JERUSALEM (JTA) — Jewish Home party head Naftali Bennett and party leader Ayelet Shaked announced that they would leave the pro-settler party and form a new alliance ahead of national elections. Bennett, who serves as education minister in Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government, and Ayelet Shaked, the justice minister, at… Read more »
Tagged Jewish Home party
Why an Israeli soldier insists he beat a Palestinian, but the army doesn’t buy it

TEL AVIV (JTA) – Imagine for a moment that a soldier is suspected of misconduct in the field. Typically, someone might be expected to report the soldier, prompting the army to investigate. The soldier might deny any wrongdoing. Well, in Israel, a recent case unfolded in almost exactly the opposite way.… Read more »
Can Netanyahu make new narrow coalition work?

TEL AVIV (JTA) – Seven weeks after he won reelection, Benjamin Netanyahu finally secured a fourth term as prime minister. With 90 minutes to go until a Wednesday night deadline to form a governing coalition, Netanyahu concluded an agreement with the religious, pro-settler Jewish Home party that gives him… Read more »
First Muslim to run for Jewish Home slate, Anett Haskia is a rarity among Arab-Israelis

PETACH TIKVAH, Israel (JTA) — Outside the Moriah Synagogue in this central Israeli city, boys in ritual fringes and girls in long skirts handed out fliers for the dozens of candidates running in the Jan. 14 primary for the Jewish Home party, a right-wing, modern Orthodox faction. Religious voters… Read more »
On Israeli religious reforms, Naftali Bennett still figuring out road map

NEW YORK (JTA) — Naftali Bennett doesn’t like to waste time. In the eight months since he took over three Israeli ministries — religious services, economy, and Diaspora and Jerusalem affairs — Bennett has pushed through legislation to give Israeli couples more freedom in choosing which rabbi officiates at… Read more »
Netanyahu, with team of rivals, puts together a government

TEL AVIV (JTA) — He’s had to bite a few bullets to get there, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will lead Israel’s next government. Barring a last-minute surprise, Israel’s new governing coalition will be sworn in this week: a center-right grouping of Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud-Beiteinu faction, the centrist… Read more »