In Israel and America, Haredi Jews Are Starting To Vote Like Everyone Else

Between the two of them, Israel and America contain over 80 percent of the world’s Jewish population, and when the two countries both go to the polls, one might say without too much exaggeration that so do the Jewish people. Following the elections for the 25th Knesset in Israel, and the midterms in America, Jews across the political and religious spectrum are looking back on their defeats and victories—and perhaps none more so than the Ḥaredim.

In Israel, the Ḥaredim are celebrating an electoral triumph. Yahadut ha-Torah (in English, United Torah Judaism), the ḥaredi umbrella party, belied widespread predictions that it would hemorrhage supporters to rival parties and won seven seats. Even more importantly for them, the right-wing parties as a whole won a strong majority, breaking three years of deadlock and allowing Ḥaredim once again to occupy key ministerial positions for the next four years under the leadership of their indulgent patron Benjamin Netanyahu.

In America, by contrast, Ḥaredim in their New York stronghold are looking back on an election that promised much but delivered little. Enraged by threats to the independence of yeshivas, by perceived bullying by Democratic officials during lockdown, and by their easygoing attitude towards street crime, Ḥaredim took the unprecedented decision to do battle with the incumbent governor, throwing their weight behind the insurgent campaign of the Republican Lee Zeldin. Ḥaredi centers like Boro Park went to Zeldin by 90 percent or more. In the event, however, the incumbent Kathy Hochul won with a comfortable margin. (Only two ḥaredi leaders bucked the community trend and endorsed Hochul: Rabbi Dovid Twerski, the leader of the Skver ḥasidic sect, and Rabbi Aron Teitelbaum, leader of one half of the powerful Satmar movement.)