were affiliated with the Likud Party – following the lead of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who strongly opposed the ULA’s demands, which he said would cost the government billions of shekels.

On Wednesday, Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz announced that the Bank of Israel had adjusted its expectations for economic growth in 2012 downward, from 4% to 3.2%.

         The move is seen as a way of putting pressure on the Ministry that regulates bread prices. Minister Yishai hopes the government will agree to provide a one-time subsidy to low income families that will compensate them for the planned increase in the price of standard loaves of bread.

(www.koshertoday.com)