Ger is a Polish Hasidic dynasty originating from the town of Góra Kalwaria, Poland, where it was founded by Yitzchak Meir Alter (1798–1866), known as the "Chiddushei HaRim". Ger is a branch of Peshischa Hasidism, as Yitzchak Meir Alter was a leading disciple of Simcha Bunim of Peshischa (1765–1827). Before the Holocaust, followers of Ger were estimated to number in excess of 100,000, making it the largest and most influential Hasidic group in Poland. Today, the movement is based in Jerusalem, and its membership is estimated at 11,859 families, as of 2016, most of whom live in Israel, making Ger the largest Hasidic dynasty in Israel. However, there are also well-established Ger communities in the United States and in Europe. In 2019, some 300 families of followers led by Shaul Alter, split off from the dynasty led by his cousin Yaakov Aryeh Alter.
The National Religious Party was a political party in Israel representing the religious Zionist movement.
Eliyahu "Eli" Yishai is an Israeli politician. A former leader of Shas, he represented the party in the Knesset from 1996 until 2015, also holding several ministerial posts, including being Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Internal Affairs, and Minister of Industry, Trade, and Labor. In December 2014, he left Shas to establish the Yachad party.
Shlomo Moshe Amar is the former Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel. He served in the position of Rishon LeZion from 2003 to 2013; his Ashkenazi counterpart during his tenure was Yona Metzger. In 2014 he became the Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem.
Yona Metzger is an Israeli Orthodox rabbi and the former Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel. In 2013, while chief rabbi, a fraud investigation was opened. Metzger later pleaded guilty to a number of corruption charges, was tried and convicted, and after a plea bargain was rejected, served prison time.
Menachem "Meni" Mazuz is an Israeli jurist and Supreme Court justice, who served as the Israeli Attorney General in the years 2004–2010.
Kol Torah is a yeshiva in the Bayit Vegan neighborhood of Jerusalem.
Meir Porush is an Israeli politician who has served as a member of the Knesset for the Haredi Agudat Yisrael faction of United Torah Judaism in several spells since 1996. He served as the Deputy Minister of Education.
Indirect presidential elections were held in Israel on 13 June 2007. The Knesset elected Shimon Peres, a former Prime Minister and a member of the Kadima party. His opponents were Reuven Rivlin, a former Knesset speaker, of the Likud Party, and Colette Avital, of the Labor party. After the first round of voting put Peres in a commanding lead, but just short of the absolute majority required for election, Rivlin and Avital bowed out and Peres was elected easily in the second round.
Hardal usually refers to the portion of the Religious Zionist Jewish community in Israel which inclines significantly toward Haredi ideology.
Maasiyahu Prison is a minimum-security prison in Ramle, Israel, run by the Israel Prison Service.
Ya'akov Yosef was an Israeli rabbi and politician who served as a member of the Knesset for Shas between 1984 and 1988.
Yitzhak Yosef is the Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel, the rosh yeshiva of Yeshivat Hazon Ovadia, and the author of a set of books on halakha called Yalkut Yosef.
Kisse Rahamim yeshivah is an Orthodox yeshivah in Bnei Brak, Israel, which perpetuates the traditions of the Tunisian Jews. It was founded in Tunis in 1962 and moved to Bnei Brak in 1971. Meir Mazuz, a leading Sephardic Rabbi in Israel, is the dean of the Kisse Rahamim yeshivah.
Early elections for the twentieth Knesset were held in Israel on 17 March 2015. Disagreements within the governing coalition, particularly over the budget and a "Jewish state" proposal, led to the dissolution of the government in December 2014. The Labor Party and Hatnuah formed a coalition, called Zionist Union, with the hope of defeating the Likud party, which had led the previous governing coalition along with Yisrael Beiteinu, Yesh Atid, The Jewish Home, and Hatnuah.
Moetzet Chachmei HaTorah is the rabbinical body that has the ultimate authority in the Israeli ultra-Orthodox Sephardic and Mizrahi Shas Party.
Yachad is an Orthodox Jewish political party in Israel formed by former Shas member Eli Yishai. The party combines certain groups of ultra-Orthodox Jews with some religious Zionists.
Shalom Cohen was an Israeli Haredi Sephardi rabbi. He was rosh yeshiva of the Old City branch of Porat Yosef Yeshiva, and the spiritual leader of the Shas political party. He was a member of the party's Moetzet Chachmei HaTorah rabbinic council from 1984 until his death and was its oldest member.
The Union of Right-wing Parties was a short-lived electoral alliance of right-wing to far-right religious Zionist parties which included The Jewish Home, Otzma Yehudit, and Tkuma. The list was created ahead of the April 2019 Israeli legislative election, after the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, urged the Jewish Home alliance to accept Otzma Yehudit as part of its list for the April election, to avoid losing votes for the right-wing bloc. The alliance gained five seats in the April election.
