Abstaining, Mostly

Five UTJ MKs Withhold PM Recommendation

Five United Torah Judaism MKs will not name a candidate for prime minister • Meir Porush and Yitzhak Pindrus are still weighing whether to back Benjamin Netanyahu

Eliana Fleming

NOV 4, 2026 20:05

2 min read

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Five of United Torah Judaism's seven Knesset members will not name anyone for prime minister, Amit Segal reported. The chareidi party is splitting its vote in the recommendations to President Isaac Herzog, in which parties tell the president who should receive the mandate to form Israel's next government.

The other two lawmakers have not made up their minds. MKs Meir Porush and Yitzhak Pindrus are still deliberating whether to endorse Benjamin Netanyahu.

The split departs from the party's earlier line. On Wednesday, United Torah Judaism had said it would abstain from recommending anyone in the presidential recommendations.

On Sunday, Porush publicly doubted that UTJ would cooperate with the opposition bloc led by Gadi Eisenkot. "Eisenkot? Who would go with him? He hasn't even called us," Porush said, Ynet reported. During the election campaign, he had pledged to Chabad chassidim and the chareidi-right public that his faction would not help form a government led by the center-left camp.

Pindrus took a different position in October. He declared that UTJ is not part of Netanyahu's bloc and said the party had not decided how it would vote on a government headed by Eisenkot. He also stated then that every UTJ lawmaker would cast the same vote on that question.

Israelis voted on October 27.

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