Hatzibur Hacharedi Exposed

The money behind "The Charedi Public" comes from men who want the Charedi world changed from outside. Its campaign went where Charedim are not. Its leader turned down the best offer a Charedi politician has ever received, and a man who says he helped found his first list explained on television why he had no choice. The documents, the dates, and the words, in order.

Prologue: Wednesday, Seven O'Clock, Neve Ilan

Moti Leitner stood at a podium in a hotel outside Jerusalem and told the country he was not leaving.

"אני לא פורש. אנחנו לא פורשים. אנחנו רצים בכל הכוח קדימה."

I am not withdrawing. We are not withdrawing. We are running full force forward.

He said he stood there as the emissary of tens of thousands of invisible Charedim without a voice. "אותם אי אפשר לקנות." Those people cannot be bought. He said the monopoly of Yahadut HaTorah and Shas was over.

Forty hours earlier, after midnight, the Prime Minister of Israel had sat across a table from him in Petah Tikva and asked him, personally, to withdraw.

Twelve hours later, Channel 12 published its poll. Leitner's party stood at 0.2 percent.

Every poll in the preceding ten days had him between 0.1 and 1 percent. The threshold is 3.25. His own rabbinic chairman had said three days earlier that wasting votes would be "morally wrong." His party's number six had said the funding was "100% from within the Charedi community." He had told a radio interviewer that same afternoon, "אני חושש שאנחנו עלולים לא לעבור הפעם." I fear we may not make it this time.

He feared it. He knew it. He stayed.

This is about why a man stays when he knows. The answer is in public records and in the words of the people involved, and it is best told in order.

Chapter One: One Seat

Start with the arithmetic, because everything else follows from it.

Between October 12 and October 23, every major pollster put the Netanyahu bloc between 48 and 51 seats and the opposition bloc between 52 and 56. Channel 12 on October 12: 49 to 54. Walla on October 13: 49 to 54. Kantar for Israel Hayom on October 22: 50 to 56. The three Friday night television polls on October 23: Kan 50 to 52, Channel 12 50 to 56, Channel 13 50 to 54. Only Channel 14's polls showed the bloc at 61.

The gap is two to six seats. In an election this close, a coalition is built or lost on one.

And the party itself, in those same Friday polls: 0.5 percent on Channel 12, 0.7 on Kan, 1.3 on Channel 13. Leitner told Zman Yisrael this week that he expects about 100,000 votes. The threshold is roughly 167,000. By his own estimate he does not pass.

Now the threshold. A party needs 3.25 percent to enter the Knesset, roughly 167,000 votes at 70 percent turnout. Every vote cast for a party that falls short vanishes. It does not go to the voter's second choice. It does not go to the voter's bloc. It is simply removed from the count, and the seats are divided among those who passed.

Ynet's election desk estimated on October 20 that up to eight seats could burn this way. Ofer Winter's Am Yisrael, two to three. The Reservists party, two to three. Noam, about half a seat. And the three Charedi micro parties, Hatzibur Hacharedi among them, "nearly two together."

Nearly two seats, drawn from one bloc, in an election decided by four to seven.

The Prime Minister understood this. On the night of October 21, at a Likud event, he said it as plainly as a politician can: there are parties that are truly right wing but cannot pass, and giving them your vote "זה פשוט לשרוף את הקול, לתת אותו בעצם למחנה הבא." To burn the vote is to hand it to the other camp.

His son was less diplomatic. Replying to Leitner's post announcing he would stay in the race, Yair Netanyahu wrote:

"תתבייש לך! אתה במודע מוביל לממשלה של שמאל, אחים מוסלמים! אתה יודע שזה מה שאתה עושה ולא אכפת לך! אתה יודע שאתה לא עובר ושורף קולות ימין ולא אכפת לך!"

Shame on you. You knowingly lead to a left wing government. You know you will not pass and you burn right wing votes and you do not care.

Set the tone aside. The claim is arithmetic, and the arithmetic is correct. A party polling under one percent, drawing its votes from the right and Charedi camp, cannot enter the Knesset. The only thing it can do on October 27 is subtract.

So the question is not whether Hatzibur Hacharedi will have a voice in the next Knesset. It will not. The question is who benefits from a party that exists only to subtract, and who would pay for one.

Chapter Two: The Line in the Database

The State Comptroller keeps a public database of every donation, loan and guarantee received by every party running for the Knesset. Anyone can search it.

Under the legal name of Leitner's party, "למען אחיי מפלגת כלל ישראל," For My Brothers, the Party of All Israel, there is an entry dated 06/10/2026.

Name: חוסידמן דניאל. Country: Israel. City: Tel Aviv Yafo. Amount: 1,000,000.00.

One million shekels.

This is not a donation. Israeli law caps what one person and his household may give a party like this one at 14,000 shekels a year. It is a guarantee: a private citizen backing a bank loan the party takes against the state funding it expects after the election. There is no ceiling on guarantees. If the party crosses the threshold, the state pays and the guarantor walks away. If it does not, there is no state funding, the Knesset forfeits the bank guarantee, and the bank collects from the guarantor.

Now read the Comptroller's own rule for what happens then: "ערבות שניתנה לטובת מפלגה וחולטה תיחשב לתרומה, והערב ייחשב לתורם." A forfeited guarantee is deemed a donation, and the guarantor a donor. Israel Hayom noted this week that the law never says what happens when that deemed donation is seventy times the legal cap, or, in Dovrat's case, a hundred and forty.

So the mechanism works like this. A man who wants to give a party a million shekels cannot do it as a donation; the law stops him at fourteen thousand. He can do it as a guarantee, and the guarantee only becomes his money if the party fails. On October 6, when this one was recorded, Hatzibur Hacharedi had never polled above one percent. A man who pledges a million shekels to a party at 0.2 percent is not betting on winning. He is paying for the run, and the only way his payment is legal is if the party loses.

Who would do that?

Chapter Three: "My Eyes Went Dark"

Daniel Jusidman is 91 years old. He founded Truper, the largest tool manufacturer in Mexico, and divides his time between Tel Aviv, Mexico and New York. In June of this year, Calcalist's weekend magazine published a long interview with him under the headline "You become old when you stop planning the future."

Four months before his million shekel guarantee appeared under a party called "The Charedi Public," here is what Daniel Jusidman told Calcalist, in his own words.

On the country's deepest problem:

"הבעיות העמוקות יותר בחברה הישראלית הן הימין הקיצוני וסבסוד החרדים. זו הבעיה מספר אחת של ישראל, לא איראן."

The deeper problems in Israeli society are the extreme right and the subsidizing of the Charedim. This is Israel's number one problem, not Iran.

On the solution:

"לפתור את הבעיה זה קל מאוד, תעצור את הזרמת הכספים."

Solving the problem is very easy. Stop the flow of money.

On what should happen to Charedim after the election:

"אם לממשלה הבאה יהיו הכוח והרצון, החרדים יצטרכו להשתנות ואנחנו נצטרך לעזור להם ולתמוך בזה."

If the next government has the power and the will, the Charedim will have to change, and we will have to help them and support that.

On where his foundation's money already goes:

"לכן בקרן תרמנו לעמותות הלל ויוצאים בשינוי, שתומכות ביוצאים בשאלה. אבל זה אספירין. זה לא פותר את הבעיה."

So in the foundation we donated to Hillel and Yotzim B'Shinui, which support those leaving religion. But that is aspirin. It does not solve the problem.

Daniel Jusidman funds the two best known organizations in Israel for people leaving Charedi life, and he calls that aspirin, because it only treats the symptom. The cure, in his telling, is cutting the money.

On the current government: "אני מקווה שהיא תוחלף בקרוב." I hope it is replaced soon. On which politician could change things: "אביגדור ליברמן." On his priorities: "השקעה בדמוקרטיה היא בעדיפות עליונה. זה טופ פריוריטי."

And one more passage, about the first time he visited Neve Michael, a children's village in Pardes Hanna he was considering supporting:

"אז הגעתי וחשכו עיניי: כל הילדים דתיים עם כיפה! רציתי לעזוב."

So I arrived and my eyes went dark: all the children religious, with kippot! I wanted to leave.

He stayed, he says, only after being shown "they do good work."

This is the man whose name sits in the Comptroller's database beside a million shekels, under the words "The Charedi Public."

None of this is a crime, and none of it is hidden; he said it all to a newspaper, and he is entitled to every opinion in it. He is a man who told the country in June exactly what he thinks the Charedi problem is and how he wants it solved, and who in October put a million shekels at risk behind a party that calls itself Charedi.

He is not the only one.

Chapter Four: The Second Name

Five weeks before Jusidman, on September 9, Calcalist reported another guarantee under the same party. Babli carried it under the headline "מאיפה הכסף? מי שעתיד לציבור החרדי: המיליונר שמאחורי מפלגתו של לייטנר." Where is the money from? The millionaire behind Leitner's party.

Shlomo Dovrat. Two million shekels.

Dovrat is one of the founding figures of Israeli venture capital. He chairs the Aharon Institute for Economic Policy at Reichman University, named for his father, which publishes on the Israeli economy, including the economics of Charedi employment. Two decades ago he chaired the Dovrat Committee on education reform.

In 2023 he was one of the most visible public opponents of the judicial reform. In March of that year he said the miracle of Israeli high tech was "תחת איום קיומי בגלל הרפורמה המשפטית," under existential threat because of the judicial reform. Months later he went further: "צריך להפסיק להגיד רפורמה משפטית, זה יותר מזה, זה מתקפה על הדנ"א של המדינה." Stop calling it a judicial reform. It is an attack on the DNA of the state.

We have found no document tying Dovrat to the organizations that ran the 2023 protests, and we are not claiming one exists. What the record shows is that a named public leader of the campaign against the government's reform is the largest single financial backer of a party that calls itself Charedi.

Dovrat, two million. Jusidman, one million. Every other guarantee on the Comptroller's site as of this writing, Effi Shkedi at 200,000, Uri Eisenberg, Moshe Yehuda Sonnenfeld and Raul Stein at 180,000 each, Yair Shamir, Edouard Cukierman and Seffi Jonas at less, comes to under a million combined. Three quarters of the disclosed money behind "The Charedi Public" came from two men.

When the first guarantors surfaced in August, the journalist Yaki Adamker described them, accurately, as right wing businessmen, several of them donors to yeshivos. That was August. Dovrat came in September and Jusidman in October. The Charedi donors were the opening act.

And the guarantees are the floor, not the total. In September Leitner told Kikar that the spending ceiling for a party like his was "כנראה בסביבות 15, 16 מיליון שקלים," and that "אנחנו נוציא עד השקל האחרון שהחוק מאפשר לנו," we will spend to the last shekel the law allows. The law allows 18.35 million. On October 12 the party said it had raised four million for the final stretch alone. And on Kol Chai this Sunday morning, two days before the vote, Leitner put a number on the whole: about ten million shekels from Charedi donors and about two million from others, naming Dovrat. Twelve million, by his own count. Where it came from, beyond the four million on the Comptroller's site, nobody outside the party knows, and the law does not require anyone to know until long after it matters. A party files its full accounts twenty four weeks after the election. The Comptroller reports forty eight weeks after. The real ledger of "The Charedi Public" will be published in the autumn of 2027.

One more thing about his arithmetic. Two million "from others" does not cover Dovrat and Jusidman, whose guarantees alone come to three. Either Leitner is counting a man who funds organizations for people leaving Charedi life as a Charedi donor, or he is not counting him at all.

Chapter Five: "Check the Comptroller's Site"

On September 3, Kikar HaShabbat's Yishai Cohen asked Leitner about the accusation, already circulating from the Charedi parties, that "Kaplanists" were funding him.

Leitner's answer ran under the headline "קפלניסטים מממנים אותי? קונספירציות מטורללות!" Crazy conspiracies.

"כל התורמים הם אך ורק מקרב תורמי עולם התורה והישיבות כיום ומאנשי ימין."

All the donors are solely from among today's donors to the world of Torah and yeshivos, and from people of the right.

He added that every shekel was reported to the State Comptroller's website, which, he said, already showed nearly a million, and he invited the public to look.

Six days later the site showed Shlomo Dovrat's two million.

Thirty three days later it showed Daniel Jusidman's one million.

On October 18, with both entries public for anyone to see, Belaaz published an interview with Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein, number six on the party's Knesset list. Asked about the money, he said: "The funding is 100% from within the Charedi community." He added, "We have not gotten a dime from George Soros," and conceded he could not personally vouch for every dollar that came through the campaign website.

On October 21, on Kol Barama, Leitner said it a third time: "רוב תומכי המפלגה ותורמיה הם חרדים ובוגרי עולם התורה." Most of the party's supporters and donors are Charedim and graduates of the Torah world.

By headcount, perhaps. By shekel, the opposite. We did what Leitner asked in September. We checked the site.

We also checked the party's own website this Sunday. Its donations page reads: "טרם נרשמו תרומות החייבות בפרסום." No donations requiring publication have yet been recorded. The Comptroller's site, the same day, shows three million shekels in guarantees from two men

Chapter Six: "Morally Wrong"

The same Belaaz interview carried the words of Rabbi Yehoshua Pfeffer, chairman of the party's Vaad Rabbanim, the body Leitner says supervises his movement.

Asked whether running a new party risked throwing away right wing votes if it failed to clear the threshold, Rabbi Pfeffer answered, he said, "from a rabbinical side":

"We are not going to waste votes. We are part of the Israeli right. We're responsible for the Israeli right. We're not going to waste votes. I think it would be morally wrong to waste votes."

Pressed on what the party would do if the polls showed it below the threshold days before the election, he said the decision "would be made when the time comes." And: "Our strong hope is to get four or five seats."

That interview was published on Sunday, October 18.

The time came on Wednesday.

By then four polls in ten days had the party between 0.2 and 0.9 percent. The Prime Minister had come to Petah Tikva in person. An offer had been drafted by Smotrich's negotiator and delivered by Likud's campaign manager: a projector for the Charedi sector, hundreds of millions of shekels in budget, state Charedi schools, workforce integration, the entire platform the party said it was running on, handed to it without a single Knesset seat. Leitner's own number two, Adlerstein, had said in the same Belaaz interview that if the polls showed them short, "we're going to go for broke."

And on Wednesday at seven, at Neve Ilan: "אנחנו רצים בכל הכוח קדימה." We are running full force forward.

So one of two things is true. Either the party's rabbinic authority ruled that running below the threshold is morally wrong, and the candidate ignored him. Or the rabbinic authority never ruled at all, and "the decision would be made when the time comes" meant the decision would be made by someone else.

Either way, the body the party says governs it did not govern the only decision that mattered.

There is a coda to Rabbi Pfeffer's week, and it concerns the one name his committee needed most. Rabbi Pfeffer learned under Rav Asher Weiss, the Minchas Asher, for close to a decade and sat on his beis din. On October 21, asked on Kikar FM whether he consults his rebbe about the party, he answered "no comment" and said he does not drag in rabbanim who do not wish to be involved. The next day, 11 Marcheshvan, a letter went out from Rav Weiss's home over the signature of his son, Rav Yosef Binyamin Weiss, written at his father's request and in his name. It opens: "היות כי שורבב שמו של אאמו"ר מרן שליט"א בענין תמיכה במפלגת 'הציבור החרדי'," since the name of my father and teacher has been dragged into the matter of support for the Hatzibur Hacharedi party. The claims, it says, are not correct at all, "ולא היו דברים מעולם," and the false publication itself "גרם לו צער וכאב רב, ובפרט שמעולם לא היה דרכו בכך," caused him pain and great hurt, particularly since this was never his way. It closes with a blessing on "those who heed daas Torah, Maranan v'Rabbanan, the gedolim and tzaddikim of the generation."

The chairman of the Vaad Rabbanim would not say where his rebbe stood. His rebbe's house said it in writing the following day, in the sharpest word the halachic vocabulary has for a falsehood, and added that the whisper had caused him pain. Asked for comment, the party told Charedim10: "אין תגובה."

That is the first proof that Moti Leitner is not the one deciding. The second came from inside his own movement, on television, the next day.

Chapter Seven: "He Is Bound by That Board"

Israel Schwebel is a Beit Shemesh resident, a Hebron Yeshiva graduate and accountant who ran the budget of the Jerusalem municipality's Charedi education division, served as treasurer of Beitar Illit, and today heads a department at the World Zionist Organization. He says he was among those who set up Derech, the local list that made Leitner a deputy mayor in 2024, and the Knesset Channel introduced him that way; its host said he had first met Schwebel while interviewing Leitner at the start of that campaign. He was not a candidate on the list, and when Charedim10 put his remarks to the party, it answered that he is "לא קשור בשום צורה לסיעת 'דרך'," not connected in any way to the Derech faction, and called him a macher. We note the denial. We also note what the party's answer did not deny.

On October 22 he sat in the studio of the Knesset Channel's program "שחור לבן," Black and White, and said he could no longer support the party.

The host asked whether, after Benny Gantz, Leitner might be the next to announce his withdrawal. Schwebel's answer, as broadcast:

"לצערי, וזה מה שלמדתי בתהליך הזה... זה לא תלוי במוטי ליטנר. לא הוא מחליט מה שקובע במפלגה. במפלגה שמה יושבים בורד ותורמים, שככל שחולף הזמן, זה מאוד מאוד ברור שלא הוא זה שמקבל את ההחלטות."

Unfortunately, and this is what I learned in this process, it does not depend on Moti Leitner. He is not the one who decides what is determined in the party. In the party there sits a board and donors, and as time passes it is very, very clear that he is not the one making the decisions.

He went on:

"ברשימת הערבים שלו, אחד מהערבים הכי גדולים שלו, זה עם שבע ספרות ערבות. יהודי יקר בשם דניאל חוסידמן, שבראיון שלו בכלכליסט, גם לא לפני עשור או שתיים, אלא לפני ממש מספר חודשים, הוא אומר שהסכנה של המגזר החרדי יותר גדולה מהסכנה של איראן."

On his list of guarantors, one of his biggest, with a seven figure guarantee, is a dear Jew named Daniel Jusidman, who in his Calcalist interview, not a decade or two ago but a few months ago, says the danger from the Charedi sector is greater than the danger from Iran.

And then the sentence that explains Neve Ilan:

"כולם חוזרים עם אותה תחושה ואותה תובנה: שמוטי מבין והוא רוצה, אבל הוא כבול על ידי אותו בורד, ועד שהבורד הזה לא ישתכנע או לא ישחרר אותו, זה לא יקרה. זה לא יקרה."

Everyone comes back with the same feeling and the same understanding: that Moti understands and he wants to, but he is bound by that board, and until that board is convinced or releases him, it will not happen. It will not happen.

Whatever his title was in 2024, Schwebel said on air that he had asked Leitner's permission before trying to broker a deal in the final weeks, that he had sat in on the offers, and that he still wants math and English in Charedi schools. He gave his own reasons as a working Charedi: a protest vote for a list that cannot pass, in an election this close, is in practice a vote for the other bloc, and he was not willing to become "the Peleg Yerushalmi from the other side of the sector," burning votes because things did not go his way.

The party's response called him names. It did not say he had not asked Leitner's permission. It did not say there is no board. And it did not say a word about the guarantor he named. Seven figures, he said. The record says 1,000,000.00.

Two nights later, on Motzaei Shabbos, the same conclusion was reached on the one television panel in Israel that had been friendliest to Leitner. Channel 14's "Patriots" had hosted him more than once. Now its panel turned.

Yedidya Meir, the Charedi columnist, said the Prime Minister had wasted his time in Petah Tikva: "It's a waste of time on Leitner, because behind him... The Charedi parties have the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah of UTJ, the Moetzes Chachmei HaTorah. He has his council of sponsors, the donors who fund this, and they won't let him drop out. For them, the right wing bloc falling isn't a threat. It's another goal they can achieve on the way." And then: "After the elections we need to talk about the influence operation that left wing funds run on working Charedim, trying to pull them to the left with money."

Yinon Magal added a detail from his own home: "He said it here, he said it at my home. He came to my house and committed to me. He and his people sat in my living room and promised me they wouldn't hurt the bloc."

A man from inside his own camp on Thursday, the leading Charedi voice on the right's own channel on Saturday night, and neither had spoken to the other. Both named the same thing as what governs this party, and it was not Leitner and it was not rabbanim.

Leitner's answer came Sunday morning on Kol Chai. The idea that donors drive his decisions is "קשקוש מקושקש, הבל הבלים," nonsense, vanity of vanities; "לא מעניין אותי אפילו מה הם חושבים," I am not even interested in what they think; the decision to stay was "אך ורק שלי," mine alone. In the same interview he gave the twelve million figure. A man who is not interested in what his donors think, on the morning he tells the country they gave him twelve million shekels, is either very free or very careful about what he says on the radio.

Chapter Eight: The Issue That Had to Be Found

Why would people who want the government replaced put money behind a Charedi party at all?

Because this election was built on one issue, and the issue needed a Charedi face.

The last twenty living hostages came home on October 13, 2025. The body of the last hostage, Ran Gvili, was returned on January 26, 2026. For two years the country had one subject. When that subject ended, another had to take its place, and within five weeks it did.

On November 19, 2025, the High Court gave the state 45 days to produce an enforcement policy against Charedi draft evasion, including economic sanctions and criminal prosecution. On April 26, 2026, five justices ordered subsidized housing, daycare, after school programs, transport and municipal tax discounts conditioned on draft status, and criminal proceedings "as quickly as possible." On July 14 the Knesset passed a law freezing arrests of yeshiva students; the next day Justice Grosskopf froze the law. On September 3, nine justices struck it down. On October 6 the Attorney General's office reported that the IDF had admitted to no proactive enforcement in the recent period.

The opposition saw its issue. On August 14 its leaders pledged they would not sit in a government with the Charedi parties. On September 29, in Jerusalem, Gadi Eisenkot framed the election as a choice "between a government of evasion and a Zionist government of the draft." Naftali Bennett, the same day: "In this government the heroes are the draft dodgers, not the fighters. This is exactly what the elections are about." Avigdor Liberman called the evaders "Netanyahu's partners."

Bennett was right. That is exactly what the elections are about. Here is the part the campaign leaves out.

The IDF has sent roughly 79,000 draft orders to Charedi men since 2024. About 2,100 have enlisted. The army's shortfall is about 12,000 soldiers, 7,000 of them combat. The pool of draft age Charedi men is estimated at 70,000 to 90,000. The army's own personnel chief, Brigadier General Shay Tayeb, told the Knesset the IDF could absorb 4,800 Charedi recruits in 2025 and 5,700 in 2026.

Fifty seven hundred out of eighty thousand. By the army's own account it cannot take more than a fraction, and the fraction would not close the gap.

Bezalel Smotrich, no friend of the Charedi parties this year, said it twice. On July 21 at the Katif Conference: "There is no greater lie than saying that the burden on those serving depends on drafting Charedim." On October 13, at a campaign event: the claim that soldiers are burdened because Charedim do not serve "is a complete lie."

The pain of reservists on their fourth and fifth rotation is real, and no Charedi who takes the Torah seriously dismisses it. But the story that Charedim sat out the war is not. Within two weeks of October 7, the IDF spokesman announced that more than 2,000 Charedim had asked to volunteer, and by October 23 the Manpower Directorate counted 3,000 who had come forward and 2,100 who had already filled out the paperwork. By the end of February the number of Charedi men who had walked into recruitment offices on their own and asked to enlist reached about 4,000. The army found 880 of them fit and took 600. The other 3,120 were sent home, most of them, the IDF told the Knesset, on medical grounds. Those are the Knesset Research Center's figures, from the army's own data. Thousands more spent the war in ZAKA and United Hatzalah, on bases cooking for soldiers, and in the tents of the yeshivos, where the roshei yeshiva told them that in a war the answer of the Torah world is more Torah, not less. The Charedi world did not hide from October 7. It showed up and was largely turned away.

So, by the army's own numbers, drafting Charedim is not a solution to the army's manpower problem. As a wedge to split the right wing bloc, it is the most effective ever found.

And this is why it needed a Charedi face. An opposition that says "we will not sit with the Charedim" takes nothing from the right; those votes were never available to it. But a party that says "we are the real Charedim, the responsible ones," that puts a black hat on the slogan "This time, taking responsibility" and campaigns in Religious Zionist towns on math, English and army service, can reach people the opposition cannot: the Charedi family that is tired, the Dati Leumi reservist who is angry, the former Ben Gvir voter who wants to send a message. It does not have to win them. It has to pull a few tens of thousands of them away from Shas, Yahadut HaTorah, Smotrich and Ben Gvir, and then fail to pass.

A Word to Our Dati Leumi Brothers

Something has to be said here to the readers this campaign was built to reach.

Much of Hatzibur Hacharedi's effort went into your towns. Alon Shvut. Tzur Hadassah. Efrat. Tekoa. Neve Daniel. Its campaign headquarters for your community was run by one of your own. Its candidate Dr. Nechumi Yaffe spoke in your halls. The message was built for you: here are Charedim who get it, who want to serve, who want to work, who are not like the others.

We are not like you in some things. We disagree with you about the state, about the army, about what the Torah asks of this generation. We have said so on this site many times, and we will again. But we have never doubted your love of Eretz Yisrael, which is a love the Torah commands, and we have never doubted the price your families have paid. We write this with that love in front of us.

So look at what you are being sold. A party whose two largest backers are a man who hopes the government falls and wants Liberman to replace it, and a man who led the fight against the judicial reform you supported. A party at 0.2 percent that cannot enter the Knesset and can only take seats from the bloc you have sat in, alongside the Charedi parties, in every right wing government for forty years.

You were chosen because you care about the draft more than anyone, and because you are the only large right wing public that a Charedi face saying Charedi things might move. The people who paid for the face told Calcalist what they think of your children's kippot.

And one of your own has already answered them. Rav Avigdor Nebenzahl, who has taught your sons at Netiv Aryeh and HaKotel for decades, wrote this week, by hand, that it is chas v'shalom to vote for parties the Gedolei HaDor do not support. His letter is quoted in full at the end of this article. He did not write it for Bnei Brak. He wrote it for you.

Chapter Nine: The Calendar

On April 28, the Charedi news site JDN ran a piece claiming that a well funded left wing association was preparing three moves for the election: back a party aimed at "new Charedim" that was never meant to pass the threshold, only to waste a few thousand votes; push protest voting by attacking the Charedi parties over the draft; and drive down Charedi turnout by hammering the sanctions and arrests until people stayed home. JDN named nobody and produced no document. Its only evidence was a Channel 14 report about left wing posters in Charedi shuls. An allegation without a name is an allegation, and that is all we call it.

But keep the date, and then watch the calendar.

June 4: a new party is published for objections at the registrar, "למען אחיי מפלגת כלל ישראל," For My Brothers, the Party of All Israel, with an address in Bnei Brak and ten founders, all of them from Beit Shemesh.

July 19: a brand appears, complete. A name, a yellow and black logo, billboards, a website, and more than two million shekels already spent, according to Maariv that day. The message is that this is not a party, only a pressure campaign for slots on the Yahadut HaTorah and Shas lists: "אין מפלגה חרדית בלי הציבור החרדי." There is no Charedi party without the Charedi public.

August 4: Leitner sends Deri, Gafni and Goldknopf an ultimatum. Places on your lists by Friday, or we run alone. The party making the threat has been registered for two months.

August 5: Kan News reports that two Eisenkot associates, Ronen Manelis and Ronen Avyani, helped set up the party's strategy in its early stage, and that Inbar Harush Gity, a candidate for Yashar, is in contact with its people and donors. The party calls the report "דיבה חמורה," serious libel. Avyani calls it "a collection of false claims." Three weeks earlier, Harush Gity had told Babli the party was registered and its people were "חרדים ממלכתיים," state minded Charedim. We print the report and the denials together, and that is where we leave it.

September 9: Dovrat. October 6: Jusidman.

Nobody has to connect these dates. They only have to be put in a row.

Chapter Ten: What "Kaplanists" Means

When the Charedi parties called Leitner's backers "Kaplanists" in August, he laughed it off as a crazy conspiracy. The word deserves a definition, because it describes a method, not a membership.

In February 2025, Makor Rishon published an investigation into the money behind the 2023 protests, built on nonprofit registrar filings. Blue White Future, run by Orni Petruschka, Gilead Sher and Ami Ayalon, moved about 160 million shekels that year, 120 million of it against the judicial reform. A steering committee of four, Shikma Bressler, Ilan Shiloah, Dan Halutz and Petruschka, was formed on December 14, 2022, before the first demonstration. Over 83 million came from foreign funds. The money paid for Brothers in Arms, which grew to about 300 staff, and for the rest of what the country saw as a spontaneous uprising of flags and drums.

That is not a scandal. It is how large campaigns are built, on every side. The point is the shape: a face that looks grassroots, a handful of very large donors behind it, professionals who are denied when named, and a single emotional issue picked for the people it will move rather than the problem it will solve.

We have no document tying Blue White Future, Brothers in Arms or anyone on that steering committee to Hatzibur Hacharedi, and we are not claiming one. Dovrat was a public opponent of the reform; nothing places him inside those organizations. What we have is a database entry, a magazine interview, and two witnesses on television saying a board and donors decide. That is enough to recognize the shape.

Chapter Eleven: The Man at the Podium

Moti Leitner is 33 years old. He was born in Jerusalem with a twin brother, grew up in Beitar Illit in the Rachmastrivka chassidus, learned in the Tzanz cheder, in Yeshivas Sha'arei Torah and Chayei Moshe, and then in kollel. He trained as a Hebrew teacher and moved into software, he has said, "מסיבות כלכליות," for financial reasons. He is married with four children. Around 2021 he moved to Ramat Beit Shemesh Dalet.

In 2024 he founded a local list, Derech, "תושבים למען התושבים," residents for the residents, and won two seats on the Beit Shemesh council. In the mayoral runoff he backed Degel HaTorah's Shmuel Greenberg, and was rewarded with the title משנה לראש העיר, deputy to the mayor, and portfolios for security, young communities and Charedi sports. In August 2024 he told the local press he had no national ambitions, quoting the Mishnah: "במקום שאין איש, השתדל להיות איש." In a place where there is no man, try to be a man. That same year he said Derech would never establish a rabbinic council, and would never run women, because "איננו באים לחנך את הציבור." We are not here to educate the public.

Two years later he heads a Knesset list, says his movement operates under a supervising rabbinic committee, has two women at numbers three and four, and is running a national campaign against the party that made him deputy mayor, with three million shekels from two secular donors.

Then came the week of October 15.

Likud's pressure began on Thursday. On Sunday, Amit Segal reported contacts. On Monday morning Leitner rejected the initial offers; Monday evening Tzvika Brot, Likud's campaign manager, came to him with a framework drafted by Omer Rahamim, Smotrich's man: a projector for the Charedi sector, hundreds of millions of shekels, state Charedi schools, workforce integration. Everything the party had said it wanted. Leitner asked for guarantees that Shas and Yahadut HaTorah would not sabotage it, and for their commitment to Talmud Torahs with math and English and to a draft arrangement. He said he feared it would look like "a job for a friend."

After midnight on Tuesday the Prime Minister came himself, to Petah Tikva. A joint press conference was discussed. Leitner said afterward that "לא ניתן להסתפק בהבטחות מצד ראש הממשלה." One cannot settle for promises from the Prime Minister.

On Wednesday afternoon ynet reported he was "seriously considering" withdrawal. A statement was scheduled for seven at Neve Ilan.

A week before that meeting, we wrote that Leitner would not accept any deal, because the project was never about Charedi representation in the Knesset; it was about pulling votes, and a man who has taken millions from people with that goal is not free to stop.

At seven he stood up and said he was running full force forward.

And on Kol Barama that same day, he said the sentence that gives the whole thing away:

"אני חושש שאנחנו עלולים לא לעבור הפעם." I fear we may not pass this time.

He was offered, without a single seat, the agenda he says he is running for, and he turned it down knowing he will probably not pass. Schwebel's "הוא כבול על ידי אותו בורד," he is bound by that board, is the only explanation on the record that fits.

We do not think Moti Leitner is a cynic. We think he is a sincere man who wanted something real for working Charedim, who was found by people with a great deal of money and a different goal, and who learned somewhere between September and October that the money came with a board, and the board does not release.

Yair Netanyahu wrote that Leitner does not care. It is worse than that. He cares, and cannot act on it.

What he can do, in the last days, is talk, and what he said on motzei Shabbos in Petah Tikva, as reported by Walla, is worth recording. On the Charedi public's elected representatives: "הנבחרים שלנו לא כשירים, הם תינוקות שנשבו," unfit, captured infants. On the Charedi world: "יש אצלנו עז א-דין אל-קסאם," we have our own Izz ad-Din al-Qassam. In a leaked recording the same weekend, on MK Yaakov Asher of Degel HaTorah: "כנראה ממומן, כנראה קפלניסט," probably funded, probably a Kaplanist. The man whose two largest backers are a leader of the anti reform campaign and a funder of Hillel, calling a Degel HaTorah MK a Kaplanist, in the week the Comptroller's site went public.

Chapter Twelve: Where the Bus Went

A campaign tells you who it is for by where it goes.

Hatzibur Hacharedi's campaign for the Religious Zionist public had its own headquarters, run by Adiel Bar Shalom. Its candidate Dr. Nechumi Yaffe, a Tel Aviv University researcher, was scheduled into Alon Shvut, Tzur Hadassah and Ganei Modiin in the week of October 12. The party itself advertised events on its social channels in Tel Aviv, Ra'anana, Efrat, Tekoa, Neve Daniel and Binyamina. Its headquarters for the closing days was a hotel at Neve Ilan. Its house meeting on October 24 was in Petah Tikva. Its central convention was at Binyanei HaUma in Jerusalem, where MK Meir Porush observed afterward that he saw few people from Agudah or Degel, and that the crowd looked to him like former Ben Gvir voters.

In Charedi cities there were billboards.

On motzei Shabbos, two days before the vote, the party's closing gathering was in Petah Tikva, in a room Walla described as mostly Religious Zionist men. Leitner said the targeting was deliberate: two or three Charedi seats are not enough, and the party is going after the Religious Zionist vote on purpose. That is his description of his own campaign, in the last week, in his own words.

Of roughly a dozen locations on the party's campaign trail, very few were Charedi population centers. Beit Shemesh was one exception. In other Charedi cities, the party's presence was largely confined to billboards. A party calling itself "The Charedi Public," whose rabbinic committee has no representatives of mainstream Charedi institutions, as we documented on Thursday, directed much of its campaign toward Gush Etzion, the Sharon, and other predominantly non-Charedi communities. These are places with significant Religious Zionist and right-wing electorates. The pattern is difficult to ignore: a party claiming to represent Charedim was campaigning primarily where it could draw votes away from established right-wing parties.

Chapter Thirteen: The People Who Believed

The hardest part is the one this site cares about most. Most of the people supporting the party are not frauds. They are the targets.

The father in Ramat Dalet who wants his son to learn math and go to work without being called a dropout. The young couple who sat through a house meeting because someone finally talked about unaffordable rent. The hundreds who filled Binyanei HaUma. They were told that for the first time working Charedim would have a voice of their own, that the old parties had taken them for granted, that this time they would take responsibility. Part of that is true. Working Charedim carry burdens the parties have been slow to address, and this site has said so and will keep saying so.

But look at who told them.

The money, as this article has shown, came mostly from outside the camp. So did the operation. The first report on who built the party's strategy, in August, named two aides to Gadi Eisenkot; the party denied it and has never said who did. The campaign for the Religious Zionist towns had its own headquarters under a Religious Zionist manager. The brand itself, the name, the yellow and black, the slogan, the website, arrived finished on July 19 with two million shekels already spent, and in three months the party has not said who designed it. A Charedi party that cannot name a single Charedi who built its campaign is a campaign that was built for Charedim, not by them. We are still reporting on who did build it, and on the money that followed. What we have found so far is in this article. What we find next will be published, and we do not expect the picture to improve.

Then look at the rabbinic committee that was supposed to make it kosher. We examined all ten names on Thursday. Not one of them leads a mainstream Charedi yeshiva, kehilla or beis din. Two are rabbis of shuls that describe themselves as Religious Zionist or Modern Orthodox. Two are American public figures, one of them a candidate on the list. Three work in hesder and integration frameworks built as alternatives to the Charedi mainstream. One is the rav of Kfar Shmaryahu. One cannot be found. And the chairman is paid by an American foundation to change the Charedi community, and would not say whether his own rebbe supports him, until his rebbe's house answered for him. That is the body a Charedi voter was told to rely on.

So nobody should be ashamed of having believed. This was a professional operation, built by professionals, financed with three million shekels, aimed with precision at the people most tired of being taken for granted. Being fooled by it is not a character flaw. It is what the operation was for.

But there is one thing that cannot be excused by the quality of the deception, because it was never hidden, and because it is the thing that makes a Charedi a Charedi. The gedolim spoke. Rav Lando, Rav Hirsch, Rav Finkel, Rav Nebenzahl, the Belzer and Gerrer Rebbes, the roshei yeshiva of Lakewood, in their own names, in public, in writing, in the same week. Nobody who heard them can say he did not know. A Charedi Jew can be fooled about a donor. He can be fooled about a strategist. He can be fooled about a logo. The one thing he cannot do and remain what he is, is hear the gedolei hador tell him where to stand and stand somewhere else because a billboard asked him to. That is not a policy disagreement. Rav Lando said what it is: whoever does this loses his identity.

We wrote last week about the useful idiots of Hatzibur Hacharedi, and some readers took the phrase as an insult. It is not. It is a term with a specific meaning. A useful idiot is not a stupid person. He is a sincere person whose sincerity is being used by someone else for a purpose he would never agree to if he saw it. The term describes the relationship, not the man. The people who filled the halls for this party are not idiots. They are useful, to people who told Calcalist what they think of them, and that is the whole tragedy of the word. There is no shame in having been used by professionals with twelve million shekels, by their own count. The shame would be in staying now that the record is public and the gedolim have spoken, because from that point on, nobody is being used. He is choosing.

Epilogue: Thursday Night, Givat Slabodka

On Thursday night, the rabbanim of Karmiel came to the home of Rav Dov Lando, the rosh yeshiva of Slabodka and the senior figure of the Litvishe Torah world, on the hill above Bnei Brak. Someone filmed it on a phone.

He spoke about the obligation to vote Gimmel. Then he turned to the new lists.

"יש כאלו שהם אומרים רשימות אחרות חרדיות, הם רק מזיקים. אוי להם, אוי להם, אני אומר. מפני שהם רק מזיקים, הם לא יקבלו כלום, הם רק יזיקו. ובטוח שהם שכירים של השמאל."

There are those who speak of other Charedi lists. They only do harm. Woe to them, woe to them, I say. Because they only do harm, they will receive nothing, they will only harm. And certainly they are hired hands of the left.

"יהודי חרדי לא יכול לעשות את זה, גם אם הם מניחים תפילין, אבל הם לא חרדים."

A Charedi Jew cannot do this. Even if they put on tefillin, they are not Charedim.

He paused, and added:

"אני אומר מילים חריפות, אולי הייתי צריך להגיד יותר חריף."

I am saying sharp words. Perhaps I should have said it more sharply.

The same night, at the Boyaner beis medrash in Jerusalem, with Rav Moshe Hillel Hirsch and members of the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah beside him and thousands in the hall, he called the new parties "מפלגות מחוץ למחנה," parties outside the camp, and said of their claims, "שקר שקר ושקר." Lies, lies and lies.

And on Friday he picked up a pen. The letter, first reported by Lechatchila and carried by Israel Hayom and Kikar on motzei Shabbos, is addressed to Rav Yosef Ben Arza, the author of Yosef Daas and one of the ten names on the party's rabbinic committee. In Rav Lando's handwriting: "בני סיפר לי את הדברים שלכם שהם שטות גדולה אם לא רשעות גדולה." My son told me of your words, which are great foolishness if not great wickedness. "ואני אלחם נגדכם בכל הכחות שיש לי ושאין לי, כי אתם מזיקים גדולים ליהדות החרדית." And I will fight you with all the strength I have and do not have, because you are doing great damage to Charedi Jewry. "מעשיכם הם כאכילת חלב ביום הכיפורים וחמץ בליל הסדר." Your deeds are like eating cheilev on Yom Kippur and chametz on the night of the Seder. And then, three words: "חזרו, חזרו בכם." Turn back, turn back.

The gadol hador wrote by hand to a member of the party's own Vaad Rabbanim and told him to turn back. As of this writing, Rav Ben Arza has not.

Rav Lando had no database open in front of him. He had not read Calcalist or watched the Knesset Channel. He is 97, and he has been watching movements like this one since before Moti Leitner's parents were born. He looked at the shape of it and named it.

He was not alone that week. Three more letters came, and they are worth reading for who signed them and who they were written for.

From Yeshivas Mir Yerushalayim, the largest yeshiva in the world, Rav Eliezer Yehuda Finkel wrote to his talmidim that the hour is one of persecution of the Torah, that the government cuts "through its decrees, and especially through its cunning enticements," and that one who lends support to parties that do not act according to the guidance of the Chachamim "is included among those who cause the masses to sin." The party's rabbinic chairman was asked whether the hesder frameworks and integration tracks on his committee's résumés were the answer. The Rosh Yeshiva of Mir called them the enticements.

From the Old City, Rav Avigdor Nebenzahl, 91, Rav of the Jewish Quarter, chavrusa of Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach for forty years, and for decades a rosh yeshiva at Netiv Aryeh and a maggid shiur at Yeshivat HaKotel, the flagship yeshivos of the Religious Zionist world, wrote by hand to "all those who are charedim l'dvar Hashem" to vote solely for Gimmel, and "chas v'shalom to vote for parties that are not supported by the Gedolei HaDor, as instructed by Maran HaGaon Rav Dov Landau and Maran HaGaon Rav Moshe Hillel Hirsch." He closed by pledging that all who assist "have their portion with me in this world and in the World to Come." The party built its campaign in the towns where his talmidim live. Their rebbi told them where to stand.

And in English, on a single page headed "A Call to Klal Yisroel Regarding the Upcoming Elections," over the signatures of Rav Moshe Hillel Hirsch, Rav Finkel, Rav Yehoshua Eichenstein, Rav Avraham Gurwitz, Rav Yerucham Olshin, Rav Yitzchak Sorotzkin, Rav Eliyahu Baruch, Rav Yisroel Perlow, Rav Yehoshua Perlow and Rav Yitzchak Shmuel HaLevi Berkowitz: "Every vote adds strength to those who represent us faithfully, under the guidance of Gedolei Yisroel. Every vote that stays home weakens us, and in practice strengthens the left." The party's number six told Belaaz that after two seats of working Charedim, the rest would come "from Anglo voters." The roshei yeshiva of the Anglo world, Lakewood's among them, wrote to those voters in their own language.

Four letters in one week, with one instruction. We have spent seven thousand words getting to the same place by the other road, through the filings and the dates and the words of the people involved. The roshei yeshiva and the documents say the same thing.

One piece of history. In 1960 Poalei Agudas Yisrael went into Ben Gurion's government against the ruling of the Moetzes. Within a generation it was gone, and the men who led it are remembered, when they are remembered, for that. Nobody is predicting anything about anyone. The record of what happens to a Charedi party that steps outside the camp is already written, and it is short.

On Tuesday the polls close. The donors will have spent their money, the strategists will send their last message, and the board will release the candidate, because there will be nothing left to hold him for. The working Charedim who believed will still be there Wednesday morning with the same problems, owed nothing by anyone.

Unless they are not there, because they did something else on Tuesday.

What To Do on Tuesday

If you have read this far and you were planning to vote for Hatzibur Hacharedi, we are not going to tell you that you were a fool. You were not. You wanted something real for your children, and someone with twelve million shekels and a good designer sold you on this was the way to get it.

But you have now seen the record. You have seen who paid, and what he said about your children's kippot. You have seen the chairman of the rabbinic committee say wasting votes is morally wrong and then watch the party waste them. You have seen the rebbe's house say lahadam. You have seen a man who helped build the movement say the candidate cannot leave even if he wants to. And you have seen the gedolei hador, with their names and their faces and their handwriting, tell you where to stand.

So the question is no longer whether you were deceived. It is what you do now that you are not.

Rav Lando wrote three words to one of the ten rabbanim on the party's letter: חזרו, חזרו בכם. He did not write them in anger. He wrote them because turning back is possible, and because a Jew who turns back is not diminished by it. He is the whole point. The Torah was given to people who turn back. The gates are open on Tuesday from seven in the morning until ten at night, and nobody at the polling station will ask what you thought last week.

Here is what you do. You take your identity card. You take your wife, your brother, your neighbor, your chavrusa, the friend who sat next to you at the house meeting. You go to the polling station. If your rav and your community follow the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah, you put ג in the envelope. If they follow the Moetzet Chachmei HaTorah, you put שס. Either one. Both stand under the gedolim, both are in the bloc, and neither will be thrown away.

And then you do the thing this party promised you and could never deliver. You take the real grievances, the schools, the rent, the work, the way a Charedi who earns a living is treated, and you bring them inside, to the parties the gedolim stand behind, where they can actually be fought for by people who will be in the Knesset on Wednesday. Hatzibur Hacharedi will not be. You can be.

Not because a billboard asked you. Because the gedolim did, in letters anyone can read, over signatures no one can deny.

Rav Lando said he should have spoken more sharply.

We have tried to. Now go and vote.

Sources

Money and donors

1. State Comptroller of Israel, public database of donations, guarantees and loans to parties, entry under "למען אחיי מפלגת כלל ישראל," Jusidman Daniel, 06/10/2026, 1,000,000.00 (screenshot archived).
2. Calcalist Magazine, Daniel Jusidman interview, June 25, 2026
3. Emess, Dovrat guarantee and guarantor list, September 9, 2026
4. Babli, David Klein, "מאיפה הכסף?", September 9, 2026 (screenshot archived)
5. Emess, first guarantor list per Yaki Admaker, August 10, 2026
6. Kikar HaShabbat, Yishai Cohen, Leitner: "קונספירציות מטורללות", September 3, 2026
7. Belaaz, interviews with Rabbi Pfeffer and Rabbi Adlerstein, October 18, 2026
8. Kol Barama, Leitner interview, October 21, 2026
9. Maariv, campaign spending over ₪2 million, July 19, 2026

9a. Kikar HaShabbat, Leitner interview: "נוציא עד השקל האחרון שהחוק מאפשר", September 2, 2026 9b. Emess, Leitner on Kol Chai: ₪10 million from Charedi donors, ₪2 million from others, October 25, 2026 9c. Israel Hayom, guarantees have no ceiling; a forfeited guarantee is deemed a donation, October 22, 2026 9d. State Comptroller, 2026 guidelines for party finance (donation cap ₪14,000 for a non represented party) 9e. Calcalist, 2026 funding unit ₪1.835 million, June 29, 2026 9f. Hatzibur Hacharedi official site, donations disclosure page, accessed October 25, 2026

Schwebel and the board 10. Knesset Channel, "שחור לבן," Israel Schwebel interview, October 22, 2026 (video archived; captions transcribed) 10a. Charedim10, Schwebel's remarks and the party's response, October 19, 2026 10b. World Zionist Organization, Israel Schwebel, official biography 10c. Kikar HaShabbat, Schwebel appointed treasurer of Beitar Illit, January 27, 2015 10d. 418 Beit Shemesh News, Derech list filed, September 22, 2023 11. Emess on Kol Chai interview, Leitner on the vaad rabbanim, October 20, 2026 12. HaMechadesh, Leitner: "לא נקים מועצת רבנים", February 25, 2024 13. Kikar FM, Rabbi Pfeffer interview, October 21, 2026 13a. Clarification letter of Rav Yosef Binyamin Weiss, written at the request and in the name of Rav Asher Weiss, 11 Marcheshvan 5787 (October 22, 2026); full text and translation on Charedim.com, "It Simply Never Happened" 13b. Channel 14, "Patriots" panel, Yedidya Meir, Yinon Magal and Avishai Ben Haim on Hatzibur Hacharedi, October 24, 2026 (video archived; English subtitles as broadcast online, Hebrew audio to be checked before publication)

The Netanyahu offer and the seat math 13c. Walla, Leitner in Petah Tikva: "תינוקות שנשבו", targeting the Religious Zionist vote, October 25, 2026 13d. Emess, leaked recording, Leitner on MK Yaakov Asher, October 24, 2026 13e. Charedim10, party response to the Rav Asher Weiss letter: "אין תגובה", October 24, 2026 14. Ynet, Amir Attinger, the Likud offer and Leitner's conditions, October 20, 2026 15. Arutz 7, Netanyahu meets Leitner in Petah Tikva, October 21, 2026 16. Makor Rishon, Leitner's Neve Ilan statement, October 21, 2026 17. Kikar HaShabbat, Netanyahu: "לשרוף את הקול", October 21, 2026 18. Yair Netanyahu, X, reply to Moti Leitner, October 21, 2026 (screenshot archived) 19. Ynet, up to 8 seats may burn, October 20, 2026 19a. Ynet, Friday night television polls, October 23, 2026 19b. Zman Yisrael, Leitner expects about 100,000 votes, October 23, 2026 20. Maariv/Lazar poll, October 23, 2026 21. Mako, Channel 12 poll, October 12, 2026 22. Israel Hayom/Kantar poll, October 22, 2026 23. Kikar HaShabbat, MK Porush on the convention crowd, October 21, 2026

The draft, the court, the opposition 24. Times of Israel, High Court orders sanctions, April 26, 2026 25. Israel Hayom, High Court 45 day order, November 19, 2025 26. Jerusalem Post, nine justices strike down arrest freeze law, September 5, 2026 27. Times of Israel, IDF admits no proactive enforcement, October 6, 2026 28. Jerusalem Post, Eisenkot, Bennett, Liberman at Jerusalem rally, September 29, 2026 29. Jerusalem Post, opposition pledge not to sit with Charedi parties, August 14, 2026 30. Yeshiva World News, Smotrich at Katif Conference, July 21, 2026 31. Times of Israel, Smotrich: "a complete lie", October 13, 2026 32. Times of Israel, IDF personnel chief on absorption capacity, January 7, 2025 32a. Times of Israel, IDF: over 2,000 Charedi volunteer requests in first two weeks, October 23, 2023 32b. Globes, fact check: Charedi volunteers after October 7, Knesset Research Center figures 33. FDD, final living hostages released, October 13, 2025

The April allegation, the founding, the Eisenkot report 34. JDN, "גורמי שמאל בתנועת מלקחיים", April 28, 2026 35. Babli, party registration published for objections, June 4, 2026 36. Jerusalem Post, "הציבור החרדי" campaign launch, July 19, 2026 37. Maariv, ultimatum to Deri, Gafni and Goldknopf, August 4, 2026 38. HaMechadesh, Kan report on Eisenkot associates and the party's denial, August 5, 2026 39. Kikar HaShabbat, Shas and UTJ response, August 6, 2026 40. Babli, Inbar Harush Gity on the new party, July 13, 2026

Kaplan 41. Israel Hayom, Makor Rishon investigation into 2023 protest funding, February 17, 2025

Leitner 42. City News Beit Shemesh, Leitner interview, August 4, 2024 43. Israel Hayom, Leitner on Derech and no women on the list, August 10, 2026 44. Makor Rishon, list filed, September 9, 2026

Campaign trail 45. Makor Rishon, Religious Zionist campaign HQ and planned stops, October 12, 2026 46. Tov News, October 13, 2026 47. Hatzibur Hacharedi official social channels, event announcements, October 2026 (screenshots archived)

Rav Lando 48. JDN, Rav Lando to the rabbanim of Karmiel, video, October 22, 2026 49. Charedim10, same remarks, October 23, 2026 50. JDN, Rav Lando at the Boyaner beis medrash, October 23, 2026 49a. Israel Hayom, Rav Lando's handwritten letter to Rav Yosef Ben Arza, October 24, 2026 49b. Kikar HaShabbat, the Ben Arza letter, October 24, 2026 50a. Letter of Rav Eliezer Yehuda Finkel, Rosh Yeshivas Mir Yerushalayim, to the talmidim of the yeshiva, on yeshiva letterhead, week of October 19, 2026; facsimile and translation on Charedim.com, "Do Not Support Parties That Do Not Follow the Chachamim" 50b. Handwritten letter of Rav Avigdor Nebenzahl, Rav of the Old City of Yerushalayim, on personal letterhead, week of October 19, 2026; facsimile and translation on Charedim.com, "Their Portion With Me in This World and the World to Come" 50c. "A Call to Klal Yisroel Regarding the Upcoming Elections," English letter signed by Rav Moshe Hillel Hirsch, Rav Eliezer Yehuda Finkel, Rav Yehoshua Eichenstein, Rav Avraham Gurwitz, Rav Yerucham Olshin, Rav Yitzchak Sorotzkin, Rav Eliyahu Baruch, Rav Yisroel Perlow, Rav Yehoshua Perlow, Rav Yitzchak Shmuel HaLevi Berkowitz, October 2026 (facsimile archived)

Related on Charedim.com 51. The Rabbis of Hatzibur Hacharedi, October 22, 2026 52. The Useful Idiots of Hatzibur Hacharedi, October 2026

Editorial note: Every quotation in this article is reproduced from the cited source. Where a report has been denied, the denial is printed alongside it. Where an allegation rests on unnamed sources, that is stated. The party, its donors and the individuals named are welcome to correct any fact, and corrections will be published.