Nechumi Yaffe Becomes 1st Haredi Woman in Knesset Race

An ultra-Orthodox political party in Israel has made history by selecting a woman for its Knesset candidate list for the upcoming election. The newly formed Charedi Public party, headed by Moti Leitner, announced Dr. Nechumi Yaffe will be the candidate on 7th September, a day before the deadline for parties to submit their final lists to the Central Election Committee.

Yaffe is an ultra-Orthodox political psychology researcher and senior faculty member at Tel Aviv University. The Charedi Public party said she has also worked with Harvard University on a research project examining Israel’s ultra-Orthodox community.

In 2020, Nechumi was appointed special adviser on Haredi affairs to Israel’s National Security Council, where she focused on poverty and related issues within the ultra-Orthodox community. Her inclusion on the Knesset slate marks a notable development in a political sector that has traditionally excluded women from electoral representation.

Key Highlights:

• Nechumi Yaffe becomes the first woman to run for Knesset with an ultra-Orthodox party
• Charedi Public focuses on poverty, education, employment and military service
• The party is currently below the 3.25% electoral threshold

Following the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack, Nechumi coordinated an emergency response center that mobilized volunteers to support families from communities near the Gaza border. Her political and research experience is expected to bring greater attention to social and economic issues affecting the ultra-Orthodox community.

Leitner welcomed Yaffe to the party, saying that “over 30 years of an educational and academic career, Yaffe has worked to advance our Haredi brothers and sisters.” Currently, The Charedi Public is not expected to win any seats at the election as it is polling below the 3.25% electoral threshold.

If elected, Nechumi would not be the first Haredi woman in the Knesset, but would be the first one to represent an ultra-Orthodox party. In essence, the Haredi Public is an alternative to the more traditional Ashkenazi United Torah Judaism (UTJ) and Sephardic Shas, which it was founded last month to oppose.

It aims to combat poverty in the Haredi community and to promote secular studies, labor force enticement and army service for all who do not study in yeshiva.

The IDF continues to suffer from a chronic manpower deficit and as of now approximately 80,000 ultra-Orthodox men between 18 and 24 are thought to be eligible for military service but have not yet joined the military. Together with other ultra-Orthodox, Shas and UTJ have lobbied for a bill exempting most ultra-Orthodox men from conscription and last month helped score another bill that has been frozen by the High Court of Justice, to stop draft evaders from being arrested.

Also, Haredi schools generally do not offer the kind of education that will lead to employment in the outside world, where there are fewer ultra-Orthodox men. The Haaretz day's report stated that the choice of Yaffe was the result of a long campaign by haredi feminism activists.

Pnina Pfeuffer, the founder of The New Haredim activist group, that shares the new party's ideas, told Haaretz earlier in the week that she was "shocked" that at first there were no women to represent the party, as she had cooperated with the new party's founders in the past.

“It’s not like being angry at Degel HaTorah that doesn’t have women in it. These people are with us, and we work together, so the expectation is that we will be part of it,” she said.

“There was a lot of anger against us; they called us purists,” she added.