Gafni’s ouster signals a changing era for Israel’s haredi parties, and Netanyahu

Moshe Gafni entered Israel’s Knesset in 1988, when the country had one national television channel, Yitzhak Shamir was prime minister and Ronald Reagan was in the White House. On Saturday night, Degel Hatorah’s spiritual leadership removed him from the party’s next Knesset slate.

Gafni, the Knesset’s longest-serving member, was dropped alongside Uri Maklev on the instructions of Rabbi Dov Lando. The rabbinic leadership thanked both men for their years of service but said the party needed to “refresh” its parliamentary representation. Yakov Asher is set to replace Gafni as Degel Hatorah chairman and lead both Degel Hatorah and United Torah Judaism, the alliance it forms with Agudat Yisrael.

The change ends nearly four decades of parliamentary continuity for Gafni, apart from brief absences. He and Benjamin Netanyahu were first elected together in 1988. Although Gafni never held Netanyahu’s national power, he became a central broker in haredi politics and a symbol of the influence ultra-Orthodox parties have exercised by holding the balance of power.

The article presents the decision as more than a personnel change. As October’s election approaches, several opposition parties have made military or national service for all a condition for joining the next government. Degel Hatorah’s courteous language about “refreshing” the list is widely understood in the article as a rebuke for the failure of haredi parties to secure legislation protecting yeshiva students from conscription, despite their leverage in the Knesset.

The irony is that Gafni was one of haredi politics’ most effective parliamentary tacticians. As the seemingly permanent chairman of the powerful Finance Committee, he mastered the system’s levers and directed substantial budgets toward his constituents. His removal now signals that Netanyahu may need to win haredi support rather than assume it.

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