Milan (AsiaNews) – With one week to go before the elections in Israel, the picture painted by the polls remains highly uncertain, with the prospect – now more than likely – that neither Benjamin Netanyahu nor the ‘Zionist’ parties presenting themselves as an alternative, with former General Gadi Eisenkot as a potential prime minister, will secure the 61 seats needed for a majority in the Knesset.
This is also because another clear factor is that the turnout among Arab voters will be higher than in previous elections, and therefore their two main parties – the United Arab List and Ra’am – will secure a substantial number of seats. Any coalition alternative to Netanyahu, therefore, would seem virtually impossible without their involvement.
Whilst this is the general picture, there is a particularly significant contest within the Israeli right that deserves close attention: that concerning the vote of the ultra-Orthodox Jews.
The so-called Haredim – who are estimated to make up around 14 per cent of the Israeli population today – are traditionally regarded, from an electoral perspective, as the group with the most cohesive and stable voting patterns.
According to analyses carried out by the Israel Democracy Institute, in the last elections in 2022, 86 per cent of their votes went to the two largest religious parties – Shas (the Sephardic party) and United Judaism in the Torah (the coalition bringing together Ashkenazi groups).
In essence: they left only crumbs for the other parties on the Israeli right. In absolute terms, Shas secured 8.25 per cent of the vote, winning 11 seats, whilst United Judaism in the Torah secured 5.88 per cent, winning 7 seats. This result is essentially the same as in previous elections: for twenty years now, the religious parties in the Knesset have secured between 16 and 18 seats, with minimal variation largely linked to the overall voter turnout.
This bloc of votes has been crucial over the years in securing Netanyahu’s majorities. Never before, however, has anything been taken for granted as much as this time: from a demographic perspective, in fact, the ultra-Orthodox population is reportedly growing. Thanks to the higher birth rate within their families, of the approximately 595,000 Israelis aged between 18 and 22 who will be voting for the first time on 27 October, 105,000 are young Haredim. But this time, it is by no means certain that this will translate into support for Shas and United Judaism in the Torah.
The issue of conscription
The parliamentary term now drawing to a close has, in fact, been a very turbulent one for the two religious parties, due to the increasingly bitter dispute over the conscription of students at yeshivas, the rabbinical schools.
This issue became a hot-button topic in Israel during the war that began on 7 October 2023, with the overwhelming majority of the public growing increasingly impatient with the exemptions granted to them, despite the Supreme Court having repeatedly ruled in recent years that military service should be compulsory for all.
Netanyahu has tried to hold his own majority together, within which views on this issue vary. He has sought – as is his custom – a compromise, focusing on ‘voluntary’ enlistment (with limited results in numerical terms) and on the formation of separate battalions for them within the army. But Shas and United Judaism in the Torah wanted a law renewing the exemption, thereby further defying the Supreme Court. This move did not materialise in the end (as it would have risked alienating a large part of Israel’s secular electorate), sparking protests – some of them violent – organised by groups of ultra-Orthodox youths.
Just today, the issue has flared up again – a mere seven days before the election – following the arrests carried out by the Israeli military police at Ben Gurion Airport of a group of 40 young Haredim linked to the Chabad-Lubavitch community who were returning from the United States. The army is treating them as draft dodgers, as they had previously refused compulsory conscription. This move has prompted the religious parties to cry ‘interference in the elections’, with Netanyahu himself – in an interview with a radio station linked to the Haredim – condemning the incident, only to backtrack later by saying that ‘those who do not enlist will go to prison’.
The outgoing prime minister desperately needs the ultra-Orthodox to retain their seats in the Knesset. But within their communities, not everyone now trusts the Likud leader. The fear on the right is that many Haredim may stay away from the polls, feeling betrayed. And in a situation where the two coalitions appear to be essentially neck and neck, the scale of these defections could prove decisive in tipping the balance one way or the other.
The emergence of the Haredi Public Party
Finally, another important factor must be added to all this: in these elections, Shas and United Judaism in the Torah are no longer the only two religious parties. Among the 37 parties that have submitted their lists for the Knesset race, this time there are at least three others that explicitly represent factions within the ultra-Orthodox world.
The most significant list is the Haredi Public Party, led by Moti Leitner, deputy mayor of Beit Shemesh: this is a new, reform-minded party that aims to combat poverty in ultra-Orthodox communities, introduce the teaching of secular subjects in yeshivas and promote the integration of its young people into the labour market. Another extremely significant development for the Haredi community is that the list includes two ultra-Orthodox women amongst its top four candidates: Nechumi Yaffe (lead candidate), a former adviser to the National Security Council, and Ziva Glantz, a social entrepreneur committed to educational reform.
Although the polls place it well below the 3.25 per cent electoral threshold (it stands at around 1 per cent), the party is attracting attention as a possible alternative to the traditional ultra-Orthodox establishment. And some surveys suggest that it is gaining considerable support amongst young people, particularly amongst young women.
The other two lists, by contrast, are challenging the two traditional religious parties ‘from the right’. The first is Noam Le’Yisrael (Serenity for Israel), a party founded in 2019 by the disciples of Rabbi Zvi Tau, with the stated aim of defending family values by opposing homosexuality, feminism and progressivism, and which in 2022 stood as part of Ben Gvir’s list. The second is HaKahal (The Public), an ultra-Orthodox party led by Shlomo Elbaum, a Bnei Brak city councillor, which is fielding an all-male list comprising both Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews. HaKahal, however, also introduces a significant change: unlike Shas and United Judaism in the Torah, its candidates were not chosen by leading rabbis, but through primary elections held amongst its supporters. This is yet another sign that, even amongst minority groups – and perhaps even amongst the ultra-Orthodox – something is beginning to change.
