User:Disnihapoel/The Jewish Home

The Jewish Home (הַבַּיִת הַיְהוּדִי, HaBayit HaYehudi) is an Orthodox Jewish, religious Zionist political party in Israel, formed as the successor party to the National Religious Party. The party is considered as a right-wing party.

The Jewish Home was formed towards the end of the 17th Knesset term, as a continuation to the joint list of the National Union and the National Religious Party in order to unite the parties in this list (Moledet, Tkuma, Ahi and Mafdal) to a one religious party headed by Daniel Hershkowitz, a rabbi and a professor. The attempt to merge all the parties into a one religious party failed, even before the 18th Knesset, and in the elections for the 18th Knesset, The Jewish Home represented only the National Religious Party under the nickname "The Jewish Home - New Mafdal". Prior to the Elections in 2013, Tkuma party re-joined The Jewish Home in order to unite into a one party, this time under Naftali Bennett as its chairman. It helped the party to win 12 seats in the elections, highest MKs number.

In the Elections in 2015, the joint list of The Jewish Home weakened and won only 8 seats, but they received the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Justice and Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, what made them influential in the Cabinet of Israel.

The party establishment
The Jewish Home was founded in December 2008, towards the end of the 17th Knesset term, and prior to the announcement on the 2013 Elections, as a continuation party to the alliance of the National Union and the Mafdal, which had 9 seats (from 4 parties) in the Knesset: Ahi of Effi Eitam and Yitzhak Levy, Moledet of Aryeh Eldad and Binyamin Elon, Tkuma of Uri Ariel and Zvi Hendel (those three parties consisted the National Union) and the fourth party, Mafdal, of Zevulun Orlev, Eliyahu Gabai and Nissan Slomiansky. The target was to unite all the seats holders of the list to a wide right-wing religious party. On December 3, The Jewish Home

Ideology
The party primarily represents Modern Orthodox Jews. For many years, this community has been politically fractured and weak. In the 2013 elections, the party was led by Naftali Bennett, a charismatic high-tech millionaire, who appealed to both religious and secular Israelis. The party's pro-settlement message and Bennett's personal appeal helped it increase popularity among a broader segment of the population. The attention that Bennett received also apparently had an effect on Likud's 2013 election strategy, pushing it to the right. Along with Yesh Atid, the Jewish Home surged in popularity by promising to end the controversial system of draft exemptions given to ultra-Orthodox seminary students, and to "ease the burden" on middle class Israelis who serve in the military, work and pay taxes. These two parties became the two largest coalition parties in Prime Minister Netanyahu's government, and leaders of both parties were able to force Netanyahu to promise that the ultra-Orthodox political parties will not be in the new coalition. Despite Bennett's alliance with Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid on many domestic issues, the two differ sharply over peace efforts and settlement building. Bennett is opposed to concessions to the Palestinians, and has called for Israel to annex Area C of the West Bank and offer citizenship to the Palestinians living there. Their alliance ended during their time as coalition partners, before the Israeli legislative election, 2015.

Most of the party's candidates for the 2015 elections are opposed to same-sex marriage. Some of the remarks made by its candidates have been called homophobic by Yair Lapid; Zehava Gal-On and Mickey Rosenthal also criticized the comments. Despite this, in a 2016 poll, 57% of Jewish Home voters said they back same-sex marriage.