Talk of Sex Gets Israeli Minister Shai Piron All Giggly
?Penetrating? Debate: A reference to a term associated with sex caused some hilarity in the usually staid halls of the Knesset. Image by youtube
A reference to “penetration” in a speech to parliament caused Israel’s education minister to burst into a laughing fit that went viral on Tuesday on Israeli websites.
Shai Piron, who is also a rabbi, could not get past the first sentence of his address, on a proposed law against smuggling cell phones into Israel’s prisons, before beginning to chuckle.
“Mr Chairman, distinguished Parliament, the aim of this legislation is to deal with a serious phenomenon — the penetration of prohibited objects into prisons,” he said during a late night session on Monday broadcast on the official Knesset TV channel.
He briefly recovered but broke down again over the perceived sexual innuendo when the word “penetration” came up in the text for a second time. Legislators in the hall joined in the giggling.
Struggling to continue, Piron wiped tears from his eyes, took a sip of water — and finally went back to his seat, unable to read on.
He later explained to reporters that he had been caught off-guard by the phrasing in the speech, which he delivered at the last minute after a cabinet colleague was called away.
It’s our birthday and we’re still celebrating!
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news.
This week we celebrate 129 years of the Forward. We’re proud of our origins as a Yiddish print publication serving Jewish immigrants. And we’re just as proud of what we’ve become today: A trusted source of Jewish news and opinion, available digitally to anyone in the world without paywalls or subscriptions.
We’ve helped five generations of American Jews make sense of the news and the world around them — and we aren’t slowing down any time soon.
As a nonprofit newsroom, reader donations make it possible for us to do this work. Support independent, agenda-free Jewish journalism and our board will match your gift in honor of our birthday!
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
