Jeremy Sharon
Times of Israel, Oct. 30, 2022
“Because of this financial vulnerability, Rabinowitz says the Haredi parties have sought to leverage the cost of living crisis to their benefit, and blame it squarely on the current government as a way of boosting voter motivation by underlining the supposed negative impact the actions of the outgoing administration has had on their lives.”
For the two ultra-Orthodox political parties this election, one concern has stuck out above all else as their overriding fear and central source of electoral anxiety: the loss of voters to the far-right Religious Zionism party.
An election campaign ad posted to social media on Thursday by the ultra-Orthodox Shas party illustrated this disquiet beautifully.
In the ad, a traditional, yet secular young Mizrachi man, supposed to typify the average Shas voter, walks into a voting booth and — hand wavering between the Likud, Shas, and Religious Zionism voting slips — eventually decides to vote for the latter.
Suddenly Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the late spiritual leader and founding father of Shas, appears before the young man from beyond the grave and, by means of spliced archival video footage, admonishes him for even thinking about voting for any other party other than Shas.
The rabbi tells him only Shas will protect the country’s Jewish character and the poor, and promises him a place in the ‘World to Come’ if he votes for the ultra-Orthodox party. ...SOURCE
