At a Tuesday campaign event, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich disputed military leadership's assessments on personnel shortages, contending that claims of an overstretched fighting force attributable to Haredi non-enlistment did not hold up to scrutiny. He put forward a figure of roughly 50,000 combat-trained reservists ready to return to active duty without providing supporting documentation, asserting that equipment and infrastructure gaps were preventing their deployment.
Figures from the military put its troop shortfall at roughly 12,000 personnel, a number that defence planners project will grow once mandatory service terms are reduced in early 2027, with exemptions granted to ultra-Orthodox men cited among the contributing factors. That same month, military leadership put legislators on notice that troop exhaustion from personnel shortfalls had reached a point where the reserve force faced potential breakdown unless a draft covering roughly 80,000 ultra-Orthodox men between the ages of 18 and 24 — those thought to meet eligibility requirements but not yet in uniform — received legislative backing.
The comments from Smotrich arrived against a backdrop of friction within Religious Zionism's voter base — a constituency whose members fill frontline military positions at notably higher rates than the broader population — over the long-established policy of granting Haredi men broad exemptions from mandatory service.
Footage posted to social media on Tuesday captured members of an ultra-Orthodox youth group pulling down campaign posters belonging to a newly established Haredi party that supports military enlistment for Haredi men not enrolled in yeshiva study. Footage captured in both Jerusalem and Bnei Brak showed groups of young people pulling down election posters belonging to the Charedi Public party.
Trailing the 3.25 percent threshold required for Knesset entry, the Moti Leitner-led party's polling numbers leave its parliamentary prospects in doubt under current projections. The movement draws on the same pool of voters that Ashkenazi United Torah Judaism and Sephardic Shas have long relied upon, while also putting forward positions that depart from the policy lines those established Haredi parties have held.
Drawing notice for its stance on reducing poverty within Haredi society, the party advocates broadening access to secular schooling, integrating ultra-Orthodox men into the workforce, and extending military service obligations to those not engaged in full-time yeshiva study — positions that place it at odds with the platforms held by long-standing Haredi political organisations. Among the party's notable features is its decision to place women on the ballot — Dr. Nechumi Yaffe, a researcher in political psychology, holding the third position, and Zivva Glantz the fourth — a practice no ultra-Orthodox party had previously adopted. Securing seats in the Knesset for both of them depended on the party clearing the electoral threshold with a minimum of four seats.
Even without securing Knesset seats, the party retains the capacity to draw votes away from Shas and UTJ, trimming the electoral base of those longer-standing Haredi factions. In a statement issued after footage circulated showing young people tearing down its campaign placards, the party noted that the entrenched Haredi factions had taken notice of a shift in voter support toward Charedi Public and were uneasy about it, adding that the removal of election signage belonging to any party was something it opposed. The statement closed with a declaration that attempts to suppress its voice would not prevail.
