Otzma Yehudit minister suggests far-right party may woo Shas voters

Comments by Heritage Minister Amichay Eliyahu follow Haredi party’s refusal to pledge support for another Netanyahu-led coalition until draft exemption law is passed

A minister from the ultranationalist Otzma Yehudit suggested on Sunday that his party may try to attract voters from the Haredi Shas party in the upcoming election.

“The Sephardic Haredi public is Zionist. It was Zionist before Shas arrived and pulled it more toward the Lithuanian side of the map,” Heritage Minister Amichay Eliyahu told the Kan public broadcaster, referring to the non-Hasidic stream of Ashkenazi ultra-Orthodoxy.

“We made a mistake, we gave up on them and fought them, even my [religious Zionist] community — we didn’t get close enough to them, until the Otzma Yehudit party was established,” he said.

Eliyahu was asked about comments made the night before by Shas spiritual leader and former Sephardic chief rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, who said he had lost hope in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ever “repenting” — apparently for his perceived refusal to heed core ultra-Orthodox demands related to drafting Haredi men and sanctioning evaders — but expressed hope that Netanyahu’s main rival in the upcoming election, Yashar party chair Gadi Eisenkot, could still do so.

“Due to our many sins, we are in a secular, non-ultra-Orthodox country,” Yosef lamented in his weekly religious sermon. “We pray that everyone repents. There are those who will repent, there are those who won’t.”

“Will Bibi Netanyahu repent? Not a chance. Eisenkot, perhaps he will,” mused Yosef.

The remarks from the Shas rabbi came less than a week after the party’s political leaders, along with those from the Ashkenazi ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party, reportedly refused to pledge loyalty to Netanyahu and any future coalition he may try to form until two laws would be passed — a Basic Law declaring Torah study a foundational value of the state, and temporary legislation to halt the arrests of Haredi draft dodgers for 90 days.

“I think there’s an opportunity for Shas voters to come to Otzma Yehudit,” Eliyahu said in response, signaling an effort to retain disillusioned Shas voters within the right-wing bloc by offering his party as an alternative.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit and Aryeh Deri’s Shas have publicly butted heads over legislation in the past, most notably in 2024 when Ben Gvir torpedoed the Shas-backed Religious Services Law, slamming the ultra-Orthodox party for allegedly blocking his inclusion in a senior ministerial forum, which would have provided him with greater influence over the course of the war triggered by Hamas’s October 7, 2023, onslaught.

A plurality of Israelis planning to vote for Zionist parties — including those planning to back Otzma Yehudit — oppose forming a government with the ultra-Orthodox parties after the upcoming election, according to a poll published in May by The Times of Israel’s Hebrew-language sister site, Zman Yisrael.

Israel is expected to hold national elections on October 27, with parties already positioning themselves for the campaign, seeking to maximize their seat totals while weighing potential coalition partners and alliances.