This poster was published in the run up to the elections to the 14th Knesset in 1996, with a Halakhic (Jewish law) ruling by Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv instructing everyone to vote for United Torah Judaism (represented by the Hebrew letter "ג"). The poster features a picture of Rabbi Elyashiv, dressed in the traditional clothing of an Ultra-Orthodox Jew. The poster also contains a text box, which includes the main points of the Rabbi’s ruling. There is a large picture at the top of the poster which has been designed to look like Mount Sinai; surrounded by smoke, the two white tablets, alluding to the tablets of the Ten Commandments, feature the words) פסק הלכה Jewish law).
The design of the poster makes it very clear that for the Ultra-Orthodox world, the rulings made by great rabbis are crucial elements of Jewish life, almost as important as the two tablets of stone. In the Ultra-Orthodox community, obedience to great Torah scholars is a fundamental principle of personal and collective identity, and therefore the parties use so-called halakhic rulings in their election propaganda.
In 1992, the two Ultra-Orthodox parties Agudat Yisrael and Degel Hatorah merged into a joint list called United Torah Judaism. The union was intended to increase the Ultra-Orthodox’s power in the Knesset following the rise in the electoral threshold. The two parties that make up United Torah Judaism list function in the Knesset as a joint faction but are in fact independent parties.
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United Torah Judaism – United Torah Judaism is a joint list of the two Ashkenazi Ultra-Orthodox parties: the Hasidic Agudat Israel and the Haredi (Lithuanian) Degel HaTorah. Despite fundamental differences between the two parties, the decision to unite towards the elections for the 13th Knesset was a result of the law requiring a higher election threshold. According to this law, parties that do not obtain 3.2% of the votes are not entitled to representation in the Knesset. The two parties therefore united, understanding that by standing alone they might not be represented in the parliament. They operate in the Knesset as a joint faction but as independent parties.
Elections in Israel – Israel is a democratic country, and general elections for the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, take place, according to the law, once every four years. The nationwide elections are based on a multi-party, proportional representation system. The legal voting age in Israel is 18, and all Israeli citizens from sectors may vote and be elected. Using voting slips with the initials of the parties, citizens vote for their preferred party and not for individual candidates. The 120 seats in the Knesset are then assigned proportionally to the parties according to the number of votes received. After the elections, the president of Israel chooses the leader of the largest party or of the party that is most likely to form a viable coalition government. This leader then forms a government, the Knesset gives it a vote of confidence, and the leader then becomes prime minister.
The 1996 Elections – The 1996 elections were the first elections with two separate ballot boxes: one for prime minister and one for the political party. Shimon Peres from the Labour party and Binyamin Netanyahu from the Likud party were both running for prime minister. The atmosphere in Israel at the time was very heavy. Rabin had been assassinated six months earlier – the tragic culmination of a large rift in Israeli society following the peace process. The security situation was also difficult, with terror attacks and conflict in northern Lebanon, leading the IDF to attack Lebanon in Operation Grapes of Wrath in an attempt to bring an end to the Hizbollah rocket attacks. The election results were surprising, with a marginal victory for Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister. Due to the new double vote system, the larger parties – Likud and Labour – lost many seats and smaller parties, such as the religious parties Shas and the NRP, were strengthened. Two new parties also gained many seats: Yisrael Be’Aliya headed by Natan Sharansky and the centralist party The Third Way. Despite the fact that Labour actually received two seats more that Likud, due to the new system of a direct vote for prime minister, Netanyahu was able to form a new Likud government.
