Abstract

This article is analyzing the election campaigns in Israel conducted by the Haredi parties, the Ashkenazi party United Torah Judaism. Aguat Israel and Degel ha-Torah and its Sephardic counterpart Shas. The article focuses on the authority and the blessings by various types of holy men as well as on their amulets and on the importance attributed to them in the campaigns. The campaigns to be analyzed are those conducted up to the elections from 1988 to 2003. Of special interest however are the campaigns in 1996 and 1999 for the following reasons: The 1996 campaign was remarkable because the distribution of amulets by Shas was its very center, and the 1999 campaign because although amulets here played a smaller part than in 1996 other “religious effects” such as blessings by different types of holy men and use of their authority played a very prominent part in the campaigns of both Haredi parties.