Gafni’s ouster marks a changing era for Israel’s haredi parties - and for Netanyahu - analysis

 https://www.jpost.com/israel-election-2026/article-907743

By pushing Gafni out of the next Knesset, the party's rabbinic leadership has served notice that Netanyahu will have to win the haredim back rather than simply count them in.

There is a considerable irony here. As a longtime MK and seemingly permanent chairman of the powerful Knesset Finance Committee, Gafni was perhaps the most accomplished parliamentary tactician in haredi politics. He mastered the political system, knew how to work its levers, and succeeded in channeling tremendous budgets to his constituents.

Yet all that parliamentary mastery could not deliver the one result his community – or at least its most respected rabbis – considered essential. And that raises a broader question: Has the traditional haredi method of working within the parliamentary system to protect and preserve the yeshiva world run its course?