Israel’s largest ultra-Orthodox party? Likud

The sight of Haredim streaming to the polls in last week’s Likud primaries points to a deeper and troubling trend: Likud, Israel’s long-ruling party, is changing its character and values, becoming an ideological offshoot of Shas and edging ever closer to United Torah Judaism. In speeches by its MKs, in the legislation and policies it advances, and now in the dramatic Haredi presence among party members and primary voters, Haredi ideology is steadily taking over Likud. Choosing a less Zionist path and preferring Haredi values is a legitimate political choice. But Israel’s ruling party should at least be candid with the public about the transformation it is undergoing.

At several polling stations in last week’s Likud primaries, black and white were the dominant colors. This was especially striking at Jerusalem polling places near Haredi neighborhoods, including the International Convention Center, but Haredi voters were prominent elsewhere as well.

It is hard to know exactly how many Haredim joined Likud and voted in the primaries. Reasonable estimates, based on claims by leading Haredi membership organizers and turnout at heavily Haredi polling stations, put the number at about 10,000 – roughly 14% of all primary voters. Past election results suggest that despite holding Likud membership, almost none of them will actually vote Likud in a general election. Most joined the party and voted in its primary not because they support Likud, but because someone paid them – either in cash or with the promise of heavenly reward. The result is substantial Haredi influence over the ruling party, not through elected representatives but through the back door.

More significant still is the embrace by senior Likud ministers and MKs of the talking points and values of the Haredi parties and their supporters. The clearest evidence is the agenda Likud pursued in the current Knesset. With few achievements to show in almost any other sphere, its eagerness to advance virtually any law serving the Haredi ethos of avoiding military service in the name of “Torah study” stands out.

The Knesset’s final days were a legislative blitz devoted to Haredi interests: the Basic Law: Torah Study, a law shielding draft dodgers from arrest, and Shas’s jobs bill for kashrut supervisors are just a few examples. All this followed an entire term in which Likud lavished funds on the Haredi parties and indulged their every budgetary demand.

One might say this is simply the price of political partnership – that Likud has been forced to dance to the Haredi tune. But that explanation goes only so far. The speeches and statements of Likud representatives throughout this term suggest something deeper. Listen to party figures, and you hear an enthusiasm for Haredi ideology that seems to go well beyond routine political opportunism.

Consider coalition chairman Ofir Katz, who placed fifth in the Likud primary, delivering an impassioned speech on the value of Torah study as he presented the Basic Law: “Torah Study” – a law that, in fact, debases the Torah. Or Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi, another Likud figure rewarded by party members, who declared his support for the Haredi “million-man rally” against military conscription and even considered attending. Then there was Finance Committee chairman MK Hanoch Milwidsky, who defended funding Haredi institutions that do not teach even basic core subjects and focus exclusively on religious studies, because the core curriculum includes “your values imported from AliExpress.” These are not isolated examples.

Likud’s partnership with the Haredi parties began under Menachem Begin and has flourished ever since. Benjamin Netanyahu strengthened that alliance and made it the foundation of his political “bloc.” But in the twilight of Netanyahu’s premiership, the relationship appears to have moved beyond political alliance into ideological surrender. Increasingly, Likud is adopting Haredi conceptions that are, at their core, also anti-Zionist: a worldview that treats the flourishing of the State of Israel, even its very existence, as secondary to preserving the Haredi ghetto.

Haredi journalist Aryeh Erlich, editor of Mishpacha magazine, captured it perfectly when he tweeted: “Israel’s largest Haredi party is neither Shas nor United Torah Judaism. It is Likud.”