In a First, an Ultra-Orthodox Party Puts a Woman on Its Knesset Candidate List | Israel Politics Post
In a First, an Ultra-Orthodox Party Puts a Woman on Its Knesset Candidate List
Dr. Nechumi Yaffe, a Haredi political psychology researcher who has advised the National Security Council on ultra-Orthodox poverty, joined the newly formed Charedi Public party's slate just before the filing deadline.
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By Israel Politics Post Staff·Published
Dr. Nechumi Yaffe · Source: Yifat Golan, via The Times of Israel
For the first time in Israeli political history, an ultra-Orthodox party has placed a woman on its Knesset candidate list, The Times of Israel reported, with the newly formed Charedi Public party adding researcher Dr. Nechumi Yaffe to its slate a day before the filing deadline.
Yaffe, a political psychology researcher who studies the ultra-Orthodox community, has collaborated with Harvard University on Haredi-focused research and holds a senior faculty position at Tel Aviv University. In 2020 she was appointed special advisor on Haredi affairs to Israel's National Security Council, focusing on poverty within the ultra-Orthodox community, and after the October 7, 2023 attack she helped coordinate an emergency response center that sent volunteers to support families from communities near the Gaza border.
Charedi Public chairman Moti Leitner said Yaffe's three decades in education and academia had been spent advancing the interests of "our Haredi brothers and sisters." The party, which advocates for reducing poverty, expanding secular education and workforce participation, and requiring military service for men not engaged in full-time yeshiva study, is currently polling below the 3.25 percent threshold needed to enter the Knesset.
Even if the party falls short on election day, Yaffe's candidacy marks a notable shift inside a political world that has never before put a woman on an ultra-Orthodox party's own list, though Haredi women have previously served in the Knesset as members of other parties.
