Two women who secured spots on a haredi party's Knesset list — the first of their kind to do so — have directed their attention toward concerns shaping daily life for women in that community, among them access to healthcare, workplace conditions, educational opportunities, and the demands of managing large households while their husbands devote themselves to yeshiva study.
Nechumi Yaffe and Ziva Glanz, both listed as candidates under the newly formed Haredi Public party, laid out their platform in a recent interview, pointing to a range of unaddressed needs facing women within the haredi community that their candidacies aim to tackle, noting that certain matters had long gone without attention.
Yaffe noted that mortality rates among women in the haredi community run approximately 5% above those of other community members, with childbirth and cancer among the leading causes. Women's health stood out in her view as a topic that had not received adequate attention within the haredi community.
Ranked third and fourth respectively on the party's candidate list, Yaffe and Glanz would both secure Knesset seats provided the party clears the electoral threshold. Shas and United Torah Judaism (UTJ) have long occupied a central place in the governing coalition that Netanyahu assembled and maintained, and women were absent from the candidate lists submitted by both parties to the Knesset.
The Haredi Public party has taken a position within its community that diverges from other haredi political factions, backing internal reform and supporting the enlistment of haredi men and women into the IDF. Glanz noted that the party, though its poll numbers had yet to clear the entry threshold, had been attracting growing support despite operating as a newer organisation with little time to establish itself, adding that voters were expressing a genuine need for what it offered.
She noted that the occasion was one many people had been anticipating for a long time, and that she counted herself among those who had waited for it.
Yaffe further noted that haredi members of the Knesset had given insufficient attention to women's issues during the previous parliamentary term, stating that her review found no party member had attended any of the relevant Knesset committees throughout that period, for a range of reasons. She also pointed out that outreach programmes on women's health were falling short of the haredi community's needs.
Both candidates addressed the question of easing the financial burden carried by haredi women, a substantial portion of whom hold jobs to cover household and child-rearing costs while their husbands devote their time to yeshiva study. Over the two decades prior, female labour-force participation had been climbing, Yaffe noted. She noted that haredi women's pay tends to trail that of their non-haredi peers and that a portion of those workers encounter employment arrangements that fall short of fair standards, adding that instances of exploitation of vulnerable individuals have been documented.
Yaffe indicated that the matter warrants attention. She went on to note that women bearing responsibility for large households frequently found themselves without the time or space to pursue their own rights, adding that the figures warranted closer examination. She stated that responsibility for that situation falls to women, and her address centred on those women — each of them a daughter or sister to people who hold them close.
Her stated aims included advancing the rights and opportunities of haredi women, broadening their access to health and education services, and ensuring they had a clearer understanding of the legal protections available to them.
In her remarks, Glanz drew attention to the strain facing haredi women who hold jobs while also raising families, observing that human capacity has a ceiling and that these women are being pushed toward it. She noted that household sizes within the group tend to run on the higher end, and that preparing large meals and welcoming guests occupies a significant portion of their time. She went on to say that adequate support for those individuals is a necessity, warning that without it, caregiver exhaustion risks driving families apart.
Glanz also addressed the question of haredi school curricula, calling for state oversight to ensure subjects such as mathematics and English are actually taught, and added that meaningful educational change was needed both within the haredi community and across the broader population. She called for education reform to take a more prominent place in the election debate, arguing that the issue touches the lives of all citizens, and outlined a platform centred on foundational mathematics and English instruction aimed at giving people the skills to support themselves financially. Glanz added that the education system, in the party's view, requires broader reforms beyond what has already been proposed.
Glanz also raised questions about whether the IDF was adequately set up to integrate women into its ranks, expressing the view that the armed forces presently fall short as a suitable environment for a broad range of women, while noting that male personnel entering service also face unresolved challenges that warrant attention.
With the 27 October elections drawing near, Yaffe expressed her view that she and Glanz stood among the first women to appear on a haredi party's Knesset candidate list, describing haredi women as having long held meaningful positions and contributed substantively across various roles. Speaking to reporters, Yaffe described the moment as a political turning point, noting that her organisation had, for the first time, gained direct involvement in the room where decisions of consequence are reached.
