Haredi dailies Yated Neeman and Hamodia distance themselves from the right

Several newspapers serving Israel's Haredi, or ultra-Orthodox, community have run editorials putting distance between their readers and the country's right-wing political camp. N12 political correspondent Eli Hirschman reported on N12's news channel that Yated Neeman, the paper of the Degel HaTorah party, followed Hamodia and HaMevaser on Tuesday morning with a leading article declaring: "We are not right! Not right and not left!" The editorial went on to describe the community's position as Daat Torah, adding that it acts as it is instructed.

Separately, the commentator Amit Segal wrote on his Telegram channel that Hamodia was continuing to prepare its readers for a possible government that would include Gadi Eisenkot, Avigdor Liberman, Naftali Bennett and Yair Golan. Segal summarised the paper's message as being that, when it counted, the right had proved no better than the left.

What the Yated Neeman editorial said

In a second excerpt posted by Hirschman, the Yated Neeman editorial addressed accusations that United Torah Judaism had turned "leftist". It described that charge as a political weapon suited to election season and said the party had no obligation to clean off what it called lying mud thrown by interested parties of every kind. The passage presents the editorial as a response to criticism from the right, rather than as an announcement of a new alliance.

The papers and the parties behind them

Haredi politics in Israel is organised largely around rabbinic leadership, and the community's daily newspapers function as voices of its parties and their rabbis rather than as independent outlets. Yated Neeman speaks for Degel HaTorah, which represents the non-Hasidic, often called Lithuanian, stream of ultra-Orthodox Jewry. Hamodia is the long-standing daily associated with Agudat Yisrael, the Hasidic-based party. HaMevaser is another Haredi daily. Degel HaTorah and Agudat Yisrael together run in elections as United Torah Judaism, the main Ashkenazi ultra-Orthodox list.

Because these papers are closely tied to party leadership, a shift in tone across several of them at once is generally read in Israel as a deliberate message to voters and to other parties, not as the opinion of an individual columnist.

What "Daat Torah" means

Daat Torah, literally "the opinion of the Torah", is the principle that guidance on public and political questions should come from leading rabbinic authorities. For Haredi parties it underpins the idea that political choices are made by their councils of rabbis, not by ideology. By describing the community as following Daat Torah rather than belonging to the right or the left, the editorial frames the parties' loyalty as owed to their rabbis, not to any political bloc.

Why the names in Segal's post matter

The figures Segal listed come from outside the right-wing camp led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud, which Haredi parties have joined in government for many years. Naftali Bennett is a former prime minister. Gadi Eisenkot is a former chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Avigdor Liberman, who leads the Yisrael Beytenu party, has been one of the most outspoken critics of the Haredi parties, particularly over military service for yeshiva students. Yair Golan leads the left-of-centre Democrats. Any arrangement bringing Haredi parties into a government with these figures would mark a significant break from their traditional alignment.

Background: a strained partnership

The Haredi parties have long been treated as a fixed part of the right-wing bloc in Israeli coalition arithmetic. That relationship has come under heavy pressure over the question of conscripting ultra-Orthodox men into the military, an issue on which Haredi leaders have clashed with their coalition partners. Against that background, accusations from the right that the Haredi parties are drifting leftward have become part of the political argument, which is what the Yated Neeman editorial set out to answer.

What the reports do not say

None of the reports quote the Hamodia or HaMevaser editorials directly; Hamodia's position is known here only through Segal's characterisation of it. No response from Likud, from Netanyahu or from any of the politicians Segal named has been reported. The reports also do not say whether United Torah Judaism's elected leaders or rabbinic councils have taken any formal decision about future coalition partners, or whether the editorials reflect such a decision.