TEL AVIV, Israel -- The super-hero of Israel's strident secularists is an irreverent, rotund pundit who parlayed public outrage over the increasing power of ultra-Orthodox Jews into a surprising electoral success in last month's election.

Yosef "Tomy" Lapid skewered Israeli politicians in newspaper columns and on raucous talk shows for almost 40 years. Now, he's one of them. The 67-year-old dean of Israeli talk-show personalities won election to Israel's parliament May 17 and resurrected a moribund political party in the process.

His strategy was simple -- exploit the social divide between the secular and the religious in the Jewish state. His message: End the undue influence of those Orthodox Jews who insist on religious control of Israeli life and government.

While other candidates bemoaned the state of the economy or raised concerns about Israel's security, Lapid ridiculed kosher dog food and a toilet-paper factory that proclaims it observes the Sabbath. Why, he demanded, do dog food, toilet paper or dishwashing soap need to be approved by the rabbinate or conform to strict dietary laws?

"These things are not edible. Therefore there is no reason to have a kosher certificate for them. I challenge any rabbi to show me in the Bible where kosher dog food comes into our religion," Lapid said. "I have to pay money for this nonsense?"

This was pretty tame stuff by Lapid's standards -- he once called a convicted, but prominent, politician "that man, that criminal, that gambler, that thief" to his face on live television. But leading Orthodox politicians accused Lapid, a Holocaust survivor who immigrated here at age 17, of being an anti-Semite.

In his newspaper columns, Lapid takes on the mundane and the profound. He calls leftish politicians "eggheads." In a desert casino recently opened by the Palestinian Authority near Jericho, he sees a sign of hope for the Israeli-Palestinian relations. He defends President Clinton's indiscretions with Monica Lewinsky -- "a chatterbox goose" -- even though he says Clinton is an "indefatigable sex fiend."

Lapid's campaign message against the ultra-Orthodox was direct -- "We have to stop them!" It resonated with thousands of voters who have grown increasingly resentful of the religious establishment's control of their lives on such diverse matters as store openings on Saturday and places of burial. Many Israelis also resent the military exemptions given to religious students and the stipends they receive for religious studies.

So they catapulted Lapid and five other members of the Shinui (Change) Party into the Knesset, Israel's parliament. "This certainly was the most meteoric career in Israeli political history," he says.

A lawyer by training, Lapid is now among those vying for a place in the Cabinet of prime minister-elect Ehud Barak, who also campaigned on a pledge to reduce the political and social perks for the ultra-religious. He wants to be the justice minister.

"Tomy Lapid's battle is the battle of many of us for survival of the basic Zionist tenets on which the state of Israel was founded," says Uriel Reichman, a Tel Aviv college professor who recruited Lapid to lead the floundering Shinui Party.

But Lapid's often vitriolic condemnation of the ultra-religious also helped increase their numbers in the parliament. Shas, the main political party of Orthodox Jews of North Africa, nearly doubled its seats in the Knesset.

Shas was a favorite Lapid target. When one of its leaders accused him of being an anti-Semite, the Holocaust survivor fired back, "I should be put in a concentration camp, right?"

An ultra-Orthodox newspaper railed about Lapid's "insatiable desire for drinking [ultra-Orthodox] blood." He received death threats, and he hired two body guards.

But when an ultra-Orthodox voter asked Lapid, "Why do you hate me so much," the candidate calmly replied, "I don't hate you. As a principle I don't hate Jews because I am a Holocaust survivor."

Lapid grew up in a "very Jewish" but "totally non-religious home" in Hungary where his family had relocated from Yugoslavia. His father was the president of the Bnai B'rith chapter in their town; his uncle headed the Jewish committee. His family did not observe the Jewish dietary laws. They went to synagogue only on the High Holy Days.

In his office in Tel Aviv, Lapid projects a warmer image than the pale-faced, blue-eyed pit bull of the talk-show circuit. He speaks softly, explaining that "religion has its place" in a liberal, Western-oriented, free and secular society. But it has "no right to impose its tenets on people who don't care" about religion.

B. Michael, a columnist for the Israeli daily newspaper Yediot Ahronot, harshly criticizes Lapid for mounting a one-issue campaign that "spread a culture of hate."

"He isn't pretending to be Archie Bunker; he really is," Michael says. "There is no doubt he has contributed to the violent streak in Israeli discourse." He points to Lapid's appearances on the now-defunct talk show, "Popolitika," whose free-style format often led to raucous, biting debates.

But Amnon Dankner, a columnist for the Israeli newspaper Maariv and a close friend of Lapid who also appeared on the show, describes a different man: "He is a very intelligent and pleasant man, with a good sense of humor. He's clever. He's a kind of Israeli that's disappearing."

The author of 10 books, including European travel guides and a cookbook entitled "Paprika," Lapid is learned and well-read. He often reads several books at once and in different languages. At his bedside now are a 1,000-page work on the birth of modernity (in English); a memoir of a Holocaust survivor from the Budapest ghetto (in Hungarian), and an account of Israel's relationship with American Jewry (in Hebrew).

As president of Israel's chess federation, Lapid relaxes by playing chess on the Internet with opponents across the globe.

Dankner concedes that his friend can be a hothead, capable of "a violent rhetoric." But he doubts that Lapid will change. "Tomy represents something very deep -- a sense that the religious people have to be subject to the same yardstick of justice that others are."

When Reichman and advertising executive Aryeh Rutenberg approached Lapid about leading Shinui's campaign, Lapid told Dankner that he would probably accept the challenge. "After all, at his age, it's not everyday you get to create a new image for yourself," says Dankner.

Lapid may espouse a cause embraced by the secular left, but he is no left-winger. In a newspaper column earlier this year, he described himself as a "conservative liberal," a nationalist who supports peace, a supporter of capitalism but a believer in the welfare state, "an enthusiastic Jew and a committed secular."

Lapid views his new adventure in politics as an extension of his 40 years in journalism. "Here is an opportunity to put my words into political action."

But in a reflective moment, Lapid concedes that political life carries its own responsibilities.

"I have to get used to the idea that now when I say something it's not expressing my views in a daily column but pronouncing the views of a political personality who carries responsibilities," he says. "All my life I was thinking what to say -- now I'm thinking what not to say."

Pub Date: 6/05/99