Slomiansky, Shaked top Habayit Hayehudi list

Bennett called party’s new list the best possible and very varied, adds: We will bring back the Jewish soul to the State of Israel.

By LAHAV HARKOV
Naftali Bennett (photo credit: avec l'autorisation d'Habayit Hayehoudi)
Naftali Bennett
(photo credit: avec l'autorisation d'Habayit Hayehoudi)
Former MK Nissan Slomiansky took second place on the Habayit Hayehudi candidates list for the 19th Knesset, the party’s election committee announced on Wednesday.
One week after Naftali Bennett was elected party leader, Slomiansky, a supporter of Bennett’s rival MK Zevulun Orlev, won the second place on the list.
Bennett allies Ayelet Shaked, MK Uri Orbach, Beersheba Deputy Mayor Avi Wertzman and Mateh Binyamin Regional Council deputy chairman Moti Yogev followed.
The party is expected to run for the next Knesset with the National Union, so the candidates will ultimately be placed lower on the joint list.
After announcing the list, Central Election Committee Chairman Rabbi Daniel Tropper cited the drastic changes the party underwent, and expressed hope it would be transformed from a marginal party to a dominant one.
“Something new is beginning,” Bennet said, quoting his campaign slogan. “Religious Zionism, which for many years was unimportant in the political field, is rising like a phoenix and expanding into places we never imagined we would reach.
Habayit Hayehudi’s goal, he explained, is to be the senior party in Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s next coalition.
The new Habayit Hayehudi leader pointed out that the party recruited nearly 54,000 members in recent months, calling it “lively and values-driven.”
Bennett called the party’s new list the best possible and very varied.
Click for full JPost coverage
Click for full JPost coverage
“We will bring back the Jewish soul to the State of Israel. We will be the home to all those who love the Land of Israel and are proud of the Torah of Israel,” he added.
Also Wednesday, Yoni Shetbon, who was elected to seventh place in the party, petitioned the Habayit Hayehudi court, asking it to enforce a central election committee decision to save the fifth spot for a candidate under 40. Shetbon is 33 years old.
MK Uri Ariel, expected to lead the National Union in the 19th Knesset, said the “knitted-kippa revolution” began on Wednesday.
“I congratulate those who were elected in the Habayit Hayehudi party. Now we are geared toward unifying the ranks and returning the national-religious camp to its historic influential position on the political map,” Ariel said.
Current National Union chairman MK Ya’acov Katz called the Habayit Hayehudi list “excellent” saying it will “fit in perfectly with National Union’s excellent list.”
Katz predicted the National Union-Habayit Hayehudi list would get more than 12 seats in the next Knesset, and raise the status of Torah and the Land of Israel.
“God willing, our joint list will be the largest in the coalition,” he said.