With his dark suit, black skullcap and graying beard, Rabbi Haim Amsalem hardly looks the part of a revolutionary. But the soft-spoken lawmaker is causing an uproar in the influential and tight-knit ultra-Orthodox world in Israel with a simple message: It's time for people to go to work.
It is a stunning call to upend a tradition ingrained for generations: Most devoutly religious men in Israel study the Bible instead of entering the work force or doing military service that is compulsory for others, relying on payments from the state.
Amsalem's view - that work and integrating into mainstream society are necessary for the insular ultra-Orthodox community to progress and emerge from considerable poverty - has become the talk of the country in recent days.
It has turned the previously unknown backbencher into a darling of the secular media and won him thousands of immediate supporters from across the political spectrum. It also got him kicked out of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party.
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