ketanah of Ponevezh, called Ponevezh L'Tzi'irim, and asked Shteinman to serve as rosh yeshiva (dean), together with Michel Yehuda Lefkowitz. Shteinman stopped giving his regular shiur in 1998, but retained the title of rosh yeshiva. He was also rosh yeshiva of Yeshivas Gaon Yaakov, which is led by his son-in-law, Zev Berlin. Despite publicly supporting life-long Torah study and forbidding secular learning, Shteinman's private positions were perceived as more nuanced and accommodating. This made him a target of criticism from both right-wing elements of the Haredi world, as well as reformists. One such false perception was that he supported the idea of weak yeshiva students being drafted to the Netzah Yehuda Battalion, a religious section of the Israel Defense Forces. Don Segal inquired about this rumor in a letter to Shteinman, to which he responded In a related development, the rosh yeshiva of Derech HaTorah brought a bachur (yeshiva student) in to see Shteinman. The student said he had no taste at all for learning, and that he had been unsuccessful in yeshiva, and therefore he wanted to go to the army. Shteinman told the student that it is forbidden to go to the army because they ruin people. The bachur retorted, "But today they have a program in the army where you can keep Torah and mitzvos." Shteinman responded, "There is no such thing. People who go to the army always get ruined." When the bachur tried to argue with him a bit, Shteinman responded forcefully, banged on his table and said, "I guarantee you that if you go to the army, regardless of what program you join, you will return a total non Jew.' Recoiling at this, the student gave up his plans and returned to yeshiva. Political career When Elazar Shach, the founder of the Haredi Degel HaTorah political party, would be consulted for advice, he would sometimes refer people to Shteinman. Shteinman was a leader of Degel HaTorah, and exerted much political power in the United Torah Judaism political coalition. He was close with Yaakov Aryeh Alter (the Gerrer Rebbe), a major supporter of Agudat Yisrael. Shteinman told the Degel HaTorah Knesset members that their main purpose for participating in the Knesset was to protect the status of yeshiva bochurim from being drafted into the army, and that not a single bochur should be conscripted. In March 2014, Shteinman organized a mass protest against Yair Lapid's