Standing at an iron gate at the side entrance to a Hasidic synagogue in Ramat Bet Shemesh on Sunday afternoon, two young men clad in the ultra-Orthodox garb of black pants, white shirts and velvet skullcaps, stood checking people’s names against a list on a tablet computer.
Those allowed through descended a ramp to an underground event space beneath the synagogue, where workers and volunteers were bustling about, setting up tables of kosher food ahead of the launch of The Charedi Public’s 2026 Knesset run.
One of several ultra-Orthodox parties recently established to challenge the longstanding duopoly of the Ashenazi United Torah Judaism (UTJ) and Sephardic Shas, The Charedi Public is hoping to win over voters tired of the status quo and provide, in the words of one senior official, “a real and viable alternative” to what many see as a disconnected and ineffective Haredi political elite.
The Charedi Public advocates for secular studies, workforce participation, and IDF conscription for anybody who does not study full-time in yeshiva. It has yet to announce its full electoral slate.
The several dozen people who attended the event on Sunday evening represented a cross-section of ultra-Orthodox society, English-speaking immigrants and Israelis, Hasidim with long peyot and “Lithuanians” in black fedoras, and even a sprinkling of soldiers enlisted in the IDF’s dedicated Haredi service tracks.
