November 5, 2026
In a remarkable political development within the Israeli religious camp, Rabbi Moshe Maya, one of the most prominent spiritual authorities of the “Shas” party and the oldest member of the Council of Torah Sages (88 years old), proposed a political initiative stipulating the formation of a national unity government whose presidency would be alternated with Benjamin Netanyahu and Gadi Eisenkot, while excluding the “Jewish Power” party led by Itamar Ben Gvir.
This call came in an interview conducted by Rabbi Maya with the religious newspaper “Mishbaha”, and its details were published by journalist Shilo Farid on the “Ynet” website, where Maya considered that the rotational government represents the only way out of the current political impasse, noting that this step constitutes “the real testing hour” for Eisenkot. He explained that Eisenkot joining Netanyahu would give them 48 seats together, which could be completed to reach the parliamentary majority by including the Haredi parties and the “Religious Zionism” party with an additional 19 seats, expressing his hope that a culture of mutual respect and living in peace would prevail between the right and the left.
This initiative comes in the wake of the electoral defeat suffered by the “Shas” party, which saw its representation in the Knesset decline from 11 seats to only 6 seats, despite Maya’s praise of the party’s obtaining the votes of about 300,000 voters, and in light of the party’s leader, Aryeh Deri’s recommendation to Israeli President Isaac Herzog to assign Netanyahu to form the government. In this context, the Shas bloc held a special meeting chaired by Deri, in which Knesset representatives and mayors participated, and it began with the recitation of the “Psalm of Thanksgiving” in gratitude for the voters’ support.
In his reading of the reasons for the decline in popular support for the party, Rabbi Maya attributed the electoral loss to the influence of the media and the rhetoric against exempting yeshiva students from conscription, which prompted some traditional right-wing voters to prefer the Likud party, despite Shas continuing to pray for the soldiers’ safety. Maya strongly criticized the representatives of the religious Zionist movement in the outgoing government, accusing them of obstructing the law exempting institute students and monopolizing the interpretation of biblical texts. He stressed that religious institute students who devote their lives to studying the Torah for up to 12 hours a day bear a moral and spiritual burden that exceeds military service, stressing that the Israeli army “does not want or need” the Haredim, and that the previous talk about recruitment goals and quotas was nothing but an attempt to pass the Supreme Court hurdle and buy time.
